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Chanting Book in 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 images display the temple's communal chanting books inside the bookshelf on the left side of the temple. No one the fieldwork participants conversed with spoke Mandarin Chinese or any Chinese dialect, even though the temple's chanting books are printed in Chinese characters. One of the people walking by told participants that most older people in the area speak Teochew (แต้จิ๋ว pronounced Tae-jew). This is reflected in the phonetic reading of Chinese characters in the chanting books. For example, the character 生 (sheng) which would be pronounced with first tone in Mandarin Chinese, is accompanied by red Thai writing เซง (seng) which is the Teochew pronunciation of the same word. For the organization of these books within the temple bookshelves, see the database entry on the Guanyin gumiao bookshelves, titled "Chanting Bookcase of Ancient Guanyin Temple (Guanyin gumiao 觀音古廟)." Image 01 shows a close-up of the chanting books inside the bookshelf. Image 02 shows another picture of a chanting book, titled 天地寶經地母真經, which is likely two scriptures, the first being 天帝寶經 "The Precious Scripture of Heaven and Earth," and the second being 地母寶經 "The Precious Scripture of Mother Earth." This is likely a localized Thai scripture. The picture highlights the size of the book (relative to FROGBEAR participant Dr. Christoph Anderl's hand). Image 03 shows a close-up of inside one of the chanting books, notably with Chinese characters and Thai pronounciation written in red on the side of the Chinese characters and a Guanyin image on the left side. This side is a eulogy for incense, and ends with 南無香雲菩薩摩訶薩 "hail to the cloud of incense encapsulating Bodhisattva Mahāsattvas." The figure depicted on the right page is likely referring to Mother Earth, 后土 or 地母. Image 04 highlights a close-up of the temple seal, reading 佛, or Buddha, at the top of the seal and the name of the temple at the bottom in Chinese (觀音古廟) and Thai (ติ่ บ้อ เนี่ย เหนื้ย). Image 05 shows a view of the back of one of the chanting books, with the temple seal and reading, 禮佛儀規 "The ritual instructions for venerating the Buddha". Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen and Saly Sirothphiphat.

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.739641; 100.509704

chi; tha

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0440930

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

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