Page 94 - วารสารกรมการแพทย์แผนไทยฯ ปีที่ 16 ฉบับที่ 1

84

the offering is to give merits to the teacher no mutual respect between people, at least

and to the teacherûs lineage, as well as to they should respect the head, where khru
[9]
pay respect to them. The offering represents livesé.
the studentûs willingness and commitments Looking at the statement of Supak in a

towards the traditional medical wisdom. Ev- metaphysical perspective, the fact that ùkhru
ery single item containing in the offering, has lives in the headû and the teacher places the
a meaning. For example, if it contains ya offering over the head, it means that the

phraek (À≠â“·æ√°), a kind of grass that can teacher connects the student with ancient
survive in any condition, even during the dry khru(s) - the ùfamily of traditional wisdomû of

season, it symbolizes that the student is pa- Thai traditional medicine. In another words,
tient and will stand in any condition. An- the teacher links the student with ancient
other example is dok makhuea (¥Õ°¡–‡¢◊Õ), masters who are not physically present, but

the eggplant flower; when this flower grows whose consciousness remains in a sphere not
up, the head of the flower faces down; it rep- structured in a scientific way. The conscious-

resents the characteristic of the student to- ness of these khru(s) is the ùspiritual influenceû
wards teacher, it shows politeness and mu- asserted before. It was explained that the
tual respect. knowledge received from spiritual influences

In the initiation, the teacher takes the comes from a vertical sphere, therefore, the
offering and places over the head of the stu- statement of Supak agrees with Guénon when
dent. According to Supak Pinyosuoak, a spe- she explains that ùkhru lives in the head and

cialist in merit making for Buddhist monks, head stands for Northû.
as well as an expert in Thai traditional items (2) Traditional teaching: the relationship
for rituals, the offering is placed over the head between teacher and student and oral trans-

because the khru lives in the head: mission. The initiation of the student works
çFor Thai people, khru lives in the head, as a ùsecond birthû, where khru is considered

head stands for North, North is enlighten- a ùspiritual father/motherû. The relationship
ment of the knowledge, that is the reason between teacher and student in Thailand, is
why in Thai culture, touching or crossing in fact, a true ùspiritual fatherhoodû, where a

the head of people is disrespectful, because deep and indissoluble bond unites the dis-
head stands for khru, achan, master. Thais ciple to his master. In agreement, Debora

believe that khru lives in the head and pro- Wong on the Thai tradition, asserts çwhen a
tect themselves, for this reason if there is student finds a teacher and forms a close