Biography of Archan Eid (Archan Yiad) — Wat Don Sala
Khao Or lineage • Southern Thailand (Songkhla/Phatthalung tradition)
The elders of Southern Thailand remember him simply as Archan Eid — measured voice, steady gaze, a teacher who could turn a crowded hall quiet without lifting his tone. He trained in the Khao Or tradition, where meditation, healing arts, and protective rites are learned not as tricks, but as disciplines of compassion. At Wat Don Sala he became the reference point: the one younger monks watched to learn how to work a ritual with clean intention and careful hands.
Stories travel fast in the South, and his are told with the plain detail of people who saw things for themselves. He kept dawn practice strict, taught samatha and vipassanā like twin oars of the same boat, and reserved his esoteric wicha for when it served others — protection for those on the road, strength for those facing hardship, calm for those sitting at a bedside through the night. When a consecration was called, he blended powders with the patience of a craftsman and the reverence of a keeper of lineage.
Tradition holds that he was close to senior teachers of the Khao Or school and that his sacred composition often included Phong blends handed down through that line. Devotees recall early batches made to support temple works — amulets not as merchandise, but as pledges. People would come with worries, leave with a small image and a few words: keep the precepts, tend your merit, wear this with a clear mind. Many returned to say the weight had shifted.
Archan Eid’s influence was not only in objects but in order. He kept records, repaired halls, raised meditation spaces, and insisted that a monastery breathe like a living home: chanting on time, work done well, alms shared fairly. Visitors remember kindness without softness — the way he could correct a mistake and leave you grateful for the clarity. By the time his hair had gone thin and the South had changed around him, the temple stood firmer than when he began.
In the last years, he moved more slowly, but the line at the kuti door did not shorten. Those who came for healing stayed for practice; those who came for luck left with discipline. That may be the measure of his legacy: satthā (faith) joined to sīla (conduct), so that whatever you carried away — a blessing cord, an amulet, a verse — worked because you did.