Unesco to honour late monks with peace anniversaries

BANGKOK (The Nation/ANN) - A United Nations agency has recognised two prominent Thai monks as “important figures” in promoting world peace. 

A United Nations agency has recognised two prominent Thai monks as “important figures” in promoting world peace. They are the late Somdet Phra Mahasamanachao Kromphraya Wachiryanawarorot, the 10th Supreme Patriarch, and Ajarn Mun Bhuridatta, who established the Thai forest monastery tradition, which spread to several other countries.

Culture Minister Itthipol Khunpluem announced that their legacies had been praised the Unesco General Conference in Paris on Monday (November 25), where the anniversaries of dates in important peace figures’ lives coming up between 2020 and 2021 were noted for future celebration.

Ithipol said the Department of Religious Affairs and Ministry of Education had submitted Ajarn Mun’s name to be included on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s list of important individuals whose anniversaries are celebrated under a Unesco programme.

The January 20 birth anniversary of Ajahn Mun, who was born in 1870 and died in 1949, will be observed in a special ceremony in Bangkok. Also to be commemorated is the centenary anniversary of the death on August 2, 1921, of Somdet Phra Phramahasamanachao.

Itthipol recalled that Ajarn Mun was a meditation teacher and a maha thera – a monk who has spent at least 20 years in the order – and was widely respected in life, as he is long after his death.

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