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How Did an Admiral Turn Into a God?
Divine tourist: Thailand
By STEVEN MARTIN Ayutthaya
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PETER CHARLESWORTH/SABA FOR TIME
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In Ayutthaya Zheng He is known to produce results
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To most Thai-Chinese—whose ancestors spoke the dialects of the South China coast—Zheng He is known as Sam Po. Yet very few Thai-Chinese have heard of his naval exploits. Instead, they associate Sam Po with a sacred Buddha image at Phanan Choeng monastery in the old capital of Ayutthaya, visited by Sam Po in 1407. How did a Chinese admiral come to be associated with a gigantic and highly revered Buddha image in Thailand? It's a good question. Unfortunately nobody seems to know the answer.
In the old days it took a full day to navigate the 86 km of river from Bangkok to Ayutthaya. In a rented car I did the trip in less than an hour, arriving at Phanan Choeng monastery early one Sunday morning. In Thailand, when ethnic Chinese Buddhists want to earn merit—that is, to atone for sins committed in their present and past lives—they do as the ethnic Thai do: they donate money to Buddhist monasteries. Likewise, when they have a favor to ask or a problem that needs solving, whether in business or love, both Thai and Thai-Chinese are likely to head for a proven temple or shrine and make the appropriate offering. Phanan Choeng monastery, or more specifically, the giant Sam Po Buddha image that it houses, is famous throughout Thailand for producing results. On the morning I visited, the monastery's vast parking lot was just beginning to fill with tour buses and private vehicles full of pilgrims.
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For Buddhist merit-seekers there are several routes to salvation. In Thailand it's poor form to speak of buying or selling Buddha images, but at the Phanan Choeng monastery you can "rent" a tiny copper, brass or silver image of Sam Po for $2-$11. Or you can donate money to pay for lengths of saffron-colored cloth, which are then draped over the shoulder of the huge Buddha. Or you can simply drop a wad of baht into one of many donation boxes strategically placed around the monastery. For those with specific questions about the history of the Sam Po Buddha, there is no straightforward approach. A brief history of the monastery is posted in Thai and English for pilgrims and visitors to read. Officially, not much is known about why or when the monastery was founded. Thai art historians claim that the Buddha (which is completely Thai in style) predates the founding of Ayutthaya itself, which means the historic Sam Po would not have had a hand in building it.
In Thai culture there is a subtle stigma attached to asking questions. Not only does it expose the ignorance of the person asking, but if the question cannot be answered properly, it causes a loss of face for the person being asked. Often, the person being questioned feels it's better to make up an answer—however ludicrous—than admit to not knowing. So it was with some trepidation that I approached a monk and asked about Sam Po. He referred me to another monk, who in turn referred me to yet another, older and preoccupied with blessing pilgrims by sprinkling them with holy water. The line of pilgrims was long so I wandered around the back of the giant Buddha and into a small enclosed courtyard where I found a bench and sat down. It was then that I was approached by a fat woman with a broom. Guessing it was probably a useless endeavor, but having nothing better to do, I asked the woman if she knew anything about the 15th-century travels of a Chinese eunuch called Sam Po. She stared at me blankly for a moment, while rhythmically repeating the word "eunuch" a few times. Rolling her eyes, she then burst into a barrage of babble rather like a Pentecostal worshipper speaking in tongues.
Not in need of a spirit medium, I bit my lip to keep from grinning and waited to see what would come next. The woman soon came out of her trance and changed tack. "The Chinese traveler you're asking about came here many hundreds of years ago. His ship went over oceans and mountains. Once, his cook insulted him, so Sam Po put a curse on the cook. To this day cooks can never get rich—no matter how industrious they are." Not bad, I thought. I began scribbling the story down and this seemed to encourage her. "Sam Po was a great and auspicious man—so great that his shit was really durian." She stopped abruptly and stood there with a self-satisfied smile. "If you want to know more, you'll have to go to the market and talk to the Chinese vendors there."
I contemplated doing just that but then thought better of it. It appears, in Thailand anyway, Sam Po has become the victim of 600 years' worth of Chinese whispers.
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