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Left Guanyin altar on the back wall of Ancient Guanyin Temple (Guanyin gumiao 觀音古廟) (ศาลเจ้ากวนอิม San Tchaw Kuan Im)

From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions (FROGBEAR Project)

The Ancient Guanyin Temple (觀音古廟) (ศาลเจ้ากวนอิม San Tchaw Kuan Im) is a Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand. This one room neighborhood temple was constructed during the reign of King Rama V, roughly from 1853-1910, as specified by the temple caretaker. The caretaker said that the temple was bombed during the Japanese invasion of Thailand in 1941, but was later rebuilt. The temple regularly hosts chanting groups, the majority of whom were specified to be Teochew Chinese (唐人). The caretaker stated that the temple has no state support, but does regularly pay money to a Chinese foundation. It is not known to what extent the temple has been renovated, nor how often, but the most recent set of renovations occured in 2021. The following set of pictures show the left altar included in the main altar box on the back wall of the temple. Image 01 shows an overview of the altar box, with 4 Guanyin (觀音) figures. Notably, the only sitting Guanyin is the small leftmost figure, which the inscription likely refers to. The background has a dragon and clouds, and the golden frame around the altar features flowers and birds. Image 02 shows a close-up of the inscription on the right side of the box, reading from top to bottom 紫竹林中觀自在 "Guanyin in the Vermillion Bamboo Forest. " Image 03 shows a close-up of the inscription on the left side of the box, reading from top to bottom 白蓮座上觀如來 "Avalokiteśvāra Tathāgata on the White Lotus." Image 04 shows a close-up of the inscription on the top of the box, reading right to left 觀音娘娘 "Mother Guanyin." This also refers to the how Thais phonetically call Guanyin, Niang niang (娘娘). While 娘娘 can mean many things, including empress or concubine, here it is suspected that this is used to indicate closeness, as such translated as "Mother Guanyin." Image 05 shows a close-up of the bottom right Guanyin figure inside the altar box. Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen.

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.739641; 100.509704

chi

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0440922

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

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