Inscriptions in Wat Lam Chang: Importance to the Community and the Locality

Abstract

This article aims to study eleven inscriptions that have been kept in Lam Chang monastery, Si Phum Subdistrict, Muang District, Chiang Mai Province, which consists of three bronze Buddha statues, a bronze hermit statue, a lime Buddha statue, and six wooden Buddha statues. The objective is to present the inscriptions of Wat Lam Chang, which are important to the local history but have not been published yet. The inscriptions are transliterated and translated from ancient Lan Na scripts into present Thai characters and language to get more information on the history of the Lam Chang community and Chiang Mai City and examined together with secondary sources. The research found that all the inscriptions in Wat Lam Chang are sacred statues. They are made from the late 20^th to 25^th Buddhist centuries, mostly inscribed in Dham Lan Na and Fak Kham scripts. However, one of the inscriptions created in the 25^th Buddhist century appears to have used Thai characters together with the Dham Lan Na script in the same object. The inscriptions of Wat Lam Chang pass on historical information in various fields that indicate the prosperity of the Lan Na Kingdom in the past. Lan Na scripts and language and the Buddhist arts are transmitted from the statues, moreover, they provide information on the name of monasteries, the name of the person, the scale of the object's weight, beliefs about donating of Buddha statues including the tradition that binds the Lam Chang community to the inscriptions.