Luang Pu Nak and the Wat Rakhang tradition
Luang Pu Nak, formally Phra Thep Sitthi Nayok (Nak Sobhano), was a long-serving twentieth-century abbot of Wat Rakhang Khositaram. Collectors remember him as part of the monastery’s Somdet-amulet tradition after Somdet Toh. Born in Korat, he began his education in a temple before modern schooling was widespread, travelled to Bangkok with a caravan while still young, and pursued Pali learning alongside meditation. He eventually led Wat Rakhang for roughly forty-seven years, a life closely bound to its teaching, daily administration and amulet making.
Childhood in Korat and the journey to Bangkok
His biography gives his lay name as Nak Maroengsit and records his birth at 7:10 p.m. on Friday, 1 August B.E. 2427 (1884), the tenth waxing day of the ninth lunar month in the Year of the Monkey. His birthplace was Ban Prasat in Chan At, now Mueang Prasat, Non Sung, Nakhon Ratchasima. His father was Pom and his mother Sanguan; one transcription reads Suan. Nak was the eldest of four full siblings. The family surname likewise appears with minor spelling differences. These family-name spellings remain inconsistent between accounts.
Before modern schools were widespread, boys acquired literacy through monasteries. Nak’s parents placed him with his uncle Phra Khru Sangkhawichan (Mi) at Wat Bueng near Chumphon Gate in Korat. There he studied Thai, Khmer script and Pali and became a novice at about thirteen, around B.E. 2440. This local temple education prepared the way for further study in Bangkok. Monastic schooling would remain an important part of his later work as abbot.
After ordination as a novice, he joined a caravan of roughly thirty people, oxen and carts travelling from Korat to Bangkok. The route still crossed the difficult forests known as Dong Phaya Fai or Dong Phaya Yen and took weeks. Nak fell ill near Saraburi and spent several months at Wat Thong Phumphuang in Sao Hai, taught by a local monk and supported by his uncle Luang Nitet, the Sao Hai district official. After recovering, he went on to Wat Rakhang and lived with Phra Ajarn Lueam in a residence near the canal at the front of the compound, later the vicinity of Satri Wat Rakhang School.
Pali studies and ordination teachers
Lueam taught discipline and meditation. The abbot, Phra Tham Trai Lokachan (M.R. Charoen Isarangkun na Ayutthaya, later Somdet Phra Phutthakhosachan), took the novice under his patronage, and Ajarn Nuan came from Wat Mahathat to teach Pali. In B.E. 2442, at fifteen, Nak passed the third-level oral Pali translation examination before the king and received monastic requisites from Rama V. In B.E. 2448 he passed the fourth level.
In B.E. 2448 he received full ordination in Wat Rakhang and the name Sobhano. Somdet Phra Phutthakhosachan (Rit) of Wat Arun served as preceptor and Somdet Phra Wanarat (Thit, also transcribed Dit) of Wat Mahathat as kammavācācariya. Phra Thammakosachan (Phae) of Wat Suthat and Wat Rakhang’s Phra Tham Trai Lokachan also participated, the latter giving instruction. The funeral biography says Nak then passed Pali level five and stopped further examinations as temple duties grew. A later abbatial memorial says he completed level six. His highest Pali qualification therefore remains differently recorded in these accounts.
In B.E. 2502 (1959), Nak was also listed on the council of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya. The institution’s commemorative publication dated 5 December names him as Phra Thep Sitthi Nayok of Wat Rakhang, with Pali level five. This lifetime record documents another educational responsibility and supports the level-five account; the later memorial’s level-six claim still awaits comparison with examination registers.
Ten Jataka translations
Nak’s Pali learning also took a tangible form in Buddhist translation. The Royal Institute’s Nipat Jataka, volume 23, an appendix published in B.E. 2474 (1931), credits Phra Thammakiti (Nak Sobhano) of Wat Rakhang with ten translated stories. The translator list for volume four identifies his contribution as stories 161–170, completed while he was still a Pali scholar without that ecclesiastical title. The preceding stories, 151–160, were translated by his former patron, Somdet Phra Phutthakhosachan (M.R. Charoen), of the same monastery. Their separate contributions to one volume provide a surviving literary connection between Nak and the educational circle in which he trained.
These accounts of the Bodhisatta’s previous lives cover a wide range of subjects: a youth studying diligently to succeed his father, a vulture repaying kindness, a hermit reconciling a snake and a mongoose, and a teacher guiding pupils in loving-kindness. Another warns of a hermit’s misplaced trust in an elephant he has reared, while the encounter between a hawk and a small bird concerns escape through resourcefulness. Nak’s role was to translate these inherited Jataka stories into Thai; their extraordinary events belong to the Buddhist narratives, not to his own biography.
Meditation teaching and remembered stories
During his level-four and level-five studies, Nak also trained in insight meditation at Wat Arun and Wat Ratchasittharam, also known by its old name, Wat Phlapp. He subsequently taught in Wat Rakhang’s preaching hall. His disciples’ biography remembers both sustained practice and two extraordinary experiences.
In the disciples’ account, a meditator remained unresponsive for two days. Nak reportedly located his wandering consciousness at Wat Don cemetery and urged him to return; the man then regained awareness in the preaching hall. Another story recalls Nak bringing medicine to his sick mother in Korat before any news of her illness had reached him. Both accounts were passed down alongside recollections of his meditation practice.
The abbacy and education
As his studies and teaching developed, Nak took on more responsibility within the monastery. His biography records his appointment as an ordinary-ranked royal monk, Phra Thammakiti, in B.E. 2464. Following the death of Somdet Phra Phutthakhosachan (M.R. Charoen) around B.E. 2467, he acted as abbot; by about B.E. 2468 he was leading Wat Rakhang and its school. He subsequently received the titles Phra Ratchamoli and Phra Thep Sitthi Nayok. Transcriptions of the memorial biography give B.E. 2475 and 2500 respectively, while another version uses B.E. 2474, sometimes attaching that year to the later title. This part of his chronology remains differently recorded.
Nak governed Wat Rakhang for about forty-seven years, through the end of absolute monarchy, the B.E. 2475 political change, the Second World War and post-war urban expansion. He maintained Pali instruction, directed the school, governed monks and novices, served as a preceptor, supervised buildings and received visitors from across the country. In a family tribute, General Sanan Maroengsit recalled regular merit-making for Nak at the temple and described him as Korat’s first monk to receive the title of chaokhun.
Education around Wat Rakhang also expanded to girls. The girls’ school history describes former naval hospital buildings returned to the temple and adapted for schooling with the then abbot’s agreement. Enrolment began on 1 August B.E. 2457, followed by the opening ceremony on 1 November and classes the next day, before Nak became abbot. The girls’ school and his later monastic Pali school have distinct histories.
Fellow workers and later pupils
Nak did not carry the monastery’s responsibilities alone. A later biography of Luang Pu Hin records his arrival in B.E. 2478: after a congenial Dhamma discussion, Nak invited him to stay. Hin assisted with meditation teaching and construction and later headed residential section seven. Hin was already an experienced practitioner when he arrived. The surviving account describes their relationship through shared teaching, building work and responsibility for the monastery’s residents.
One later monk recorded as studying under Nak was Phra Tham Thiraratchamahamuni (Thiang Aggadhammo), known as Chao Khun Thiang, who eventually became Wat Rakhang’s abbot. His biography describes learning the Somdet Toh tradition from both Nak and Hin, followed by frequent invitations to consecration ceremonies. He is distinct from Ajarn Thiang Nuammana, the lay teacher of Ban Mee Dee.
Another ordination pupil was Phra Thep Prasitthikhun (Prachuap Khantidharo), later abbot of Wat Rakhang. Thailand’s parliamentary news bulletin records his full ordination there on 23 April B.E. 2503 (1960), with Nak as preceptor. Decades later, on 15 March B.E. 2565 (2022), he attended the ceremony receiving his abbatial appointment order. This is an ordination relationship, distinct from the ritual teaching described above.
Amulet making and wartime devotion
A recollection attributed to Sit Somdet connects Nak’s amulet making with temple repairs. Production proceeded as helpers and devotees needed it: once the powder was prepared, monks, novices and temple attendants pressed the images on the lower level in front of the main residence. Disciples kept the donation accounts; Nak reportedly did not hold the money himself. The images were thus also associated with the shared work of maintaining the monastery.
His biography places the beginning of Nak’s Somdet-form powder amulets around B.E. 2484, during the Greater East Asia War. Tradition recalls that some were given to soldiers to sustain their morale. Stories of escape from danger and invulnerability also circulated among devotees, expressing a belief in the amulets’ protection rather than a guarantee against weapons. Production continued in B.E. 2485 and over subsequent decades, so the many forms known today did not all originate in a single batch.
Materials and different production periods
Tradition describes Nak gathering old powder, damaged Wat Rakhang Somdet amulets and fragments found around the monastery, including its roof, to make new images with a formula associated with Somdet Toh. These material stories appear in later collectors’ accounts and form part of the continuity devotees see between his amulets and the older Wat Rakhang tradition. Materials could nevertheless differ between periods and organisers: not every object bearing his name has a documented ingredient history reaching back to Toh’s lifetime. Colour or visible particles alone cannot establish that origin.
Market terminology includes many forms: the thewada with hollow or solid chest, Bodhi canopy, nine-tiered parasol, straight ears with “table-leg” base, portraits of Somdet Toh, bell-shaped arch, Sangkachai, small khanaen forms and examples containing one to three takrut. Modern competition lists are useful vocabularies but are not contemporary production registers. Forms arising in different years, under different organisers or through later naming require separation by measurements, obverse and reverse dies, material and the earliest dated image.
Objects associated with Nak fall into at least four production contexts: formal Wat Rakhang issues during his lifetime; pieces made by disciples or patrons for his consecration; issues from other monasteries whose ceremonies he attended; and memorial pieces made after B.E. 2514. Works made by disciples using his powder or manuals also have their own production histories. References to old powder, inserted takrut or wartime distribution concern particular issues, not every object bearing his name. Price, popularity and a dealer’s photograph alone do not establish authenticity.
A recollection from a consecration
A recollection attributed to Luang Phor Ruesi Ling Dam describes a consecration at Wat Chinorasaram where he sensed Nak’s meditation as both powerful and deeply peaceful. In his telling, Nak’s quiet concentration left a lasting impression on a fellow monk attending the ceremony.
Final years and death
At 4:45 a.m. on Friday, 15 January B.E. 2514 (1971), Nak died peacefully at Siriraj Hospital. His biography describes old age, gives the traditional age of eighty-seven, seventy-five years “in the monastic state,” and forty-seven years as abbot. The seventy-five begins with novice ordination at thirteen and is not a claim of seventy-five bhikkhu rains.
From a temple student in Korat to a long-serving Bangkok abbot, Nak’s life joined study, teaching and the everyday care of a monastery. His Jataka translations, recollections of meditation and amulets from different periods preserve different aspects of those years. He remains remembered both as a teacher of monks and novices and as an important figure in Wat Rakhang’s Somdet-amulet tradition.