อ่านภาษาไทย
Wat Phra Thong, Phuket: History of Luang Pho Phra Phut - Strange but True, Half-buried Buddha Image Emerging from the Ground. Located in Thalang District, a short distance from the city, it is an ancient temple of the city. Currently, there is an ancient Buddha image, with half of its body protruding from the ground. Legend has it that when King Bodawpaya attacked Thalang, he tried to dig up the Buddha, but was unable to do so.
Luang Pho Phra Thong (Phra Phut) is a golden Buddha image that emerges from the ground only halfway. The legend was not written down, but told by elderly Thai and Chinese people who have lived in Thailand for a long time. Phuket people often call it Phra Phut because when it was first discovered, the Buddha's body emerged from the ground about a cubit, only the topknot.
According to the story, 2,000 years ago, in Shanghai, China, three beautiful Buddha images were built to worship the three brother governors. When Shanghai was defeated by Tibet, the Tibetans took one of the three Buddha images on a ship through the storm, hoping to return to their homeland. A great storm blew the ship to the coast of Phang Nga. The changes that occurred to the earth's crust around the area where the ship sank caused it to become the present-day Phuket Island. A canal flowed through the area near the Buddha image. When it rained heavily, flooding caused the ground level to decrease, and the topknot of the golden Buddha image emerged from the ground.
After the rain stopped, a boy led a buffalo to tie it up before returning to his house, and died the next morning. The boy's father left the house hoping to bring the buffalo back, but found that the buffalo had also died. Later, he dreamed that the cause of death was because his son had tied the buffalo to the topknot of the Buddha image. He then invited the villagers to clean the stains on the topknot. Everyone was surprised. They reported this to the Governor of Thalang, who ordered the Buddha image to be dug up.
The excavation of the Buddha image proceeded, but no matter how they dug, they were unsuccessful. The more they dug, the more dangerous it became for all the workers, either getting sick or dying. When the Governor of Thalang found out, he ordered only a building to be built to shield from the sun and wind, and for the villagers to mix lime with sand to cover the topknot to prevent theft.
When Thalang was defeated by Burma, the Burmese found that Phra Phut was a golden Buddha image. The Burmese soldiers then chipped off the lime and dug around the Buddha image, but the more they dug, the more a certain type of ant came up with the soil. If these ants bit the Burmese soldiers, they would get sick with fever, killing hundreds of people. The Burmese soldiers were only able to dig up to the neck of Luang Pho Phra Thong.
Luang Pho Sing, a monk living by the river near Luang Pho Phra Phut, warned that even if the Buddha image only emerged from the ground up to its neck, it was still at risk of being stolen. Therefore, a half-Buddha image was built to cover the real Buddha image.
King Rama VI named it Wat Phra Thong. Phuket people have preferred to call the temple by its royally bestowed name ever since.
