The Wai Kru day or  national “Teacher’s Day” of Thailand in Thai falls on16th  January of every year. In  Thailand, the origin of Wan Kru dates back hundreds of  years,  but in 1956 when the Teacher’s Council, perceiving the significance of teachers in each persons life, suggested that there should be a special day for students to pay respect to their teachers.

 Thai Teacher’s Day was firstly held on January 16, 1957 and has been held nationwide since then. Linguistically speaking, ‘wan’ means day, and the word ‘kru’ was adopted from a Pali word ka-ru which means ‘hard or stress.’ Kru, therefore, depicts a highly sacrificing and hard-working career. Compared to English, kru can plausibly be translated as teacher, the one who relatively works hard in both teaching and making students disciplined as well as socially acceptable. The events on Thai Teacher’s Day include a ceremony of paying respect to teacher by chanting a Pali prayer, and activities to strengthen unity among teachers. Religious rites also take part in the Wan Kru celebration such as making food offering to monks and pouring water as a sign of dedication of merit to the departed teachers.

Thais believe that any field of work will have a teacher such as actors, dramatist, magician, astrologist and even boxers. Therefore, we need to have a Wai Kru ceremony to worship or respect the teacher.   In Thailand they prepare offerings to the Buddha at the temples.

Preparing Wai Kru Ceremony in Thailand:

1.      Preparing location and clean the ceremony location.

2.      Invite Buddha Statue, teacher head, God and Lersi on the Buddha altar.

3.      Invite 9 Buddhist monks to chant a mantra in the evening first. In the morning ceremony day, invite 9 Buddhist monks to chant mantra again. 

4.      Prepare offerings such as flower, candle and incenses into 3 sets.
4.1 prepare cooked food for MaHaThep, God and angel.
4.2 prepare cooked food for Lersi also.
4.3 prepare uncooked food for Phra Pirap.