Open Collections

Buddha altar in 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 Niao Shi Temple (鳥石寺). Image 01 shows an overview. In front of the altar is a red prayer mat, and to the right is a metal lantern. Above the mat there is an instructional plaque in Thai that reads, พระ พุทธ on top and ธูป 3 ดอก, which instructs to give three incense sticks. Image 02 shows the 佛, meaning Buddha, inscription behind the large Buddha figure. Image 03 shows a close-up of the items on the top of the altar table, including a golden censer with a red bow. Placed inside the censer are two Chinese "Golden Flower" (金花) offerings. The Chengyu (成語), or four character idiom, on these golden flowers reads from top to bottom, 財源廣進 "abundant financial resources pouring in." The Buddhas on this altar are all Thai-style Buddhas, rather than the traditional Chinese-style Buddha. Image 04 shows the Buddhas on the right side, with the main Buddha featuring the inscription พระ พุทธมชใมณีรัฅนปฏิมากร (พระแก้วมรกต), meaning "Emerald Buddha." This Buddha has an identical figure placed on the other side. Image 05 shows the main and middle Buddha, and Image 06 shows the writing on the figure's robes, which identifies the name of a donor. Image 07 shows the small emerald Buddha in the middle. The base of the figure reads the same as the other Emerald Buddha in Image 04. Image 08 and Image 09 show the statues of Thai royalty. Image 08 shows King Rama IX, or King Bhumibol Adulyadej (ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช) (1927-2016), and Image 09 shows King Rama V, or King Chulalongkorn จุฬาลงกรณ์) (1868-1910). 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

10.14288/1.0441499

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

DSpace