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Buddha altar in the Right Corner of the Niao Shi Temple (鳥石寺) (ศาลเจ้า โอวเจียะ หยี่อาเนี้ยเก็ง) (Sanchao O Jia Yi Ania Keng)

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

The Niao Shi Temple (鳥石寺) (ศาลเจ้า โอวเจียะ หยี่อาเนี้ยเก็ง) (Sanchao O Jia Yi Ania Keng) is a Guanyin (觀音) temple in a quiet neighborhood in Bangkok, Thailand. According to the temple caretaker, the temple was established 200 years ago by Teochew Chinese (唐人) (ชาวเถิง) people. The temple is run by a committee whose membership is passed hereditarily, but at the time fieldwork participants visited in May 2023, there was only one surviving committee member, whom the temple caretaker deemed "too old to walk." The temple is known in the neighborhood for effecting miracles. The caretaker told participants stories of how people who wish to sell their land bring signs reading "SOLD" and leave it in the temple, and then their property is sold, after which the templegoers come back and burn the sales certificate. Some other templegoers claimed that they put the names of ill family members under Guanyin altar, and their family members miraculously recovered. It was said that the CEO of a large grocery store chain called Makro came to pray at this temple when he was a taxi driver, and as he regularly prayed, he became more and more wealthy. He now returns to the temple once a month to donate and help the caretaker renovate certain spaces. There are two regular chanting groups of roughly 60-70 people who frequent the temple. The groups are made up of both older men and women who wear white and speak Chinese. Each of these groups comes around only once a month. The temple is open from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. everyday. The following images show the Buddha altar in the right corner of the Niao Shi Temple (鳥石寺). Image 01, Image 02, and Image 03 show the inscription above the figure, reading 佛, meaning "Buddha." Image 04 shows the jeweled lamp on the right side with little peaches at its base. The peaches have the character 福, meaning "blessing" or "good fortune." Image 05 shows the other items on the right side, which includes: a clear-cased tree with flowers, a Joss paper offering (金紙) with 財 or "wealth" or "fortune" on it, Kṣitigarbha (地藏菩薩) holding a pearl and staff and in the meditative position, a Buddhist monk who vowed to take responsibility for the enlightenment of all beings in the period in between the death of Gautama Buddha and the future Maitreya Buddha (彌勒菩薩), and a smaller dark Buddha figure in the meditative position. Image 06 shows the main Buddha figure, with three smaller Buddha figures in front of it. To the left is a tray with five water/tea offerings. Image 07 shows the items on the left side of the altar, featuring Kṣitigarbha again. There is also another meditating Buddha, and an identical Joss paper offering and clear-cased tree. Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.719533; 100.482269

chi; tha

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0441506

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

DSpace