Gaṇeśa Transformed: Diachronic Inquiries of Shrines to Hindu Gods in Suburban Thai Buddhism

Presenter:

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Abstract

Scholarship on Thai Buddhism has largely addressed Indic-ness as a feature of a distant past, neglecting its enduring relevance in both contemporary and urban cultic contexts. Here, I offer a paradigmatic shift by considering visual indicators of the Indic in modern-day Thai religion. To do this, I focus in this presentation on the material and narrative evidence to theorize the rise of smaller shrines during the past decade to the status of major institutionalized sites in suburban Bangkok. I focus especially on the Uthayan Phra Phikhanet Khlong Khuean (Khlong Khuean Ganesh International Park [KKGIP]) and the Thewasathān Nākha Thurakhā Thewi (Naga Durga Devi Temple/Wat Khaek Khlong Si [NDDT]). Drawing from anthropologist Pattana Kitiarsa’s concept of popular Thai Buddhist hybridity, my aim is to supply a renewed evaluation of many of the key terms misleadingly viewed as fundamental to the classificatory systems of Asia and Asian religions.