History

Traditional Thai massage, also known as Nuad Thai, is a unique form of body work that incorporates yoga stretches, acupressure and reflexology with origins dating back about 2500 years. Influences in its development came from countries such as India, Burma, Tibet and China.

The roots of Thai massage are traced back to the founder of the practice (known as “Father Doctor”) Shivaga Komarpaj, a doctor, friend and contemporary to Buddha. He is mentioned in the Pali Kanon, old texts of Buddhism. The giving of massage was understood to be a physical application of Metta, the Pali word used in Theravada Buddhism to denote ‘loving kindness’, working with full awareness, mindfulness and concentration. The teachings of Shivaga Komarpaj most likely reached Thailand around the 2nd or 3rd century BC along with Buddhism. Through many centuries, the knowledge was passed down by the monks, who were the practitioners of medicine. The ancient texts were destroyed when Ayutthaya, the former capital of Thailand, was sacked by the Burmese.

In the 1830’s, Emperor Rama III ordered the remaining fragments of the ancient medical texts to be preserved and they were carved in stone in attempts to preserve the tradition of Thai massage; these stone inscriptions still sit within the walls of the Wat Pho temple in Bangkok.  Before this time, Thai massage had been passed down as an oral tradition, so unique styles developed in the northern and southern areas of Thailand.

The tablets at Wat Pho in Bangkok illustrate one of the fundamental principles of traditional Thai medicine: that energy flows through the body along channels or lines. Similar to the concept of “Qi” in Chinese medicine, Sen Sib is the term used to refer to the ten major energy lines of the body. If an obstruction occurs in any of these channels, it is believed that pain or disease results. In this sense, traditional Thai medicine is similar to many other ancient healing systems which believe that illnesses are caused by an imbalance or obstruction within the individual, or by an imbalance between an individual and their environment.

In the late 1980’s, some of the drawbacks of Western style medicine became apparent, bringing about a revival of interest in complimentary health care in the West and to a certain extent in Thailand and other countries of the East. This revival led people to search for additional methods of treatment. Thai massage began to be introduced to the west as doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and masseurs along with people from a background in yoga and meditation, came to Thailand to supplement their knowledge with a training in traditional Thai massage.