WAT BANG PRA TEMPLE
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Picture left; The statue of the Master Monk Phra Udom Bprachaanaat, or morelovingly known as “Hlwong Por Phern Tithakunoe”, surroundedbysoldiers and local faithful devotees in order to protect the dais andthe monks who will be on the dais from the devotees in trance whopshall run towards the statue in hordes when the master chants the “KataHua Jai” (heart mantras) of the different Devas and himapant animalsthat aretattooed on the skins of the devotees.
Wat bang Pra Temple is maybe the most renowned place for the tattooingof Sak Yant tattoos.The temple developed its’ fame for such a phenomenon in the years thatit was presided over by the great master, the reverend Hlwong Por PhernTithakunnoe, whose “leaping tiger” tattoo and “gao Yord” has been tattooed on devotees from various continents. H.P.Phern was the eighth Abbot of Wat Bang Pra temple, presiding over the place from 2517 to theday of his passing away in 2555(actually there was already some sakyant tattooing occuring before his arrival as Abbot, but the temple did not enjoy any special fame for the matter at that time). |
This temple is maybe the main reason that Sak yant has become such an Internationally known and sought after phenomenon, due to the fact that most foreigners who have recieved sak yant over the years have recieved them from this temple. This is due to the fact that most guides and taxi drivers would think of Wat Bang Pra before any other place, as Wat Bang Pra is immensely more famous and prominent in the minds of Thai peoplewhen one coins the phrase “sak yant” or “temple tattoo”. Ask any taxi driver where to get a Temple tattoo and you will have perhaps a 90 percent chance that they will take you to “Wat Hlwong Por Phern” (common name for Wat Bang Pra).
Hygiene Issues;
Hygiene is more or less the same in all places. The ‘mai Sak” (alternatively called “Khem Sak”, are not sterilized using any kind of modern sterilizing equipment ; the sticks/needles are used repeatedly with only a simple placing of the sticks in a bottle of alcohol to remain there until the next use.Most masters have a collection of five to twenty mai sak arranged in rows, their tips soaking in alcohol in a glass bottles.This means that a single tattoo stick may have from between half an hour to one hour time period between tattooing sessions to kill any bacteria that may still be there from the previous devotee. The tips/needles are not cleaned thoroughly either, recieving at most a quick flush in a bucket of water, the master holding the stick and stirring the needle in the bucket before flicking it in the air to remove excess water/ink and then placing the stick in the bottle of alcohol.
Some masters don’t even have the bottle ofalcohol, just placing the needle back on it’s stand/shelf to await thenext use.Transmission of aids is therefore a possibility, although there are noofficial recorded cases of a person contracting aids as the result of recieving sak yant (as far as the author knows).Hepatitis B and C,however, are a real danger, due to the fact that 0.04 of a thousandthof a liter of hepatitis infected blood is enough to transmit the disease. Hepatitis in such an amount of dried blood can survive on adry surface for up to three months, in a wet enviroment (such as a sakyant needle), it can thrive.
The author is an experienced professional tattooist trainedby a microsurgeon in crossc-contamination prevention techniques. He hasrepeatedly approached various masters about this matter and suggestedthe use of autoclave or dry heat sterilizers being used to porotect thehealth of the devotess.He has recived nothing but negative reactions tothese approaches, even though he brought up the fact that suchequipment is not expensive and could be bought with very little effort.He used the logic that the donations to the temples were used to buildsacred buildings for tens of millions of Thai Baht, whereas a sterilizer could cost only anlything from 6 thousand to 50 thousandbaht.
Some of the answers he got were; “The Buddha will protect from illness” (the authoir maintains that Buddha’s last lesson was his death, proving that even the Buddha was subject to death, illness and impermanence),or sometimes “if you believe in magic, then you shouldn’t worry aboutthe danger, the Yant will protect you from that”.So it seems that the extreme faith of the makers and recievers of sakyant is preventing people from feeling the need to exercise thenecessary hygienic precautions.
Whether the Yant really protect from such dangers or not is up to the person and his beliefs, however the author himself believes that hygienic measures should be employed, if only for the simple reason that the modern Thai government and current legislation may lead to the banning of sak yant because of unhygienic practise. In 2006, a group of school children were in the news again for receiving sak yant tattoos – this time the reason being that theirtattoos had become seriously infected.
A big debate resulted from this case and was all over local News channels.This and other cases have served to induce a negative attitude from the Thai Government and law makers towards the practice of sak yant by monks and laymasters. Apart from the low hygienic prevention methods applied with theneedles, a linen cloth is often used to wipe the blood off the skinwhilst the tattoo is being executed. This cloth is not thrown away after each tattoo, rather is used repeatedly on one tattooee after another, the blood of previous tattooees remaining in the cloth.
This cloth is rinsed out a few times a day and then washed once a very few days! Ink Pots; Once again, rather unhygienic in most places – the same inkpot is normally used, made from porcelain (the porcelain palettes used for watercolor paints), the same inkwell is normally used for all devotees, meaning that the blood of the previous tattooees is probably swimming around in the ink. Sometimes, plastic inkpots are used, which are low in cost and can be disposed of after single usage.
Some masters (the monk Hlwong Pi Pant, for example), do usemorehygienic methods; tissues instead of the cloth, and plastic single useink pots. The only master currently offering sterilization of needles with a modern autoclave procedure is the master Ruesi Por Gae Tha Fai at WatTong Nai in Bangkok.The tips of his mai sak are unscrewable and can be cleaned andsterilized in the modern autoclave which the author provided him with. The Author has often attempted to suggest fundraising activity to pay for sterilizing equipment and his preparedness to help in training how to operate them, this has been to no avail axcept for in the case of the Ruesi Ajarn Thoy Dabos.
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