top of page
Writer's pictureDiego Carlos Marquete

The Origins of Tok Sen

Updated: Oct 10

by Diego Carlos Marquete


When we talk about Tok Sen therapy, we are referring to a technique that uses a hammer and chisel to strike points and lines from traditional Thai medicine that originated in the north of present-day Thailand. The hammer is called Korn in Thai and the chisel, Lim.

What we define today as traditional Thai medicine is a set of medical knowledge that comes from different prominent healing cultures from the past of that region, among them the Lavo people and the Lanna people.

The Lavo people, originally from central Thailand, present-day Lopburi, moved north under the leadership of a princess named Chama Devi. As a baby, she was abandoned by her parents, placed in a basket and cast into the current of a stream. The basket traveled down the river until it met a shaman, known in Thailand as Reusi. It was this man who rescued and raised the girl, later handing her over to King Chakkrawat, who raised her as his daughter.

Due to fears of war, Chama Devi was forced to travel to other lands. Accompanied by an army, families of workers and five hundred (500) reusis, she moved to northern Thailand, where in the present-day city of Lamphum, she founded the Lavo kingdom of Haripunchai. This kingdom flourished from 662 AD to 1281 AD and was of great importance to modern-day Thai traditional medicine.

Around 1000 AD an epidemic plagued Haripunchai, forcing a temporary migration of its residents to areas further north, where the kingdom of Bagan was thriving.

During this migration, many of those who left Haripunchai were captured by the Burmese Kingdom of Bagan. Among those captured were some doctors with whom writings were found that taught not only treatments for humans, but also for horses and elephants, something important for the time.

These documents are immortalized in the Thatbyinnyu temple, built especially to house the knowledge acquired by the Lavo people. This incident brought to light theories about winds, types of pain and treatment points, marking the first golden age of Burma.

Burma is the current country of Myanmar, neighboring Thailand and with which numerous conflicts have been fought over time. These conflicts influenced not only geopolitics, but also the understanding of the medical culture practiced in Thailand, so protected by the people who made up the country at the time, especially the north.

Northern Thailand is considered by many scholars to be one of the main sources of traditional medicine. The Lavo and Lan Na peoples were great experts in medical practices, and one influenced the other due to the proximity between these peoples, who settled in the same region, Lampum and Chiang Mai, neighboring cities.

Between 1450 and 1550 AD, Burmese troops invaded Lan Na, present-day Chiang Mai. This was the Second Golden Age of Burma and during the invasions five (5) important medical books were captured by the Burmese kingdom. These books contained the concept of the 108 winds and three energetic roots, knowledge that gave rise to the Itha, Pingkala and Sumana lines. In addition, Mount Sumeru was represented as the center of the body, generating theses on balance and centralization.

Therapeutic practices in the region, such as Tok Sen, were revealed, probably developed from the empiricism of a local people who gradually incorporated points and lines of traditional medicine. It is worth noting that, in the Lanna region, groups were named according to their activities and among these groups one was called “Thai Yong”, a group of Thai ethnicity located between the districts of Lamphun and San Kampaeng, composed of many carpentry experts, who, using wood from trees felled by lightning during storms, began to develop Tok Sen.

 

73 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page