The King Who Helped Make Thai Massage Knowledge Public

HealthyRetired · Massage · History and tradition

Many visitors know Wat Pho in Bangkok for its enormous reclining Buddha. But the temple has another story to tell: one about preserving knowledge and making it available beyond a small circle of specialists.

A central figure in that story was King Rama III, also known as King Nangklao, who reigned from 1824 to 1851. His support helped turn Wat Pho into an important public centre of learning, including learning about traditional Thai medicine and massage.

Preserving knowledge in stone

Thai massage existed before Rama III. Earlier royal restoration efforts, including those under Rama I, contributed to preserving the temple and its traditions. Rama III's distinctive contribution was the scale of the later project to collect, record and display knowledge publicly.

UNESCO dates Wat Pho's epigraphic collection—the knowledge recorded in inscriptions—to 1831–1841. It describes a deliberate effort by Rama III and Thai scholars to preserve information and make it visible to the public. The subjects extended beyond medicine to religious and other forms of knowledge. [1]

Stone inscriptions offered a durable way to record material that might otherwise remain in manuscripts, private collections or oral teaching. Placing them in the temple made that knowledge available to a wider audience.

It was, in a sense, a public reference library built into the architecture.

Massage diagrams and traditional body maps

Wat Pho's medical inscriptions include massage texts and illustrations. Its pavilions preserve visual teaching material showing positions and locations associated with traditional practice. [2]

Within Thai massage, sen are traditionally understood as pathways or lines used to organise treatment. Practitioners combine pressure, positioning and assisted movement within that framework.

These traditional maps should be understood as part of the history and theory of Thai medicine. They are not interchangeable with anatomical diagrams of nerves or blood vessels, and their preservation does not itself demonstrate every therapeutic claim made about them.

The important historical point is that practical knowledge was being organised and shared, rather than left entirely dependent on one teacher passing it to one pupil.

The stretching hermits

Another memorable feature of Wat Pho is its figures demonstrating ruesi dat ton, often translated as hermit self-stretching or self-adjustment exercises.

The poses represent a tradition of movement and self-care. Wat Pho's own architectural descriptions connect the hermit exercises with inscriptions in the temple grounds. [2]

For HealthyRetired readers, this offers an interesting connection between our Massage and Movement sections: traditional care could include both receiving treatment and moving one's own body.

The figures are historical teaching aids, however, not personalised exercise instructions. A pose that suits one person may be unsuitable for another, especially with painful joints or limited balance.

Was Wat Pho Thailand's first university?

Wat Pho is often called Thailand's first university, including in the Tourism Authority of Thailand's description. [3]

The phrase expresses its importance as a public place of learning. It should not be read as meaning that it operated like a modern university with contemporary departments, qualifications and degrees.

What makes the idea significant is access. Knowledge could be encountered in a temple setting, rather than being reserved entirely for the royal court or specialist teachers.

A continuing teaching tradition

Wat Pho's association with traditional medicine continued into the modern era. The temple records that its Thai Traditional Medical and Massage School opened in 1955. [4]

Two later UNESCO recognitions concern different parts of this heritage:

In 2011, the Wat Pho inscriptions entered UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, which recognises documentary heritage. [1, 5]
In 2019, Nuad Thai, traditional Thai massage, entered UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognising a living cultural practice. [6]

These are cultural and historical recognitions. They are not certifications that massage cures particular diseases.

My own week of massage training

My connection with this history is personal: I attended a one-week massage training course just outside Wat Pho.

My practice partner was a very enthusiastic young British man. He massaged me very hard—enthusiasm was certainly not in short supply!

I remember losing 10 kilograms in five days during that period. That is my recollection, not a measured conclusion about what caused the change. It should not be read as evidence that massage removes body fat or as a result anyone should try to reproduce. A change that large over so few days would warrant medical assessment; fluid changes or differences in weighing can affect the scale.

The experience remains a memorable part of my journey into traditional approaches to health. It also illustrates why receiving massage should involve communication: firm pressure is not automatically better, and a person should be able to ask for less pressure or stop if it hurts.

Wat Pho is not the only place to learn

In my experience, other temples also offer opportunities to learn massage, including free training for Thai citizens only. The free teaching I am referring to is not available to foreign visitors. Wat Pho is therefore not the only route into this tradition.

I would not assume from that observation that Thai students no longer study there. Current student numbers and the availability of free courses would need to be checked with the individual schools or temples.

For someone considering training, the useful questions are what is taught, who teaches it, how much supervised practice is included, and what qualification—if any—the course provides. A free course and a paid course should both be judged by the quality and scope of their teaching.

Why this story belongs on HealthyRetired

Rama III did not invent Thai massage, and Wat Pho is not its only source or tradition. But his patronage helped preserve and publicly display an important body of knowledge that continues to influence teaching today.

The story also fits the spirit of vivere parvo: useful knowledge becomes more valuable when people can access it.

On a visit to Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha understandably attracts attention. The inscriptions and stretching figures deserve a closer look too. They tell another story—of a king who helped make learning part of the temple itself.

Sources

Sources checked on 12 October 2026. The inscription project is described using UNESCO's 1831–1841 date range rather than assigning the entire undertaking to one year.