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.
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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