Phra Nang Cave- The Princess Penis legend

The majority of my time in Thailand was spent on a little beach called Ton Sai in Krabi state in the south. Beautiful beaches, swimming, kayaking, climbing, and a friendly human atmosphere that you could live forever in.

But walking up from Ton Sai about 40 minutes, past the town of Railay, you can make your way to Phra Nang beach, a place where I found one of the most curious spiritual spaces of my journey.

At the south end of the beach a two caves which are filled to the hilt (excuse the pun) with phalluses. Hand carved, some painted, big, small, all colors, decorated with ribbon and fabric, penises. 

According to the plaque, (you can see below) "It is believed by the villagers that the spirit of Phranang (Princess Goddess) resides in the cave. 

 Fishermen, before going out, would pledge Phranang for good luck. With their wishes fulfilled, votive offerings would be made at the shrine. Common gifts are flowers and incense sticks, but usually, the spirits of goddess shall be offered special gifts, the lingams. 

However, this has nothing to do with the Thai people's religions, neither Buddhism nor Islam, that the belief of lingam and holy womb, shall create fertility and prosperity to the whole earth and mankind."

Naturally, curious person that I am, I would love to find out more information about this princess. Why was she stuck? What happened that brought her here? And why penises? Was it because she was lonely and needed something to keep her occupied? Can enough wooden phalluses really make her happy? So, these questions in mind, I went to the internet.

My extensive research of "lingam worship Phra Nang," brought me to quite a few sites that I did not want to see, and really didn't expand my knowledge of the situation very much. Although there is a history of phallus worship in some world religions, such as Hinduism, they are generally attributed to male gods and creation myths. The only things that I found about this site stated that Phranang was an Indian princess killed in a shipwreck, or that she was the wife of a fisherman lost at sea. Fishermen in the area have long paid homage to the shrine for prosperity, good fortune, and increased fertility. 

I am fascinated by religious sites like this. Places that have lost all historical knowledge of why a spiritual tradition exists, but a continuation of the tradition anyways. I only wish that I hadn't seen this on my last day in Thailand, and had some time to talk to the local people about why the phallus, why these caves? Throughout my stay I had noticed that people would keep carved phalluses in their shops too. In fact we did talk to one shop keeper about quite a beautiful rendition of one he was in the middle of carving, but the only thing that was revealed in that conversation was that he was using himself as a model. 

The unfortunate thing about these caves is that they have definitely become a tourist attraction. They are extremely easy to get to, just at the beginning of an already popular beach, and with the slight absurdity of the offerings in the cave, it has seems to have lost a lot of it's revered atmosphere and instead has almost become a joke. For me however, it just helped continue my curiosity with lost religious knowledge, and sexuality as spirituality. Definitely gave me some things to think about...