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Phraya Khong, Phraya Parn
The Legend of Phra Pathom Chedi or the Great Pagoda in Nakorn Pathom

Phra Pathom Chedi, in Nakorn Pratom province west of Bangkok, is the highest and biggest chedi in Thailand. Some two thousand years ago, traders from India established settlements in Southeast Asia, Nakorn Pathom one of them, bringing some of the arts, religion and culture that have been adopted by the various people of the region - the Mon, Khmer, Lua and, later, the Thai. Hinduism was one of their gifts to the region, but so too was Buddhism, and in the Phra Pathom chedi we have evidence of one of the earliest important Buddhist foundations. The Legend of the Great Pagoda at Nakorn Pathom is a story referring back to this earlier period.

Many hundred of years ago, when the ruler of Nakorn Chaisri died, his son Phraya Khong came to the throne. Shortly afterwards, he married the ruler of Petchabun’s daughter, and was naturally pleased when she began to carry his child. However, two inauspicious things happened. At the moment of birth, the infant’s head struck a pan (the traditional Thai ceremonial tray) and a wound marked his forehead as a result. It was from this accident that he took his name, Pan.

Even less auspicious was the prediction by the court astrologer that this child would kill his father. Naturally, Phraya Khong was not at all anxious to be dispatched by his own son, so had him taken from the court and abandondoned in the forest. There however the child was taken up and nurtured by an old woman, growing to be a healthy and adventurous young man.

It was as a young man that he ventured north, to the city of Sukhothai, there ordaining, as was necessary in those days both to gain an education and be considered a true adult. When he left the monkhood, he travelled again, this time southward, and his good looks and adventurousness attracted the attention of the King of Ratburi, who adopted him, intending to make him his heir. In the meantime, Phraya Pan became one of his most trusted counsellors, and when he advised that the king should attack the neighboring state of Nakorn Chaisri, his step-father began the process of preparing his city-state for the battle to come. However, hearing that Ratburi was mobilising, his true father Phraya Khong acted to forestall the attack, marching his own troops into action first. In the battle that followed, father and son were brought face to face - the father recognising his antagonist by the scar on his forehead. Perhaps undone by the realisation that the astrologer’s prediction made so long before was proving to be well-founded, Phraya Kong defended himself poorly, and was killed by the son he had supposed to have died long before.

As the victor in this battle, Phraya Kong was pronounced the ruler of Nakorn Chaisr - and as the ruler it was natural that he take over as consort the late ruler’s favourite - his own mother.

The thevada in the heavens, displeased by this unwitting breach of the most fundamental rule of society, appointed one of their number to redress the matter, and in the form of a cat he jumped onto Phraya Pan’s body when he was at rest, and purred in his ear that he should neither be cruel to cats, nor to take his own mother as his consort. Phraya Pan was naturally impressed by this display of the cat’s unusual power, and decided to put the second of his dicta to the test. He prayed that if his consort was indeed his own mother, he should see the milk flowing gently from her breasts. And when he next entered his mother-consort’s apartment, the thing he most dreaded to see met his eyes.

Enraged that no-one had told him the truth about his origins, Praya Pan sought out and killed the aged woman who had cared for him when he was a forsaken infant...

But realising these acts were in no way karmically acceptable, Phraya Pan underwent a change of heart. In recognition of all the evil he had done in the years of responsibility, he set out to redress things, ruling his kingdom justly and mercifully, and adding to its fame far and wide, not least by the construction of the great pagoda very much as we see it in Nakorn Pathom today.