Open Collections

Donation Plaques on the Right Wall 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 donation plaques on the right wall of the Nanpu Temple (南埔宮) near the Mazu (媽祖) corner altar. Image 01 and Image 02 show the left side of the plaque closest to the altar, which identifies the names of nine donors, all donating 2,000 baht (二仟[千]銖). Image 03 shows an overview of the long plaque, again identifying donor names in Chinese. Image 04 shows a close-up of the Thai section, which identifies the donors for the renovation. Image 05 shows a close-up of the section in Chinese characters. Image 06, Image 07, and Image 08 show the wooden plaque just below this plaque. The Chinese in Image 06 reads, 天連太歲甲寅年葭月修建委員會立. The Thai reads, นามผู้บริจากทร้พย์งานบุณะฑลเจ้าแม่จาเหนียว 25 กันยายน 2517 "The names of the donors who donated the treasure from the merit-making of the Mae Chao Chaniao September 25, 1974 [Gregorian calendar, 2517 in the Buddhist calendar (佛歷)]" The rest of the images show the donor names from different perspectives. Image 09 shows the other pictures on the wall next to the donor plaques. The white image reads 媽祖 at the top, and then deals with the story or biography of Mazu, describing how she had special abilities and eventually became a deity. The story reads that at ten, she could recite many sūtras, and eventually met a monk who converted her. The inscription seems to be in the context of somebody donating something in 1974. Image 10 shows the reddish plaque to its right, which is a list of donors with the title, รายชื่อผู้ร่วมทําบุญกับศาลเจ้าแม่อาเหนียว, "The List of People Who Have Made Merit with the Shrine of the Goddess Ah Niao." On the left is the list of the donors and the right is their corresponding donations, made in Thai baht (บาท/฿). 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

10.14288/1.0443939

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

DSpace