Hindu precedents — As you walk the streets of New Bangkok, you come on small Hindu shrines and signs of Hindu gods and spirits everywhere. Hinduism with its many gods and animism (spirit worship) predate Theravada Buddhism — which arrived in Thailand around the 11th century. Both were woven together with Buddhism and today temples exhibit signs of all three.
The Erawan Shrine is the most prominent of the Hindu shrines.
Erawan was the elephant escort of Indra in Hindu mythology. The shrine, which was erected in 1956 to protect the hotel behind it from construction problems, is very popular with believers and tourists alike. Thai cultural dancers sing songs and do traditional dances on request for individuals. People line up with a written request and a donation and kneel before the dancers. Erawan Shrine was the scene of a terrorist bombing in 2015 that killed a number of Chinese tourists and was officially linked to Uighur activists.
Golden Mount and Wat Suket — In the midst of bone-flat Bangkok sits a high mound with a golden temple at the top. Rama III had dirt taken from canal construction dumped to make a huge mound on which to build a large chedi (stupa). The mound was unstable, though, until Rama IV added trees around it and built a small chedi on top instead. The chedi was expanded by Rama V, and concrete walls were added during WWII. Wat Suket stands at the top of the Golden Mount with a golden stupa rising above. The climb to the top is rewarded on a hot morning by a cool breeze and views of the city below.
Vultures who found a home on the Mount feeding on carcasses during a cholera epidemic and remained for decades as a resident population are memorialized with a series of vulture statues on the way down.
Wat Arun – Across the river in Thonburi is a riverside temple complex that is quite prominent visually. Named after Aruna, the Hindu god of dawn, the “Temple of Dawn” is arrayed around an 82-meter-tall bullet-shaped spire or “phrang” built in the Khmer (Cambodian) style (note: this is not a “chedi” or stupa, which is bell-shaped like the Burmese style temples). The phrang and adjoining structures are finished with glazed Chinese tiles and the temple grounds are adorned with Chinese stone and concrete statues that were originally shipped to Bangkok as ballast in trading ships and were thrown in the river at the end of the journey until an early Rama decided they would make good decoration.
One of the adjoining structures is a shrine to Phraya Taksin, the Thai general who, fleeing the Burmese sacking of the Siamese capital of Ayuthaya, came upon a small shrine in Thonburi and decided to place the capital on this spot – where it stayed until his successor Rama I moved it across the river to Bangkok.
Wat Pho – Across the river from Wat Arun is the huge compound which includes the temple of the massive statue of the reclining Buddha. The grounds also include a large monastery which hosts an old and highly-regarded school of traditional Thai medicine and massage. The reclining Buddha is the largest in Thailand (46 meters long) and represents the dying Buddha attaining Nirvana. Buddha’s feet are made with mother-of-pearl.
Nearby is a pavilion housing drawings – now protected by UNESCO – demonstrating the tenets of Thai traditional medicine (including acupuncture) and massage that were used in teaching students at what is recognized as Thailand’s first public university. Statues around the area mimic the various poses
