Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Pantheons

Thai

Other Pantheons

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Phra Phum, the guardian spirit of a plot of land housed in the spirit houses, or san phra phum, found outside homes and businesses across Thailand, and the wider phi, ghosts and spirits of Thai folk belief, together with figures of popular devotion such as Mae Nak, a woman said to have died in childbirth and returned as a devoted and dangerous ghost, whose shrine at Wat Mahabut in Bangkok remains a site of active worship. These figures are honoured alongside Theravada Buddhism rather than as a rival to it, and spirit house offerings remain everyday practice in Thai life.

Facts
Structure
Structure of the Pantheon
Local and lineage cults gathered under one name, with no single frame 1
Divine Headship
No sovereign; the gods act as peers 1
Succession Between Divine Generations
One divine generation; no succession between generations is recorded 1
The Creator and the Ruling Gods
The world was formed from pre-existing matter or from a slain being, with no creator god 1
Attestation
Era of Attestation
The phi observance is held to predate the Buddhist establishment in Thailand and is documented in the outside record from the early modern period 1
Veneration Today
Actively venerated in a living tradition 1
Sources
Primary Source
Oral tradition and popular devotional literature, with published ethnography 1
Organisation
Membership of the Pantheon
Every place, clan and lineage adds its own 1
How Mortals Enter the Pantheon
Ancestors and founders become objects of cult 1
Cult
Principal Cult Centre
No single centre. The san phra phum, the spirit house set in the compound of a building, is the ordinary place of observance 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Bangkok, Cities

This source names Bangkok directly: "ghost, whose shrine at Wat Mahabut in Bangkok remains a site of active worship."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Thailand, Countries
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Theravada, Denominations

This source names Theravada directly: "These figures are honoured alongside Theravada Buddhism rather than as a rival to it, and spirit house offerings remain everyday practice in Thai life."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
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