Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome
(seated. 2nd left) officially opened the “Family Harmony” event to
observe the 100th birthday of Thailand’s Supreme Patriarch.
Teerarak Suthathiwong
Pattaya marked the 100th birthday of Thailand’s Supreme
Patriarch with lectures on morality at Bangkok Hospital Pattaya.
Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome opened the Oct. 8 “Family Harmony” event
attended by members of the Pattaya Cultural Council, Pattaya Woman’s
Development Group, Lions Club of Pratamnak-Pattaya and unaffiliated
Buddhists.
Bundhit Inthametee, vice president of Dhamma Aromdee Academic Network,
spoke to the group.
The event was organized to celebrate the centennial of Charoen
Khotchawat, or Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara as he was ordained.
Somdej Phra Nyanasamvara was born Charoen Gajavatra in Kanchanaburi Oct.
3, 1913. He was ordained at Wat Devasangharam in 1933. He subsequently
moved to Wat Bovoranives Vihara in Bangkok to further his studies. It
was here that he was ordained in the Dhammayut movement with the then
Supreme Patriarch Somdej Khrom Luang Vajiranyanavangsa as his preceptor.
He passed the exam for level 9 in Buddhist theology in 1941 and in 1972
was bestowed the title “Somdej Phra Nyanasamvara” by H.M. the King.
As a result of all his good works he was finally bestowed the title of
His Holiness Somdej Phra Nyanasamvara, the Supreme Patriarch of Thai
Sangha on April 21, 1989, the 19th Supreme Patriarch of the Rattanakosin
Era.
