Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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THE INTHAKHIN CEREMONY:
Paying Respects to the City Pillar

Text & Images: John Cadet

Nail dance, inthakhin ceremony

But What is This Object and Why Should it be Respected?

Thailand isn’t exactly short of spectacular and mysterious ceremonies, and at this time of year Chiang Mai is the locus of three particularly important ceremonial events - the sueb chada muang, a largely Buddhist ceremony that aims to ensure the safety of the city in the year ahead: an extraordinary survival from the prehistoric past involving the sacrifice of a buffalo to the city’s protective spirits, the piti liang bu sae ya sae: and the complex of rituals centring on Chiang Mai’s protective pillar - the Puja Inthakhin. But what, you are asking, is this city pillar, where is it located, and why should it be respected? Valid questions, all three of them, that the following article attempts to satisfy.

According to historical traditions, when Jao (Prince) Mengrai founded Chiang Mai in 1296, he erected a protective pillar in a temple called Wat Sadue Muang, right in the centre of his new city. The pillar was named Inthakhin, which means ‘Indra’s Pillar’ - Indra of course being the Sanscrit name of the King of the Gods, known to the Thai as Phra In.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in Mengrai’s action, since most Thai cities of any age have a protective pillar at their centres known as a lak muang, Bangkok’s notable for the traditional dance dramas performed before it on virtually a daily basis. All these pillars are the locus of the spirit of the city, and the ceremonies are performed to maintain good relations with it. What makes the Inthakhin a little out of the ordinary is that the pillars’ protective spirits are usually considered to be earth-located, and Phra In, King of the Gods, is Ouranean - that’s to say, sky-located. So what’s going on here?

Inthakhin ‘soldiers’

But let’s go a little further back than Mengrai, because one tradition reports that when searching for the best location of his city, the founding father discovered that he wasn’t on virgin ground, a city - long since overgrown and virtually lost to the past - having already occupied the site, an overthrown lak muang one of the pieces of evidence of that earlier existence. And then again, the Lua people who had lived in the area since time immemorial had also placed a pillar at the centre of their communities, and not only in the time of Mengrai but almost down to the present, have continued to erect and pay respects to them in their villages. And it is a Lua who only twelve years back told researchers the following interesting story:

There was once a king, he said, who wanted a competent person to be the city guardian, and invited his subjects to volunteer for the position. Five persons offered themselves, but when they learned that it entailed the sacrifice of their lives, only one was prepared to go through with it. Once his agreement had been reached, a deep hole was dug, the man was placed in it, and offerings of puffed rice, flowers and holy som poi water were made to him. The pillar was then placed in the hole. Since then, human sacrifice of this kind has not been repeated, the people of the countryside offering a buffalo, pig or chicken to the pillars erected in their own villages.

Significantly, the city Lua informants associate with their own pillar foundation ceremonies is ‘Chiang Mai’, presumably the city that the present Chiang Mai was founded upon.

This then is the pre-Thai tradition associated with village and city pillars which the Thai under Mengrai at least partly incorporated, as we shall see.

But if the foundation spirit was earth-located, why then is the Chiang Mai pillar named after an aerial god?

The Thai have their explanation, and it comes from one of their important quasi-historical documents, the Suwanna Khamdaeng Chronicle. This chronicle tells that back in the time when the Lua were still the dominant people of the North, though the Thai were already present, their following of the Buddhist precepts was especially thorough, and Indra (one of the gods most frequently featuring in Buddhist literature) rewarded them by establishing mines of silver, gold and precious stones in their territory. These he put under the protection of nine families, which accounts for one of Chiang Mai’s many other names - in this case Noppaburi, ‘The City of the Nine (Families)’. Understandably, the city prospered, but that attracted the envy and enmity of other cities and princes of the region. Alarmed, the people of Noppaburi asked the advice of a local rsi, or hermit, who recommended petitioning the King of the Gods. Indra then gave them the Inthakhin, two khumpan (elementals) delivering it, providing also the rituals which would maintain the pillar’s effectiveness. At first the prosperous people of the city obeyed the god’s commands concerning the rituals, but then became careless, and at last neglected them completely. Offended, Indra withdrew the pillar, and the Lua and Tai once more found themselves in danger. Again an appeal was made to the King of the Gods and this time he gave them the specifics of the construction, place, time and ceremonies for the new Inthakhin that run in the chronicle to several pages - which, as we read them, bring us out of the mythical past into what we now see applies to the construction, location and ceremonies of the present day Inthakhin. That is to say, in the foundation under the Inthakhin were to be buried giant dishes containing representations of all the hundreds of peoples and paired animals of the region. The pillar itself was to be made of brick, and placed in a four-sided pavilion. Statues were also to be made of the two khumpan, to be set up nearby. And at the appropriate time during the seven days bridging the months of May and June, offerings were to be made at the pavilion, and ceremonies carried out paying respect to the lak muang, in order to ensure the continued safety and prosperity of the city.

Buffalo ceremony

To a considerable extent, what we see during the present seven-day festival is in accordance with what the chronicle reports concerning Indra’s instructions. However, a Buddhist gloss is put on these ceremonies in as much as the pavilion is located more or less at the city’s centre, in Wat Chedi Luang. A Buddha image surmounts the Inthakhin pillar. And another Buddha image is carried through the city in the big procession at the beginning of the seven-day period. Just how skilfully the Thai have integrated their indigenous rituals with the much later-arriving Buddhism is indicated by the interpretation of this part of the ceremony. The Buddha image is known as the phra fon saen ha - ‘the Buddha of the One Hundred Thousand Showers’ - and its lustration during and after the procession is expected to stimulate the monsoon rain expected to begin at this time of the year.

The procession starting the festivities (see schedule) is well worth viewing, either at Wat Chedi Luang before it gets under way, or during its passage through the city. The flags, colourful costumes, decorated chariots drawn and attended by ‘soldiers’, school children and city officials, and above all the nail-dancing so gracefully performed at selected locations, makes a very memorable spectacle. The serious business though takes place during the seven days both inside the Inthakhin pavilion, and just outside it. Monks chant sutras at specific times around the pillar, and offerings of all kinds of fruits and vegetables, also inside the pavilion, are made to the spirit of the place. In keeping with the custom of protecting male power associated with sacra elsewhere in the North - a subject worth a small dissertation all of its own - only men take part in the inner ceremonies, but the world and his wife are free to make their offerings outside: and do so, in great numbers, throughout the festival.

There is no shortage either of lighter entertainment and commercial activities. The festivities inside the Wat Chedi Luang compound include a fair, with a stage set up for local dramatic performances. Naturally, as with any Thai festival, there’s no need to go hungry or leave empty-handed, and a multitude of stalls spilling out of the compound and along the road outside offer you souvenirs and tid-bits of all local varieties, including some you might be able to recognise.

The Piti Sao Inthakhin is one of Chiang Mai’s most important, popular and colourful festivals, and one of its most genuine. When you take part in it, you are putting yourself in touch with the region’s deep-rooted culture. Just how how deep-rooted that culture is, is indicated by the fact that the original location of the Sao Inthakhin was - as noted above - a temple named Sadue Muang, ‘The Navel of the City’…though perhaps, bearing in mind a certain reluctance on the part of the Thai to interpret their past too exactly, ‘The ‘Navel’ of the City’, might be a more appropriate transcription. For after all, when you find what is evidently the fertility-conferring pillar of the Sky God in close proximity to the ‘navel’ of the earth, in religious terms you are just about as far back in the past as it’s possible to go.