Luang Pho Pan Sonantho Study and transmission at Wat Bang Nom Kho
Phra Khru Wihankitjanukan, ordained as Sonantho and widely known as Luang Pho Pan of Wat Bang Nom Kho, was the third abbot of the temple in Sena district, Ayutthaya. He was born on 16 July B.E. 2418 (1875) and died on 26 July B.E. 2481 (1938), the fourteenth waning day of the eighth lunar month. Thai biographies state that he was sixty-three years old with forty-two rains retreats. Ayutthaya’s official tourism site gives an abbacy of B.E. 2478–2481; a reproduced temple-history table ends it in 2480 but gives his death as 2481 in the same entry. The reason for that discrepancy has not been established.
Several Thai masters are called Luang Pho Pan. Pan of Wat Bang Hia, officially Wat Mongkhon Khotawat in Samut Prakan, is associated with tiger carvings made from tiger teeth. He is not the Ayutthaya monk responsible for Wat Bang Nom Kho’s animal-mounted tablets. Chinese collector writing uses 龍婆班, 龍婆斑 and LP Parn. Temple, province and portrait therefore matter as much as the transliterated name when distinguishing their lives and objects.
Family and the origin of his name
Temple-derived biography identifies him as the youngest son of At and Im Sutthawong, a farming family. His father reportedly named him Pan because a red birthmark ran along the left little finger from base to tip. As he approached ordination age, his parents placed him with Chao Athikan Khlai at Wat Bang Nom Kho to study and learn the recitations required of an ordinand.
Ordination and stories of his teachers
Most detailed accounts date his full ordination at Wat Bang Nom Kho to 1 April B.E. 2438 (1895). Luang Pho Sun of Wat Bang Pla Mo served as preceptor, Phra Ajarn Choi of Wat Ban Phaen as announcing teacher, and Phra Ajarn Um of Wat Suthaphot as instructing teacher; he received the name Sonantho. The Museum of Buddhist Wisdom instead gives B.E. 2439. The one-year difference also affects the reported forty-two rains retreats. The available evidence does not establish a counting convention as its cause; an ordination register or earlier temple record is still needed.
After ordination, Pan stayed with his preceptor at Wat Bang Pla Mo, studying meditation, traditional medicine and the ways a village monk served local residents. Biographies say that he studied Pali and formal doctrine for about two years under Phra Ajarn Chin at Wat Chao Chet, continued at Wat Saket in Bangkok, and encountered traditional medicine at Wat Sangwet. Luang Pho Niam of Wat Noi and Luang Pho Nong of Wat Khlong Madan in Suphan Buri also recur in accounts of his meditation lineage. Later biographies describe three months of study with Niam and one month with Nong.
A traditional account tells how Sun asked Pan to recite and blow on a lock as part of his meditation training. For a month nothing happened. Only when his mind relaxed and settled did the lock spring open; later, he could reportedly open forty locks together. Even after his pupil succeeded, Sun warned him not to use the skill to show off.
Another story tells how Niam initially rebuffed Pan, who stayed at the temple to seek instruction. That evening, his teacher appeared radiant and full-faced, unlike his gaunt daytime appearance, and spoke of impermanence. Later, as Pan meditated in a nearby hut, Niam would call out whenever his pupil’s concentration went astray.
Biographical tradition also describes Pan travelling alone on dhutanga practice as far as the Burmese border, with stories of healing, escape from danger and marvels along the way. He used traditional medicine and rituals to help villagers, who sought him out in illness and came to know him as a healing monk. In rural central Thailand at the time, monasteries taught literacy and doctrine, preserved herbal knowledge, and served as places of comfort and mutual aid.
Education and temple building
On returning to Wat Bang Nom Kho, he established Pali and nak tham instruction and promoted systematic education for monks and novices. Villagers had reportedly invited him to become abbot when Chao Athikan Khlai retired, but he declined and proposed Phra Athikan Yen instead. Only after Yen’s death in B.E. 2478 did Pan accept office as the third abbot. His term lasted roughly three years. His educational, building and amulet traditions remained closely associated with the temple, where images of hell, heaven and karmic consequences were also used to teach villagers.
According to the temple biography, Pan helped restore or build as many as forty-one monasteries in addition to developing Wat Bang Nom Kho. These works included ordination halls, Pali schools and other religious buildings. He directed donations toward temple and community facilities and received the title Phra Khru Wihankitjanukan. Forty-one is the total given in the biography; published accounts do not yet provide every temple name and project date.
According to Wat Khao Saphan Nak’s history, Pan proposed a temple and rainwater storage after encountering water shortages en route to Wat Khao Wong Phrachan. Construction in Lopburi began in B.E. 2474, supported by Prayot Tangtrongchit’s twenty-thousand-baht donation, and finished in 2476.
DASTA describes Phra Phuttha Sonantha in the ordination hall, a basement of moralizing hell-and-heaven imagery, and a memorial pavilion containing an image, ashes and a wax figure. Its hall date is B.E. 2467, whereas another temple account gives 2476. Which phases of construction these two dates refer to remains unclear.
A story about the large tree outside the temple tells of a woman appearing in Pan’s dream before it was to be felled. She pleaded that she would lose her home, and the tree was spared.
Animal tablets and legends of transmission
The objects most readily associated with him are small clay or clay-and-powder tablets depicting the Buddha above one of six mounts: Garuda, Hanuman, cock, fish, bird and porcupine. Ayutthaya’s official page lists the same six. DASTA’s tourism summary says “seven” without naming all seven; this conflicts with the six-family list and does not establish a seventh category. Some biographies place the beginning of production around B.E. 2450 (1907) and connect proceeds to temple restoration, but the date of every mould family still requires separate checking against specialist books, early containers and temple records.
Six animal families do not mean six moulds. The cock family alone varies in tail, body and Buddha details; the other families also divide by outline, base, lettering, reverse structure, dimensions and sub-mould. A common construction includes a cavity at the top or back filled with sacred powder and sealed, but the presence of a cavity and powder is not proof of authenticity—imitations reproduce both. Study begins by identifying the animal family, principal mould and sub-mould, then comparing material, powder and seal structure, dimensions, estimated period and collecting history. Classification helps select appropriate comparisons; it does not authenticate the individual object.
The amulet-making legend tells of a white-robed adept appearing in meditation or a dream to teach Pan the six forms. He was later said to have learned tablet making, consecration and the diamond-armour yantra rite from Ajarn Chaeng, a lay teacher from Sawankhalok in Sukhothai, and to have received the Pacceka-Bodhisatta formula from Khru Phueng. These accounts of visionary instruction, lay teachers and Pan’s own amulet making have travelled with the objects through generations of devotees.
One version dates the vision to B.E. 2446: Hanuman, cock, Garuda, porcupine, weaverbird and tigerfish appeared on successive nights, each with an incantation. The white-robed adept recommended three years of consecration. This account places actual production in 2450, after instruction from Chaeng.
A story recorded at the temple places Pan in Nakhon Si Thammarat in B.E. 2472. An elderly man arrived carrying a walking stick, and Pan seemed already to be expecting him. The visitor was identified as ninety-nine-year-old Khru Phueng, whose meeting with Pan is remembered as the occasion for transmitting the Pacceka-Bodhi formula.
The temple’s recitation tradition links daily practice with keeping the precepts. Devotees are advised to recite the Pacceka-Bodhi formula three to nine times daily, in the morning, evening or before bed.
In devotional practice, the animals carry different associations: the cock with trade and social favour, for example, and Garuda with authority and standing. Explanations vary between lineages and collecting accounts. Devotees choose according to their wishes, placing hopes for prosperity, protection and health in the objects. These are devotional beliefs, not guarantees of results.
His legacy extends beyond animal-mounted tablets. The Museum of Buddhist Wisdom also lists clay amulets, diamond-armour yantra cloths, other ritual cloths and the Pacceka-Bodhisatta formula among transmissions to disciples. Cloth diagrams, recited formulas and physical amulets are different carriers of a tradition; one mould or issue chronology cannot explain them all.
Disciples and the meditation test
Pan’s influence continued through his disciples. The Museum of Buddhist Wisdom explicitly identifies Luang Pho Lek Kesaro as his disciple and Wat Bang Nom Kho’s fourth abbot. Another prominent disciple was Phra Maha Wira Thawaro, later known as Luang Pho Ruesi Lingdam of Wat Tha Sung. Their roles were distinct: Lek succeeded to the abbacy, while Ruesi Lingdam’s recollections and teaching became an important route through which later generations encountered Pan’s tradition.
Another legend describes Pan testing disciples meditating in a forest by appearing as a tiger. While the others panicked, Ruesi Lingdam remained seated and composed. Only when the approaching tiger resumed his teacher’s form did he realize that it had been a test.