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Left Guanyin (觀音) 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 Guanyin (觀音) altar to the left of the main Guanyin altar in the Niao Shi Temple (鳥石寺) (Image 01). The Buddha portrait above the figures reads an homage to Amitābha Buddha, 南無阿彌陀佛 "I put my faith in Amitābha Buddha." Image 02 shows the middle Guanyin figure, adorned with pearls and a flower adorned robe. Image 03 shows a close-up of the Guanyin on the right, also adorned with strings of pearls. Image 04 shows the golden Thousand-armed Guanyin (千手觀音) figure in the back right corner of the altar. Image 05 shows the other Thousand-armed Guanyin figure, placed at the back of the altar table. Image 06 shows the golden Guanyin figure to the left of the main statues, and Image 07 shows the leftmost Guanyin figure, also adorned with strings of pearls. Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.719533; 100.482269

chi

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0441510

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

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