PUBLISHED: 06:16 on September 17, 2023.
To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, the Department of Religious Affairs ( DRA ) will convene a working committee to suggest that the monk Kru Ba Sri Wichai be added to Unesco’s list of eminent personalities.
According to DRA director-general Chaiyapon Suk-iam, the government has given his office the task of compiling data on Kru Ba Sri Wichai’s prior employment at spiritual institutions in northeastern Thailand.
Respected individual: In Chiang Mai’s Muang city, a statue honoring Kru Ba Sri Wichai is located at the base of Doi Suthep.
According to Mr. Chaiyapon, he and his representatives recently traveled to the provinces of Chiang Mai and Lamphun to explain the concept with the North’s public agencies, academics, and religious council.
The religious model’s most notable work, according to Mr. Chaiyapon, was primarily chapel renovations in the North. The function of the nominated individual must, nevertheless, benefit global communities, according to a requirement set forth by Unesco.
” We need to look into Kru Ba Sri Wichai’s job abroad more.” Before his birth’s 150th anniversary in 2028, the plan may be submitted to Unesco, he said.
In Ban Pang, a town in Lamphun’s Li area, Kru Ba Sri Wichai was born in 1878. He was ordained as a beginner at the age of 18 before enlisting in the monastic life three years later. He was renowned for his strict vegetarian diet, which included abstaining from alcohol and tobacco as well as praying by himself in trees.
In the North, he also oversaw groups of people who renovated dilapidated temples and temples.
His treasures were divided into seven parts and distributed among the northern provinces after he passed away in 1939 as a way to encourage pilgrimages to the area.