A Giant at the End of the Road

And he's not gentle . . he's both a destroyer and transformer

By Grant Cameron

November 9^th, 2017

Is he being caged?

Shiva is the "destroyer of evil and the transformer" within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma and Vishnu.

In an out of the way district of Bangkok his golden statue rises above the roofs of shophouses, and the criss-crossing of electrical and telephone cables from transformer to house seem to act as barriers against him escaping, rather like a modern day transformer movie.

But UP close . .

. . and personal, he seems to be quite a handsome guy.

So, where are we?

After an early morning trip to Suanluang Rama 9 Park for sunrise, and about which I posted about earlier, we drove here, to a place not known by many Bangkokians and certainly not by most expats.

The temple is on Ramintra, Soi 27, and almost in the back of beyond. It is tough to find.

One of the temple staff advised they are trying to keep a low profile, whether for the time being only, or as a general principle, I'm not sure. Certainly there's not too much information about it on the web.

But, I was told it has taken over 10 years to erect the statue of Shiva, alone, and the statue complex of Kuan Im and her entourage behind the temple will take another 2 to 3 years to complete.

This is the overall temple view.

Knowing that my blog title image darkens for the text to appear brighter, below is that same image.

If you see this view of Shiva on your visit to the temple as you drive to find it, know this: you are on the wrong soi!

The entrance to the temple is on the soi one over, to the right, and there are a few sub-sois that will enable you to make this route correction.

Below is the view of the temple complex from behind Shiva, and you can see down the length of the soi from which the above image was taken.

To be honest, no one likes their back-side to be photographed (unless your name is Kim Kardashian), but while this is a little irreverent this image is for context; to show how tall the statue is in relation to its surroundings.

From the little I've been able to find out about the temple, it was founded by Dr. Shi Kuang Seng who also founded Kuan-Im Bodhisattva’s Hall (Chokchai 4) [Kwan Yin (Chokchai 4) Temple] with Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara’s Great Compassion Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas, at Ladphrao.

Behind the Shiva statue a 21 metre high white stone statue of Kuan Im is almost 3 years into construction, and will not be completed for a further 2 to 3 years.

The below series of images show the state of construction as at November 2017.

A statue of Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, is contained in a very small arched building. It is highly colourful, and has a number of Chitrardhas on the walls.