Making Medicine Buddha local: text, sound, image, and healing practice in Thailand’s Buddhist ecology

The current research focuses on how the Bhaiṣajyaguru tradition is localized in the Theravāda influenced Buddhist environment of Thailand through text, sound, image, space, and performance of rituals. Data was collected in Bangkok and Nakhon Pathom between February and July 2025 using ethnographic field observation, study of ritual texts, visual data collection, and information provided by six key informants who belonged to Thai-Chinese, Annam Nikāya, Jin Nikāya, university, and women’s Buddhist communities. The results show that the worship of the Bhaiṣajyaguru is neither a relic of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism nor a syncretic tradition combining Mahāyāna and Theravāda. On the contrary, the localization of this tradition takes place in four ways interrelated with each other: (1) ritual calendars constructing the devotional time; (2) prayer books preserving the Classical Chinese liturgy via the Vietnamese pronunciation of it; (3) statues, altars, and shrines creating visual and spatial presence; and (4) devotional practices expressing illness, protection, fear, hope, family health, and social cohesion. The paper argues that devotion to the Medicine Buddha does not replace Thailand’s Theravāda tradition but expands it by adding the healing figure of Mahāyāna to diverse Thai Buddhist sites.