Luang Pu Hin of Wat Rakhang
Luang Pu Hin Inthawinyō grew up in a Cambodian farming family and eventually spent about forty-three years at Bangkok’s Wat Rakhang Khositaram. Collectors often encounter him through Somdet-style powder amulets. His biography also follows a monk who interrupted his travels to care for a sick companion, stayed in Ayutthaya to help build a monastery, and combined meditation teaching with residential supervision and construction. He was not Wat Rakhang’s abbot: Phra Khru Sangkharak was an appointment within Luang Pu Nak’s ecclesiastical establishment. Chinese collector sources use 龍婆興, alongside 龍婆顯, 龍波顯 and 龍普興. The monastic name and temple are essential when matching these written alternatives.
Family and ordination
Biographies citing the cremation volume give his former surname as Sukkasem and his birth at about 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, 9 November B.E. 2442 (1899), the seventh waxing day of the twelfth lunar month in the Year of the Pig. His parents, Kim and In, were farmers. The birthplace is written as Chang subdistrict, Tabaek district, Prey Veng province, Cambodia. Khmer and Thai historical administrative names need not match today’s boundaries, and a modern district cannot yet be assigned securely from these names alone.
Thai biographies place his novice ordination at fifteen, followed by a return home to help his parents. Some Chinese accounts instead place his disrobing at fifteen, leaving different versions of this early period. On 30 May B.E. 2463 (1920) he received full ordination at nearby Wat Thanakhan. The preceptor’s name appears as Phra Noppharat Wongsa and Phra Rattana Wongsa in different transcriptions; Phra Ajarn Raem was kammavācācariya and Phra Mongkhon Thera the instructing teacher. Born in November 1899, Hin was about twenty years and six months old by elapsed age. The biography’s “twenty-one” may reflect a different age-counting convention.
Journeys and care for a fellow monk
After ordination he studied discipline and meditation at Wat Thanakhan. Memorial-derived narratives add trinisinha, yantra work and traditional medicine, followed by itinerancy in Cambodia, Battambang, Angkor and Burma. One route takes him from Siem Reap through Aranyaprathet, Kabin Buri, Nakhon Nayok and Saraburi to worship at the Buddha’s Footprint before returning to Cambodia. Another runs through Tak, Chiang Mai and Sukhothai, with stories of Vientiane, Luang Prabang and a plan to reach India. These journeys, preserved in disciples’ accounts, trace his years of seeking teachers and practising away from settled monastery life.
A turning point came when a travelling companion fell ill. Hin remained to care for him and had to spend a rain in Tak; the other monk later died. Continuing south, he reached Wat Thang Luang in Plai Kat, Bang Sai, Ayutthaya, where he met the abbot Phra Upatcha Thep, an earlier acquaintance. Asked to help, he stayed for about eleven rains and worked on monastic residences, a vihara and a large sermon hall. This period shows craft and labour-management experience before he arrived at Wat Rakhang.
Teachers and companions in Ayutthaya
A biography links his Ayutthaya studies to Luang Phor Jong of Wat Na Tang Nok and Luang Phor Tuan of Wat Kluai, also describing monastic friendship. It does not assign particular teachings to each. Both elders appear in his story of study and monastic friendship, although the particular teachings remain unspecified.
Wat Rakhang and building work
In B.E. 2478 (1935), once Wat Thang Luang was sufficiently established, Hin travelled to Wat Rakhang. Biography says that admiration for Somdet Toh since his Cambodian years made Toh’s former monastery his destination. The abbot Luang Pu Nak, then titled Phra Ratchamoli, discussed Dhamma with him and invited him to remain in Section 3, in the north-western part of the compound later occupied by Khosit Samoson School. Nak assigned him to assist meditation instruction and monastery affairs and later to supervise Section 7. “Section 7” here is a residential and administrative division within the monastery, not a government ecclesiastical district.
The biography describes a substantial building project. In B.E. 2495 the temple planned to move residences from north of the ordination hall to a southern canal-side area. Nak placed Hin in charge of the work and the monks who supplied labour. The transcription says five buildings were completed in a little over five months for about five thousand baht, largely by reusing old timber. Reassembling old timber and drawing on the monks’ labour allowed the project to proceed with limited funds.
Biographies also credit him with work at Wat Thang Luang, Wat Nong Khrok in Mae Chan, Chiang Rai, and Vivek Ashram in Chonburi, beyond Wat Rakhang itself. Disciples remembered his view that ordination offered one’s life to the Buddha and that work sustaining the religion was a responsibility worth accepting. According to his biography, when building funds ran short he offered his powder amulets to devotees and used the proceeds for construction. Meditation, practical work and amulet-making were thus intertwined with his care for monasteries.
A later student
A recorded later student was Chao Khun Thiang Aggadhammo, subsequently abbot of Wat Rakhang. His biography describes learning the Somdet Toh tradition from both Nak and Hin and later regularly joining consecrations. This monk is distinct from Ajarn Thiang Nuammana, the lay teacher of the Ban Mee Dee lineage.
Meditation and the water bowl story
Disciples’ memories place humour alongside his long periods of solitude. He spent much time meditating in his residence, yet his answers could leave listeners pondering their meaning. One account has him saying that he consulted Somdet Toh in meditation. He reportedly spoke of these encounters with a touch of humour, leaving surprised listeners reluctant to question him further. The account describes consultation in meditation, not meetings between the two during their lifetimes.
A story passed down by disciples is set in Wat Rakhang’s ordination hall. As Hin chanted Chinabanchon, a water bowl bubbled and sounded as if hard objects struck it; inspection found nothing. When disciples asked about the sounds, he reportedly spoke of nails, stones and objects of sorcery. Asked why none remained in the bowl, he replied that the chant had dissolved them.
Powder amulets and private gifts
The commonly used powder-amulet chronology begins in B.E. 2482. The first issue has five listed forms: ok khrut, waek man, sen dai, and large and small chedi. A second set of five appears in B.E. 2484; two forms in B.E. 2488; powder and palm-leaf powder forms in B.E. 2494–2495; two forms in B.E. 2497; many full-size and khanaen Buddha, Bodhi and Naga forms in B.E. 2500; six sao ha forms in B.E. 2512; and two principal forms for the Somdet Toh death centenary in B.E. 2515, followed by a first portrait medal in B.E. 2516. This eight-period list concentrates on powder images and includes a medal. The biography also mentions phim nok (พิมพ์นอก), unofficial forms given privately to devotees rather than issued formally. The listed moulds therefore do not cover every object associated with him.
Materials and collaborators
Accounts of the materials describe broken Somdet images combined with older Wat Rakhang powder, Pilant cache material, Wat Sam Pluem powder, suribatra and trinisinha. Ajarn Khwan Wisittho, also named Khwan Khumprayun, appears as a production assistant. The account records Khwan’s close assistance with production without describing specific teachings passed to him. The old-powder account is a material tradition, not a test result for every surviving market object. Visible grains, colour and apparent age cannot establish that an amulet contains fragments made by Somdet Toh.
A family tradition adds that Khwan’s mother received amulets when offering food to Somdet Toh. After her death, Khwan reportedly gave the family’s collection to Hin for amulet-making. He also obtained powder from Maha Liam, custodian of Toh’s former residence, and passed it to Hin. This story preserves another memory of Khwan’s part in gathering ingredients.
Commemorations and the sacred well
B.E. 2500 marked the half-Buddhist-era celebration, B.E. 2512 supplied the sao ha label, and B.E. 2515 marked the centenary of Toh’s death. Each had a different setting and ceremony and cannot be collapsed into a single “first issue.” A B.E. 2512 form said to use wood from Toh’s former residence and B.E. 2515 pieces linked to a large collective consecration require a ceremony book, old photographs, original container or temple record. A market name reused for several objects cannot identify an issue by itself. For the 2512 issue, the source explains sao ha as a Saturday falling on the fifth waxing day of the fifth lunar month—not a combination of Friday and Sunday, nor 5 May in the solar calendar.
Another collector account extends the chronology to portrait kring images in B.E. 2518 and medals in 2521, giving ten groups. It also links the 2515 fundraising to a well restoration: a discovered yantra tablet was returned after repairs. Its association with Toh is conjectural. Eight- and ten-group lists have different coverage; neither authenticates an object.
Hin and Nak lived at Wat Rakhang during overlapping years. Somdet forms, material traditions and shared temple personnel can therefore confuse a new collector. Initiating a commission, obtaining ingredients, making moulds, pressing objects, organising a ceremony and joining its consecration are distinct roles. An elder’s participation does not make him the initiator of every object present. Year, dimensions, both faces and early published records matter together. A similar front, powder colour or competition category cannot independently establish maker or authenticity.
Final illness and death
Late in life, Hin stayed at Wat Kluai in Ayutthaya while receiving care. A transcription mentions a tumour inside the cheek and attributes it to long-term betel chewing. That causal statement is later biography, not an available pathology report. He returned to Wat Rakhang on 19 May B.E. 2521 and died on 21 May. Traditional counting gives seventy-nine years of age and fifty-eight rains. He had lived at Wat Rakhang for about forty-three years from B.E. 2478, but he was not its abbot; the accurate descriptions are elder, meditation teacher, residential-section supervisor and construction leader.
The memorial volume and his legacy
Phra Khru Sangkharak Hin’s monastic name was Inthawinyō, not Inthasaro as stated in some accounts. Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies catalogues *History and Works of Phra Khru Sangkharak Hin Inthawinyō, B.E. 2442–2521*, a sixty-two-page cremation volume with eight pages of plates. It contains biography, works, an article on pressed images, Dhamma and law and leaves a bibliographic trail for readers following his life and work.
The journey from Cambodia through Ayutthaya to Wat Rakhang connects itinerancy, care for a fellow monk, meditation and practical work. Hin’s legacy includes residences and building projects as well as powder amulets and memories of his character. Memories of consultation in meditation, the water-bowl story and the buildings he helped construct continue to be told together within Wat Rakhang’s tradition.