Luang Pu Bun Khandhachoti and the Wat Klang Bang Kaeo tradition
Phra Phutthawithi Nayok (Bun Khandhachoti), usually called Luang Pu Bun or Boon, was an important abbot of Wat Klang Bang Kaeo in Nakhon Chai Si, Nakhon Pathom. Chinese-language collector materials use 龍普本 and 龍普Boon, with the temple name 瓦剛芒轎寺. His life connected monastic education, regional Sangha administration, manuscripts, medicinal traditions and successive generations of disciples. The bia kae, medicinal-powder images and casts later called Chao Sua emerged from that shared temple life, rather than existing as isolated categories of collectables.
Chinese collectors also use 龍普Boon, 龍婆Boon and the temple spelling 瓦邦崗嬌 for the same master and monastery identified here as 龍普本 and 瓦剛芒轎寺.
Childhood and monastic schooling
Most detailed biographies give 3 July B.E. 2391 (1848) as his birth date: Monday, the third waxing day of the eighth lunar month, Year of the Monkey, near dawn. Some use B.E. 2390. The administrative name of his birthplace also changed: an early Ban Nang Sao/Talat Mai locality in Mueang Nakhon Chai Si later became Tha Mai in Sam Phran and is now Tha Mai, Krathum Baen, Samut Sakhon. His parents were Seng and Lim, and he was the eldest of six children. These differing names reflect administrative change; a different modern district or province does not by itself identify a different birthplace.
Family tradition says that he became gravely ill immediately after birth and appeared to stop breathing. As the family prepared for his burial he revived, prompting the name Bun, “merit.” The family later moved to Bang Chang to farm. When Bun was about thirteen his father died, and an aunt placed him under Phra Palat Thong, abbot of the monastery then called Wat Khongkharam.
Thong taught him Thai, Khmer script, chanting and the foundational texts used in a monastery school. At fifteen, around B.E. 2406, Bun became a novice and trained in both textual study and meditation. According to the biography, he developed a persistent illness at nineteen. After examining his horoscope, Thong advised him to disrobe temporarily and return for full ordination at twenty-two, when he would be well again. The account relates that Bun recovered and returned to monastic life as his teacher had advised.
Silpakorn University’s library recounts a white-stone Buddha legend: Thong saw light over a deserted site in meditation; novice Bun saw an image. Clearing vegetation, they reportedly uncovered a seated Buddha inside a termite mound and moved it to Wat Phra Pathom Chedi. Accounts differ between B.E. 2404 and 2409.
Ordination and principal teachers
On the afternoon of 21 June B.E. 2412 (1869), Bun received full ordination in the boundary hall of Wat Klang Bang Kaeo and the name Khandhachoti. A detailed account says that about thirty monks attended. Phra Palat Pan, abbot of Wat Tukta or Wat Phithaiyatharam, was preceptor; Phra Palat Thong and Phra Athikan Sap of Wat Ngio Rai had principal ritual roles; Phra Khru Parimanurak of Wat Supradittharam and Phra Athikan Chap of Wat Tha Mon also participated in refuge, precepts and the formal act. Their exact offices still need comparison with the ordination record.
His principal bases in doctrine and practice came from Phra Palat Thong and Phra Palat Pan. Later literature connects many old ritual lineages and famous external teachers to him. Some may reflect exchanges made during travel, but early documentation is incomplete. These accounts describe Bun developing meditation, Khmer literacy, ritual and medicinal knowledge through his core teachers, itinerancy and encounters with contemporaries.
Fellow elders and a pupil’s memories
Phoem recalled frequent overnight visits by Phae of Wat Suthat, before Phae became Supreme Patriarch. The elders discussed Dhamma, meditation and sacred-object making, sometimes late into the night. Phoem, then a novice, stayed nearby boiling water for them. His recollection describes their friendship without establishing joint responsibility for a particular amulet issue.
Phoem also recalled Bun asking for a bucket of water and a dipper outside his kuti. Bun sprinkled it skyward, saying he was helping a disciple whose home was on fire in Bangkok's Sampheng district. Days later, visiting Ajarn Pha mentioned a Sampheng fire. Phoem asked when it happened: the date matched. He later recounted the episode to a disciple attending him.
The abbacy and regional Sangha work
The remembered abbatial sequence has Thong die around B.E. 2418, Phra Ajarn Chaeng govern until about B.E. 2428, and Bun take responsibility around B.E. 2429. These early dates derive chiefly from local memory and later abbatial lists, rather than necessarily recording formal appointments. Bun then led the monastery for almost half a century, establishing durable support among orchard growers, merchants, officials and wealthy patrons and giving the monastery resources for education, building, manuscript preservation and public work.
The monastery was formerly Wat Khongkharam. A temple history dates its renaming to B.E. 2458: visiting Supreme Patriarch Vajirananavarorasa named it for its position at Khlong Bang Kaeo, between Wat Tukta and Wat Mai Supradittharam. Another circulating version gives B.E. 2465. However, Sangha Supreme Council records confirm his death in B.E. 2464, making a personal renaming visit in 2465 impossible. The 2458 account still needs contemporary documentation. Both temple names refer to the same institution, not a change in Bun’s lineage.
Bun gradually held regional Sangha office. Widely used chronologies say that on 30 December B.E. 2462 he received the title Phra Khru Phutthawithi Nayok and became deputy ecclesiastical head of Nakhon Pathom. On 6 November B.E. 2471 he was elevated to the ordinary royal rank of Phra Phutthawithi Nayok and held administrative responsibility connecting Nakhon Pathom and Suphan Buri. Accounts of his request to retire and honorary status around B.E. 2474 still require the Royal Gazette and appointment patents.
Education and the temple collections
The digitised national temple history, volume 22, dates the manuscript library to B.E. 2431, an octagonal bandstand to 2464, and a teak monastic school and Dhamma teaching programme to 2478. These records document sustained educational work, not Bun’s personal supervision of every project. The preschool opened in 2541 belongs to later generations.
The Phra Phutthawithi Nayok Museum at the temple holds personal belongings of Bun and Luang Pu Phoem, photographs, amulets, talismans, materia medica, handwritten calendars, palm-leaf texts, samut khoi manuscripts, astrological works and medical formulae. These collections reveal the monastery’s daily reading, teaching and care for its community. Each object has its own history; a similar-looking market piece cannot simply inherit a museum object’s date or attribution.
The displays also include Sangha office papers, correspondence and annual astrological calendars calculated and written by the elder. Shown alongside medicinal materials and craftsmen’s tools, these documents bring the monastery’s everyday writing, correspondence and restoration work into view.
The museum was a later undertaking. Phoem's cremation memorial records a consecration on 22 November B.E. 2531 to raise building funds. It still describes the museum as a project to pursue, not a building completed during Bun's lifetime.
Medicinal traditions and teaching stories
According to a story of the formula's transmission, a Krathum Baen physician died without an heir to continue his practice. His family then gave Bun medical manuscripts, including the Chindamani formula.
Ya Wasana Chindamani lies at the intersection of medical history, ritual and devotion. Later texts preserve a formula tradition using aromatics, pollen, bark, honey and many other substances, together with extremely broad therapeutic claims. A modern reader must not treat it as a clinically validated universal medicine or ingest old pills of unknown composition that may have deteriorated or contain hazardous metals. Biography also says that some medicinal-powder amulets were pressed by disciples from leftover mixture and presented for consecration with the medicine. Not every mould was personally designed and pressed by Bun, a distinction central to attribution.
Another teaching anecdote tells of a monk who was avoiding his studies. Seeing Bun approach, he panicked and jumped into the cold river. Bun first called him out of the water to safety, and only then admonished him.
Bia kae and cast amulets
Bia kae form another core tradition. The commonly described process places mercury in a cowrie shell, seals it with chan rong, inserts a tiny takrut, wraps it in lead sheet and binding, then applies lacquer or gold. Sources disagree over whether Bun received the practice directly from Phra Palat Thong or through exchange with the Luang Pu Rot of Wat Nai Rong line; scholarship warns that part of the transmission history is oral. Mercury is toxic. Owners must never split, heat, drill, polish or handle leakage with bare hands. Non-destructive imaging, weight, acoustics and documented provenance should lead examination.
The cast object now called Rian Chao Sua was earlier known as the sum krajang form. Tradition places production around B.E. 2475–2477 in connection with Bun’s seventh-cycle or eighty-fourth birthday and/or educational construction at the monastery. Some accounts say Phra Winaikit Koson organised the casting and presented the pieces for Bun’s consecration. The Chao Sua name arose later because wealthy patrons who received the objects prospered. This later name and story are not an official promise that ownership produces wealth or an investment guarantee. Date, alloy and mould require object-by-object comparison with early photographs, collections and museum holdings.
Pupils and later generations
Biographical accounts also name Chao Khun Si Sonthi of Wat Suthat, Phra Ajarn Pha of Wat Rakhang and Phra Khru Winaikit Koson (Tri) of Wat Kanlayanamit among his pupils. One teaching anecdote concerns Luang Pu Di Suwanno of Wat Suwan: admiring Di's handwriting, Bun had him copy formulae and incantations onto palm leaves while learning.
After Bun’s death, Luang Pu Phoem Punnawasano and later practitioners continued the temple’s bia kae, medicinal-powder, Pidta and casting traditions. Luang Pu Chuea Piyasilo, called 龍普遮 in one Chinese source, was Phoem’s direct disciple. A biography describes him serving Phoem, making bia kae for his teacher’s consecration, and holding the deputy abbacy. Lineage transmission and the abbatial succession are therefore not interchangeable: Phoem and Chuea should not both be labelled Bun’s direct pupils. Later objects made from inherited formulae or carrying the Chao Sua name are not Bun’s lifetime work.
Teaching succession differed from formal office: the temple history places Phra Palat Lo in an acting role before Phoem's appointment. The memorial gives both B.E. 2481 and 2482 for that appointment; the original patent remains to be checked.
Death dates and the continuing legacy
Later biographies commonly give B.E. 2478 for Bun’s death, but differ between 30 March at 10:45 a.m., 4 April and 8 April. They give either eighty-six years and 275 days or a traditional age of eighty-nine, and sixty-six or sixty-seven rains. March introduces a further calendar problem. Thailand then began its year on 1 April: an original, contemporary March 2478 date would fall in 1936, while a later author using today’s retrospective conversion might mean 1935. This is a conditional conversion, not a newly established death date. A funeral register, cremation memorial or contemporary notice is still needed.
Bun’s legacy includes more than celebrated sacred objects. It is also the history of a monastery teaching its monks, preserving knowledge and responding to village needs. His family’s naming story, relationships with pupils, medicinal lore and talismanic traditions give that history a human and devotional texture. His offices, buildings and successors place it in a wider setting than miracle alone. For a collector, a name and an appearance are only starting points: who made the object, in which generation, for what purpose, and how far can its history actually be traced?