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Altar in Front of the Entranceway of the Nanpu Temple (南埔宮) (ศาลเจ้าแม่อาเหนียว)

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

The Nanpu Temple (南埔宮) (ศาลเจ้าแม่อาเหนียว) is a one-room Guanyin 觀音 temple in Bangkok, Thailand. According to the temple caretaker, the temple is over two hundred years old and is one of the five oldest shrines in Bangkok. It was originally constructed from the wood of the boats used to by China immigrants who moved into this neighborhood in Thailand. The temple is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The temple has regular chanting groups of mostly women that come every Thursday and chant in Chinese. The temple is run by a committee, but the name and nature of the organization is largely unknown; the temple caretaker said that the committee members are picked from the neighborhood using divination tactics and visit the temple only once a month. The temple caretaker specified that the majority of the people who live in the immediate proximity of the temple are family, and that they are "descendants of Guanyin." It is unclear whether he meant descendants from those who established the Guanyin shrine or literally descendants of Guanyin herself. He continually referred to the community around the shrine by this name. The temple is also said to have a decent amount of tourist activity. Fieldwork participants visited two times over the course of 2023. During the first visit in May of 2023, the temple caretaker made specific note to bring attention to the valuable incense pots given by King Rama V or King Chulalongkorn (จุฬาลงกรณ์) (1853-1910)(1868-1910), as well as antique ceramic plates from China that they held in their cupboard. Many people offer to buy these items, but the caretaker never dared to sell them, believing that his fate would be similar of the two past temple caretakers, who Guanyin supposedly took in their sleep as they were cheating the temple out of donation money. When fieldwork participants visited again in December 2023, however, these items had vanished. The following images show the altar just in front of the entranceway into the Nanpu Temple (南埔宮) patio. Image 01 shows an overview. Image 02 shows the altar table from the perspective of the right courtyard. Image 03, Image 04, and Image 05 show the altar table in detail; the inscriptions in front of each of the censers read (from right to left respectively): เจ้าแม่ทับทิม “Mazu" (媽祖) or "the Ruby Goddess," who is a Chinese goddess particularly efficacious in providing protection for sea travel and is popular among fishermen and sailors. Her imagery is often found in the regions of southern China and Taiwan (rightmost censer). เจ้าแม่อาเหนียว "Lim Ko Niao" (林姑娘), is a Chinese deity specifically worshipped by people in Southern Thailand due to her filial piety and nostalgic ties to China. According to legend, after failing to persuade her brother to return home, she committed suicide (right-middle censer). เจ้าพ่อเสือ "Tiger God" - this likely refers to the Daoist protector god, Supreme Emperor of the Region of Heaven, Xuanwu (玄武). This deity in particular is heavily connected to the Teochew (唐人) (ชาวเถิง) people, and is known as Tua Lao Yah (大老爷 "Big Deity"). He is one of the highest ranking Daoist deities in the Daoist canon. In Thai, he is known as Chao Poh Suea, or Tiger God (เจ้าพ่อเสือ) (left-middle censer). The last plaque reads, ตี่จู้เอี๊ย, "The Father and Mother of Heaven and Earth." These gods are often considered the creators of the sky and the earth (leftmost censer). These censers correlate to the larger altars inside of the temple. Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen.

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.721964; 100.492967

chi; tha

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0443929

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

DSpace