Potalai is a shrine to Ancestral Thai Massage

The Potalai institute and it's association with Wat Po, the oldest Wat in Bangkok originally built during the Ayutthaya period and the area adjacent, known as Tha Tien, is well documented going back more than 150 years. Now the forth generation, of the founding family, can boast a direct link and legacy that started with their great grandmother who ran a shop selling monks paraphernalia to the local community, who would in lum give their purchases to the monks and by way make merit. Other members of the family were also respected and prominent persons in the community of Tha Tien, having connections with the medical sciences of the time, the supplying of herbal remedies and Chinese medicines, along with a strong financial footing in the business sector.

After nearly 130 years neglect of the sciences and traditional treatments and techniques, Ling Rama III had a vision to renovate the stone carvinds of Wat Po that illustrated the ancient techniques and skills of Thai massage and medicine while bringing together and recording traditional and scientific treatments to heal and promote health and well-being under institutionalised umbrella. And so it was to be that the family was to play a pivotal role in the birth of the now world-renowned Wat Po School of Massage that they formally established in 1957 at the request of the abbot acting on the Kings instructions. It was the King's intention to create the first centre for public education in Thailand. To this day, you may stroll along the shady tree-lined Maharat Road beside Wat Po and see a herbal pharmacy, preserved with its original interior and still in the hands of the same family. This early passion and knowledge, inherited by the family, led them to recognize the necessity to bring this great art and science in to the 21st Century but without losing the very essence of the foundations upon which the Wat Po School of Massage had been built. And so it was to be that the concept of the Potalai was spawned.