The Religious Land Hooppha Sawan

The Religious Land Hooppha Sawan is situated in the mountain range named “Tham Phra” (locally named “Suae-Mohb” Mountain) at Donsai Sub-district, Pak Tho District, Ratchaburi Province.
This place is an important historical place. In the third century of the Buddhist Era, King Ashoka the Great of the Jambu Continent (India) sent the Buddhist Missions to disseminate Buddhism in many countries. One of the Buddhist Missions led by the Most Venerable Sona Mahathera and the Most Venerable Uttara Mahathera had travelled by boat to Suvanabhumi Peninsula. That boat sank at Prachuapkhirikhan Province. The Buddhist Mission continued their travel by cart and took their night stop over in the cave named “Salika”, located at the side of Suae Mohb mountain. The Mission then climbed up a peak of the mountain range to have a bird’s eye view of the locality for preaching Buddhism. This place is regarded the dawning place of Buddhism in Thailand. The Mission later set up its propagation activities at the Khoo-Bua Village some 10 kms. away from the Tham Phra site.
On one occasion, when Luang Vichit Vatakarn (who was the Director of the Depart-ment of Fine Arts) realized the importance of this place, he officially declared on February 25th, 1935 the registration of the Tham Phra mountain range as a protected Archaeological Site.
In 1970, Dr. Suchart, followed by one small novice, made a trip on foot to this moun-tain range to seek a suitable place to practice meditation. After surveying, he considered that this was the proper place as it enjoyed a fine view and was appropriate for meditation and relaxation. With this reason, he pioneered and developed the place as the Religious Centre and proceeded to erect objects of worship of Buddhism and other religions which would pave the way to promote inter-religious brotherhood and organize the World Eternal Peace Conference in the future.
The development and construction of the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan has proceeded with the best conservation of nature. Particularly on organizing each ceremony, the Chairman of the ceremony has to plant a memorable tree as well.
On the peaks of the mountain range in the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan, there are at least important objects of worship, for example, the Peace Pagoda, the landmark of world peace; the 9-metre high Image of Lord Buddha; Hindu God Lord Ganesha; the huge Image of the Would-Be Buddha Kaccayana Mahathera, built in Chinese style; the 9-metre high Statue of Lord Jesus Christ; a miniature statue of the Virgin Mary, presented by the Vatican; the 9-metre high Image of the Would-Be Buddha Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (Kuan Yin). There are plans to erect other Images of all Holy Founders or Symbolic Structures of great religions of the world with permission granted by their respective religious leaders in accordance with the project of promoting inter-religious brotherhood.
The Holy Statue of the Most Famous Ecclesiastical Buddhist Monk and Royal Counsellor of King Rama IV and King Rama V of the Chakri Dynasty (B.E. 2331-2415/A.D. 1788-1872) known as Somdej Phra Buddhacharn (Toh) Brahma Ransi was installed in the Singh Mongkol Boon Bamrung cave.

On the ground, inside the “Salika Cave” installed the Holy Statue of “Phra Bodhi-sattva Luang Poo Tuad,” the 3rd Supreme Patriarch of Ayutthaya City. In front of the cave, the Statue of King Rama I the Great, the founder of the present Chakri Dynasty and Bang-kok City was installed. It is due to the fact that he used to march and stop his army to face his enemy at this place. Besides, there are Prasart Phra Dhatu (Pavilion), the Chief Lord Indra Hall and the place for practising rituals: the Jinnapooto Memorial Foundation Hall, Brahma Ransi Pavilion, and so on.

The most important building which had been constructed and provided for the World Eternal Peace Conference was the World Eternal Peace Conference hall.

The landscape in the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan is fully suitable for pilgrimage. All the time there are religious people who travel to pay homage to objects of worship, particularly on the weekends, there are many people making a tour to the site. Each month about ten thousand people visit the Religious Land.
In working to develop the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan, Dr.Suchart first had to fight against influential groups who attempted to commence rock-blasting activities of the Tham Phra mountain range which was deemed a protected national archaeological site.
To achieve the ten-point objectives of Samnak Poo Sawan, the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan is the headquarters of:
1. Jinnapooto Memorial Foundation
2. Office of the World Peace Envoy
3. International Federation of Religions
4. Inter-religious Brotherhood Promotion Centre
5. Vegetarianism Promotion Centre
6. World Eternal Peace Conference Project
7. Youths Morality Training Centre
8. International Meditation Centre
9. Psychic Ailment Treatment Centre
10. Bodhisattva Housing Project
All these tasks were under the responsibility of Dr. Suchart Kosolkitiwong.

The Religious Land Hooppha Sawan has organized activities according to seasons
for merit making and local festivals on significant occasions of the nation, the religion, and the king and it was also the place to perform some important ceremonies. These include the Consecration Ceremony of the Buddha Images containing the Holy Soils from 9 countries to join unity, the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of the Peace Pagoda, the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of the World Eternal Peace Conference Hall, etc. In many ceremonies there were diplomatic corps, representatives as well as more than one thousand religious people participating.

At the Religious Land, religious followers of any faith from Thailand and around the world are invited to gather together around the Peace Pagoda on the night of the 19th of every month to practise religious activities and listen to Dhamma speeches of the Peace Envoy which helps them to know the situation of the country and the world as they accept the suggestion to use meditation power to halt military power. After the speech, they all chant and pray in unison to the Divine Power for the safety and peace of the nation and for all mankind of the world. They then spend the rest of the night in meditation on the 12-acre flat area on the mountain range till 4.00 a.m. when they once again chant together before departing for home. This activity was initiated in 1977 to March 1991.
Dr. Suchart also instructed members of Samnak Poo Sawan and the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan of various provinces to arrange meetings in the province to regularly chant, pray and meditate for the safety and peace of the nation and the entire world.
On June 1981, Dr. Suchart and his Executive Committee had drafted “Rules of the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan” for the purpose of making the Religious Land supramun-dane land.
To keep up with world events, the Religious Land Hooppha Sawan has assigned the ten-point ideals for the new society as ways of performing work as follows:
1. Help relieve the physical and spiritual sufferings of all mankind;
2. Help lessen defilements in the minds of selfish human beings;
3. Help abolish dogmatic beliefs and ignorance in the minds of men;
4. Help uphold social justice in the world;
5. Help protect the existence of peace and the monarchical institutions;
6. Help promote the progress of religions by all available means;
7. Help support all technical experts who have accurate knowledge and who are
truly committed to working for the prosperity of society and the country;
8. Help cooperate with all well-wishers for the good of our nation;
9. Help bring ethical morality to the minds of the younger generations;
10. Help confirm the belief in “Life after death” to frighten sinful people.
Dr. Suchart has undertaken his work to be in line with Ideals for the New Society and launched the work for world peace at the same time.
To carry out all projects for world peace, he promoted the work of bringing ethical morality to the mind of the younger generations from the grass-roots level, that is, to educate the youths on morality to become peace lovers, to realize the supreme value of life and to apply non-violence in solving their future problems. Furthermore, he organized and directed many activities in relation to world peace promotion projects. Those included:
1. Undertaking in the ordaining of monks and novices, sometimes there were about
30 monks and novices ordaining at one time.
2. Organizing a group of social welfare volunteers named the ‘Lion Youth Group”
with the purpose to train them to carry out all undertakings to benefit the
community and to practise themselves according to the Buddhist doctrine, that
is, to try to get rid of the sources of all evils: greed, hatred and delusion from
their minds.
3. Directing Buddhist meditation programmes for the general public.
4. Disseminating the Buddhist ideals and morality to the public through the media of film, slides, books, newspapers, etc.
In his future programmes, he was very interested in setting up the International
Meditation Centre at Hooppha Sawan too but it has not as of yet been set up.