Jatukam Cookies-Archan Payom

It has been quite a while since I thought of writing something about the craziness of Thais and their superstitious for Jatukarm Ramathep talismans. Until recently, when I heard about the selling of edible “Jatukram” cookies and chocolate I thought it is time to blog about it. The Jatukarm cookies was initiated by Phra Payom Kalyano, the well known abbot of Wat Suan Kaew, to ridicule the public craze for Jatukarm Ramathep talisman. In his recent TV interview, he said that he did not want to see Thai Buddhists blindly follow superstition and crave the amulets while ignoring the Lord Buddha’s teachings. One of the models of Jatukarm’s talisman, Rich without Reasons, has driven the abbot to initiate this cookies project to remind the Thais of Buddhist teachings.

The amulets of Jatukarm Ramathep can easily be noticed everywhere in Thailand. Many new shops have recently been set up or most of many existing shops no matter what they are selling have expanded to sell Jatukarm amulets. When I use google to search to look for Jatukarm Ramathep, I was amazed to see that there are a lot more websites than I expected offer different models of Jatukarm talisman. A lot of people have made profit out of people superstition…

Why Thais are so superstitious? Have we always been like this from our previous generation? Why is it so? To my understanding, the public craze for Jatukarm can be explained in terms of our current political instability and the never ending violence in the deep South. People need moral and magical support. The falling economy needs to be overturned by some kind of a magic. The political condition can not be improved by a normal man. We do need a magician to pull us out of this economic and socio-political mess by magic spell… When we wanted to get rid of the former Prime Minister Thaksin we expected a knight on a white horse to rescue us. Later it turned out to be a black knight, we were not so happy but we could live with it for a while…

The public craze for Jatukarm shows how superstitious the Thais are and we have to thank Phra Payom Kalayano for his cookies initiative to counter the over-popularity and over-respect of Jatukarm Ramathep.

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Jatukarm Roon Burana Lark Meung 2547

Jatukarm Roon Bun Darn Choke Run Sa Ga 2546

Jatukarm Roon Cheydee Rai 2545

Krut Lark Meung Pee 30 / Jatukarm 2530 1st Batch

Khun Phantharak Rachadech

Khun Phantharak Rachadech was a student of famous Buddhistic magic school "Kao Or".Kao-or temple has been an old ancient school of Buddhistic magics of neary a thousand years of age but the concrete legend just clearly started around 400-500 years ago. Kao-or is famous for its old ancient treatises of invincibility, some rituals for invincibility are still practiced and performed at the temple nowsday.
KhunPhan is a former Major Police General of Royal Thai Police Department. In B.E. 2474, he was sent to Pattalung to suppress robbers, meanwhile he was becoming a student of Acharn E-ard and Acharn Pal to learn Kao-or's Buddhistic magics.
KhunPhan used Buddhistic magics to suppress lots of ruthless robbers, he prefered to use his magic knife and sword than guns. Many ten notorious robbers were suppressed by KhunPhan between B.E. 2474-2490. The most important event was in B.E. 2481, Awae Sadoh Talae, the notorious Muslim robber who had influence over Yala, Pattani and Narathiwas provinces, was suppressed. Awae Sadoh Talae robbed and ruthlessly killed only Thai Buddhist people.
Awae Sadoh Talae killed his preys very cruelly, he always used his Kris to cut the preys' throat and pull respiratory organs out, and also spinningly stabbed the preys' abdomen and pull the intestine out.
Awae Sadoh Talae's body was resistant to bullets, he wore amulets--most of which are Buddhistic stuffs !!. He was repeatedly shot by KhunPhan at a very close distance but the bullets never penetrated into his body, and later he was arrested by KhunPhan's bare hands after a gun fight in Budo jungle. KhunPhan retired from his police duty in B.E. 2507 and devoted himself to support southern Buddhist temples since then. He passed away on July 7, B.E.2549 at age of 108.