According to the Khun Chang Khun Phaen legend, Khun Phaen settled at the foot of this tamarind tree to study black magic. The Grand Master Khong is said to have taught Khun Phaen to create wasps and hornets from the leaves of the tamarind tree and to use them effectively as weapons of war. These weapons were then supposed to help finally defeat the approaching enemies, the army of his brother Khun Chang. At the heart of this highly emotional, fifty-year-old fraternal dispute is the love of a woman, Wanthong, who is ultimately sentenced to death by the king of the time because she cannot decide between the brothers fighting over her.
This legend, full of heroism, romance, love, sex, violence, magic and also horror and comedy, ends in two wars and is one of the most famous and important legends in Thai culture. It has been incorporated into numerous works of art and culture, characterises songs, proverbs and sayings and is even taught in schools.
This legend alone is steeped in the theme of strength and weakness. But the incredible age of over 1000 years and the fact that it is said to be the largest tamarind tree in the world makes this tree, in front of which I am now standing, the perfect motif for me. Grinning and excited, I stand in Suphan Buri, in the Wat Knae temple and look at the old trunk and branches, while an old Thai man sitting behind his little stall selling strips of paper with writing on them watches me suspiciously.
This tree and, above all, the surroundings and atmosphere are completely different to the other two trees. This one stands in the middle of a temple. Not off the beaten track, in a forest or deep in the jungle. You don’t need a boat to reach it, there are no king cobras waiting, no monkey gangs blocking the way and no steps to climb. This time, all I had to do was go through a small archway and I was now standing right in front of the legendary tree. The tree is protected from contact by a metal fence and is framed by a paved, stone square. This tree does not live in a harmonious neighbourhood of other trees and bushes. It is isolated in a paved park, surrounded by stone slabs that are now almost ‘glowing’ again.
Somewhat hidden, accessible via a winding path, another square opens up, on which a huge statue of a wasp is enthroned. The wasp’s legs are wrapped in colourful ribbons and it is more than just a decorative statue. The temple railing itself is already well frequented, but the crowd in front of the wasp is really big. Many Thais come here, light previously purchased incense sticks on the lanterns placed next to the wasp and kneel to pray in front of the wasp. Some Thais somehow crawl between the wasp’s legs in a devout, respectful manner, almost as if they were praying too. Afterwards, however, they pose in front of the wasp and take photos for Instagram. The Thais generally seem to be very relaxed and tolerant about their sacred sites and somehow it all seems a bit more like an amusement park than a temple.
Here, in front of the tree itself, there are hardly any praying Thais to be found. Only the old man sits here at his little table and sells prayer cards. Occasionally, interested people come to this part of the temple and quickly take a few photos, but then quickly make their way to two large, dark, wooden buildings at the back of the square. Kind of strange. I had imagined it to be the other way round, as many Thais still worship the spirits in the trees and nature itself. I look after a couple who are also disappearing into the wooden buildings and turn my attention back to the tree. I’m not interested in anything else at the moment. I have a mission.
The legendary Tamarind
Kind: Tamarindenbaum (Tamarindus indica)
Size: 20 m, largest tamarind tree in the world
Girth: 9,50 m
Age: > 1023 (2023), second older tree Thailand
Olace: Thailand, Suphan Buri Wat Knae Tempel
Legend: Khun Chang Khun Phaen poem
At over 1000 years old, the tamarind tree is the second oldest tree in Thailand. It has a gnarled, squat trunk and its large, broad branches stretch a large ‘sail’ across the courtyard. The roots are not visible this time, the trunk is not smooth or long, but gnarled and bulging and it branches out very quickly into many thick branches. The impressive effect this time is not created by the massive size of the trunk and roots, but rather by the structure and curved, gnarled shapes of the trunk, the huge, spread crown and the feathery, very delicate leaves. The silhouette of the tree from a distance has a special effect this time. Whereas the first two trees were rather plain and almost a little boring from the trunk and from a distance, this one creates an interesting image of a huge, somewhat octopus-shaped structure. The 500 years that this tree has been standing on this earth have left their mark and this time you can really see its age. Just as an old person often needs support in old age, a number of branches are supported by thick concrete pillars that look like tree trunks. Some thick branches have already broken off, other branches have been shortened and the remains lie next to the trunk, almost as if they had been cut open.
It gives the impression that this tree has long since passed the zenith of its life and is now only surviving because it has been kept alive by help from outside, from humans. So its old age was not ‘its merit’? But a closer look, a change of perspective, revealed how wrong this impression was. After I had approached the tree and experienced it intensively, up close and with all its details, I recognised something remarkable: numerous young, new branches were sprouting from the old ‘wounds’ of the broken branches! The delicate, feathery leaves that sprouted from these new branches were young, crisp and a lush, spotless green.
It’s kind of interesting: this tree has survived for over 900 years without human help – but now man thinks he needs help from it. I wonder what this tree would look like if man had not intervened here? Would it still be the second oldest tree in Thailand? Would it still have survived? Probably yes, but what would it look like then? A thick trunk, with large holes from former thick branches, crowned by many new, young branches and twigs? The man who had risen to ‘help’ this tree did what he always does: he tried to maintain the status quo as he knew it. But the tree had survived on its own for over 900 years. It didn’t need any help to survive any longer. All it had to do was change its appearance, shed thick, old branches and sprout new, young branches. It had been doing this for hundreds of years. Human intervention has now denied it the process of renewal.
‘Renewal’. The strength of this tree was its renewal – and its resilience. But not in the sense that it defied everything. No, time, transience and death had already left deep marks on it. He had accepted transience, accepted it and found a solution. His resilience, his strength, lies in simply carrying on, renewing himself again and again. To ‘throw off’ old branches and to keep sprouting fresh twigs from the wounds and his gnarled, ancient centre. He never gave up and never gives up, always, never stops. Time, the ‘experiences’ he had undergone in his eternal renewal, had clearly marked him. The resulting traces now developed a magical and wise effect. His strength therefore also lies in his will to survive, his enchanted, magical effect – and in the legend that was attributed to him.
It’s now 35 degrees again. The sky is bright blue, which is nice for a holiday, but bad if you want to photograph the details and structures of a tree because of the shadows. Sweat is running down my back again and my mobile phone is literally glowing, while a push message suddenly informs me that I only have 10 per cent memory left. ‘Phew!’ I open the gallery and scrutinise my haul. This time I have just under 120 pictures, many of which are very similar or duplicates. ‘Better to have than to need’, I think to myself, I won’t be back here that quickly.
I hold out my mobile phone with the translation app to the old man at the small table. Having recorded my thoughts, this time I am determined to find an interview partner on the subject of trees, the relationship of Thais to trees and strength in general. The old man hands the mobile phone back to me and shakes his head sadly, yet smiling. So he doesn’t know anyone who could answer my questions in English. Maybe at the big wasp?
There are still a lot of praying Thais at the Wasp, but I can’t see anyone who seems to have anything to do with the temple and would know anything about it. My last idea is a stall at the entrance to the temple grounds selling incense sticks and small Buddha figures.
Behind the counter is an elderly woman unpacking parcels and a monk selling all sorts of items to patiently waiting Thais. When I speak to the woman, she shakes her head at first, but then stops and shouts something to the monk. The monk, a man in his late thirties, clad in orange fabric with very short shaved hair, turns to me and smiles. When I show him the translation of my app, his smile grows even bigger. “Jess, a little bit” he says, takes his own mobile phone and climbs nimbly under the counter. I briefly explain to him who I am, what I’m doing here and that I’d like more information about the tamarind tree and its legend, whereupon he spontaneously turns round and walks towards the old tree, waving. “Ok, so back to the tree”.
“Old tree,” he says when we arrive back in the courtyard and points to the old tree. I try to make him understand that I already know a bit about the tree, but that I’m now looking for information about the tree, its history and the legend in particular. “Ah,” says the monk and sets off again, this time in the direction of the wooden buildings. Once there, he starts talking in a mixture of English and Thai. I understand next to nothing, so we quickly switch to the translation apps. However, my mobile phone couldn’t translate from Thai and his mobile phone couldn’t translate from English or German. As a result, Kiattsak, as he has now introduced himself to me, runs from room to room, talking excitedly into his mobile phone, holding it out to me, whereupon I speak my questions into my mobile phone and then hold it out to him. This must have been quite an amusing sight from the outside, but it works quite well at first. However, this method soon reaches its limits and many translations make no sense at all, which makes listening very tiring and a lot of information is lost.
Kiattsak looks at me silently. There seems to be nothing more to report here and I decide to ask again, this time very specifically, about the part of the legend with the wasps. Kiattsak suddenly makes a face as if he has just made a ground-breaking realisation and sets off again with small, swift steps. This time we walk along the pier and towards a small wall at the end. It doesn’t actually go any further here and I’m very curious to see what he wants to show me when Kiattsak suddenly climbs onto the wall and nimbly continues on his way. ‘Okay, that’s another option,’ I say quietly to myself, a little taken aback, and climb onto the small wall too. Together, we now balance over the narrow wall that separates one part of the temple, the courtyard with the tree and the museum, from the other part with the wasp, a small café and the actual temple buildings. After just a few metres, under the interested eyes of praying Thais, we jump off the wall again and are now standing a few metres away from the giant wasp. Kiattsak walks straight in front of the wasp and stops right next to two praying Thais to immediately begin his explanations again. On my own, I would never have allowed myself to display such behaviour in a temple, which seemed somehow disrespectful to me. But with the monk Kiattsak as my guide, it didn’t feel wrong or disrespectful to climb over the temple grounds and disturb worshippers with loud conversations. We continued into several of the open, lavishly decorated temple buildings with golden Buddha figures and Kiattsak now told me in detail, but laboriously, about the legend of the tamarind tree, magic and the magical army of wasps and hornets.
Kiattsak is really friendly, open-minded, motivated and seems very knowledgeable. I would have loved to ask him about his view of strength in an interview, but as we can only talk about the sometimes very poor translation apps, I decide against an interview. I say goodbye and thank him profusely. I have now realised one thing: For the next expedition to a country where I don’t speak the language fluently, I need at least my questions in the local language and, ideally, a knowledgeable interpreter at my side.
