Phra Lakkhaṇa Dhamma: A Unique Siamese Meditation Text of the Late 18th Century
Phibul Choompolpaisal, Andrew Skilton
Religions November 9, 2025 DOI: 10.3390/rel16111433 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | The authors argue that the Phra Lakkhaṇa Dhamma manuscript, copied during King Taksin's reign (r. 1767–1782) and kept unstudied at Wat Hongrattanaram, belongs to the boran kammatthan or yogāvacara meditation tradition of pre-modern Siam. They present a description, summary translation, contextualization, and analysis of its meditational contents. |
Abstract
The present article is the product of ongoing research by the present authors into pre-reform meditation traditions in Siam. Historical and textual circumstances indicate that the Phra Lakkhaṇa Dhamma (lit., the honorable characteristics of Dhamma) the meditation manuscript under our study here, was copied during the reign of King Taksin (r.1767–1782), the founder of Thonburi, post-Ayutthaya Siam. The manuscript has, until now, been kept unstudied at Wat Hongrattanaram, one of the most important temples during Taksin’s reign, located adjacent to this palace in Thonburi city. The authors, while engaged in researching manuscript collections in Thonburi, were shown this important manuscript. Its contents clearly show this to have been aligned with what some contemporary authors have designated the boran kammatthan (“old-” or “traditional meditation”) or yogāvacara (“meditation practitioner”) tradition that flourished in pre-modern Siam and has been the subject of recent research by the present authors and others. In this article, the manuscript is described, summarily translated, and contextualised, and its meditational contents are analysed.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |