Word: phra
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...Thailand, Buddhist temples often adopt a certain constituency?teachers, sailors, doctors?and become its spiritual sanctuary. Wat Bang Phra, an hour's drive west of Bangkok, has taken in nakleng?hit men, gang members, ex-cons, professional hoods, the kind of people you wouldn't normally go to temple with...
...what good is a spiritual home that doesn't give you something to help in your worldly toils and travails? Each February, thousands of nakleng from all parts of the kingdom descend on Wat Bang Phra for exactly that: a little bit of magic to make them even tougher. Many Thais believe monks can pass on a bit of their power through amulets, prayer beads or, in the case of Wat Bang Phra, tattoos. Get a magical tattoo and you may be able to stop a robber's bullet with your teeth?or so goes an apocryphal tale...
...whether Sarit had actually dipped into the till, the committee said that to date it had traced $17.8 million of government money to Sarit's estate. Committee Chairman Phra Manuvej Vimolmath said that part of a state fund of 12 million tickels ($600,000) had gone exclusively to Sarit's minor wives. The money, he said, came from a special government account known as the Funds for Secret Work...
What is important about the Jungle of Love, a craggy mountain region on the ill-defined Thai-Cambodian border, is that it houses an 800-year-old Hindu temple. Called Phra Viharn by Thais and Preah Vihear by Cambodians, it lies in ruins at the end of a long, rutted road deep in the jungle. Because past treaties involving the area are vague, the two countries have long and passionately disputed ownership (although both are predominantly Buddhist). Finally, in 1959, Cambodia asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to render a judgment...
Making a quieter impression than the jazz-blowing defender of his Buddhist faith, Thailand's King Bhumibol, Somdej Phra Ariyawongsalcottayarn Phra Sangharaja, the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, landed in Manhattan last week after junketing austerely across the U.S. Paying typical tourist obeisance to the Himalayan-high Empire State Building, he padded sandal-clad and saffron-robed around the 86th-floor observation platform, noted the artifacts of Western civilization-but few of his flock. "I have seen many people in this country who are interested in Buddhism," commented His Holiness, "but not too many...