The relic Sumanathera brought from Sukhothai split in two. One half stayed at Wat Suan Dok. The other went up here on the back of a white elephant in 1383, and the chedi stands where the elephant stopped.
The mountain had a name before any of that. Sudeva was a hermit who lived in the caves on it, and Sudeva was the son of Pu Sae and Ya Sae, the two man-eaters from Doi Kham who took the precepts and settled for a buffalo. The holiest address in the north is named after their boy.
Go before seven or after six. The middle of the day is a car park, and the naga stair is the reason to take the steps rather than the lift.
The elephant climbed with half a relic on its back, reached the top, turned round three times, trumpeted three times, knelt, and died. They built the chedi on the spot and that is the whole founding of the holiest address in the north: an animal that walked itself to death and chose the ground.
The mountain under it is named for a hermit, and the hermit was the son of the two man-eaters at Doi Kham.
Told here, with a source
Three circuits of the chedi clockwise with lotus, incense and candle — the set is sold at the top of the stairs for about 20 ฿. Then water.