Arjan Piak Guman Tong Consecration Ceremony Part 1

I had the greatest opportunity to “cover” Arjan Piak consecrating his Roon 2 Guman Tong Roops. This extremely humbling process has totally changed my impression on the humble Guman Tong amulet or bucha (statue).
One cannot imagine the amount of effort that an Arjan puts in when consecrating the amulets until they been through this process.
Information about Arjan Piak’s Guman Tong Roon 2. Like the 1st batch his 2nd batch raw materials include
• Cemetary soil from 7 different provinces
• River water from 7 different rivers
• Soil from 7 different forest
• Pong Plai Guman from 7 different bodies and cemetaries
• Pong Plai Guman from LP Chom Wat Natanok
• Pong Plai Guman from LP Saweng Wat Sawang Pod
• Other “potent” ingredients that act as a good medium for spirits to dwell in
After his very successful 1st batch Guman Tong made last year, Arjan decided to do a new batch this year and again making them in limited quantity of 108 pieces. All Guman Tongs have been painstakingly hand crafted by him and a Luang Pi from Wat Sawang Pod.
Procedures include, consecrating ceremonies for 15 days in total. 1st 7 days in 7 different cemeteries, 7 days at his Samnak (shirne) and the last day in the temple.
I was delighted to hear that Arjan has granted permission for me to cover his 1st day of consecration. Even after a full day of activities and showing me around his province area, Arjan was still full of energy. We headed towards Nakon Sawan at about 6pm and arrive at our destination 2.5 hours later at an old temple near LP Doem’s temple.
After catch up with some monks at the temple he prepared the materials needed for the ceremony. Arjan was joined by Luang Pi to co chant the Guman Tongs.

After gathering all that they needed we headed out to the cemetery grounds and sat in front of a crematorium where Arjan set up his apparatus.
It was pitch black and all I could see was matter lighted up by the candles. It was definitely an eerie feeling as the owls howled and dogs barked for no reason. The reason why I say I appreciate the effort so much more after attending the ceremony is because the mosquitoes were attacking us every second of the ceremony. Being Singaporean I was not prepared for these “rural threats”. None the less I braved through the 2.5 hour event and managed to get some good footage.
After the ceremony we went back to the monks kuti (quarters) and rested for 30 min before heading out again to pay homage to Buddha. This process lasted another 1 hour. It was about 5am by this time and I was dead shagged. We caught 3 hours sleep before waking up to get ready to head back down town. This was also the time where the temple monks come back from collecting alms and start eating their only meal of the day. Arjan Piak again caught up with them and we bidded farewell.
Just imagine Arjan has to go through this for another 6 days. The amount of time spent travelling, chanting, consecrating, hand crafting, collecting materials etc. etc. is seriously hard work. I now treasure my little Guman Tong Roop 1st batch by Arjan Piak so much more and definitely see Arjan Piak is a much much different light.
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