Chandra Khonnokyoong
| Khun Yay Maharatana Upasika Chandra Khonnokyoong | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| School | Theravada, Dhammakaya Movement |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Thai |
| Born |
January 20, 1909 Nakhon Pathom, Thailand |
| Died | September 10, 2000 (aged 91) Bangkok, Thailand |
| Senior posting | |
| Based in | Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Pathum Thani, Thailand |
| Title | Khun Yay Maharatana Upasika |
| Successor | Luang Por Dhammajayo |
| Religious career | |
| Teacher | Luang Pu Sodh Candasaro, Thongsuk Samdaengpan |
Chandra Khonnokyoong (20 January 1909 – 10 September 2000) was a Thai mae ji (nun) who founded Wat Phra Dhammakaya. Rachelle Scott has described her as "the most influential female meditation teacher in Thailand". Her own students call her Khun Yay Ajan Mahā-ratana Upasika Chandra Khonnokyoong (Khun Yay Ajan, for short), an honorific name meaning "grandmother-master-great-gem upasika". Although illiterate, she was widely respected for her experience in meditation, which is rare for a mae ji. She managed to attract many well-educated students, despite her rural background and illiteracy. Some scholars have raised the example of Mae Ji Chandra to indicate that the position of women in Thai Buddhism may be more complex than was previously thought.
On 20 January 1909, Chandra was born in a middle class farming family in Nakhon Pathom province, of Thailand. She never had a formal education, as this was uncommon for Thai women in those days. In her childhood years, she helped both with farming and the household. One day, when her father was drunk, he had a fight with Chandra's mother. Trying to downplay Chandra's mother's insulting words to Chandra's father, Chandra made her father angry. He cursed Chandra, saying that she would be deaf for five hundred lifetimes. Thai people in those days believed that the words of someone's parents were sacred, and would normally be fulfilled. When Chandra's father died unexpectedly in 1921, she still wanted to reconcile with him to lift the curse.
A few years later, in 1927, Chandra heard that a meditation master in Thonburi was able to use meditation to communicate with beings in the afterlife. This was Luang Pu Sodh Candasaro. To accomplish her wish to reconcile with her father, Chandra left her family eight years later and travelled to Bangkok to find her way to Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen. This is where Luang Pu Sodh was located at that time. At first, Chandra lived with her aunt in Bangkok. Later on, to acquaint herself with Wat Paknam, Chandra decided to work as a servant. She applied to work in a household which was regularly visited by a teacher from Wat Paknam. This was the household of Liap Sikanchananand in Saphan Han, Bangkok, in which Ajan Thongsuk Samdaengpan came regularly to teach. After a while, Ajan Thongsuk started to teach Chandra in private and Chandra quickly made progress in Dhammakaya meditation. Students in the Dhammakaya tradition believe that she eventually attained the state in meditation called Dhammakaya and was able to contact her father in the afterlife.
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