Unperturbed, the four-faced Brahma statue still stares out at the Ratchaprasong intersection, the scene of Bangkok's worst bomb attack in recent memory. One of the most popular tourist spots in the capital has become a site of terror and tragedy and as the dust begins to settle, it's worth taking a look at the long and sometimes tortuous history of the shrine. This history is influenced as much by the city's modernisation and superstition as it is by its politics and moments of insanity.
Ratchadamri Road was built in 1902 under King Rama V and it formed an intersection with Ploenchit Road in 1920, in the reign of King Rama VI. As Bangkok entered its first phase of modernisation in the 1950s, foreigners began to arrive and the city thus needed more room in order to accommodate them. It was Pol Gen Pao Sriyanont, a key figure in Thai history and chairman of the Saha Hotel Group, who sparked the idea of building a new hotel on Ratchadamri Road, which was becoming a new nexus in Bangkok's urban expansion.
This was when modern progress and ancient beliefs came together at this symbolic crossroads. When the Erawan Hotel was completed in 1956, it was said that there had been many accidents during the construction and that the land on which the intersection stood was disturbed by many ancient forces.
According to the historian Siripoj Laomanacharoen, the hotel executives invited RAdm Luang Suwichanpat, a well-known shaman, to find an auspicious date for the opening. Luang Suwichanpat remarked that the hotel had never performed a rite to inform the sacred deities residing in the area about the new venture. The name "Erawan Hotel" was also the holy name of the god Indra's elephant. All of this required a proper ceremony to pay respect to the gods.
"This was the reason the Erawan Shrine, perhaps the world's most famous, was built and blessed in 1956," said Siripoj. The historian, who wrote extensively on the subject for academic papers as well as magazines, added that the Brahmin god -- known to Thais as Phra Prom -- is one of the deities at the centre of the Hindu cosmology that later fused into and was taken in by Buddhist belief.
What's interesting is that Luang Suwichanpart, the shaman, believed the spirit residing inside the Erawan Shrine after it was built was that of Phra Pinklao, one of King Rama IV's brothers, who passed away and became Lord Brahman's servant in heaven.
In the following decades, the belief that the shrine was spiritually powerful grew stronger and stronger -- interestingly as the area around Ratchadamri became a new commercial centre at a time of budding consumerism. Bangkok's first department store, Thai Daimaru, was built across the street in the mid-1960s. In 1990, the World Trade Centre (now CentralWorld) opened for business. The belief that the cosmic vibes of the Erawan Shrine was so intense prompted the store to install the shrine of Phra Trimurati, another Hindu god, as a counterforce.
The Erawan Shrine in 1978.
In fact, according to Sudara Sudchaya, editor of the Muang Boran archaeological magazine, the gleaming Ratchadamri intersection has become known as the "intersection of the Gods" as new buildings built in the past 40 years felt compelled to have their own shrines for feng shui protection.
"For instance, the Amarin Plaza has Lord Indra at its entrance and the rather new Gaysorn Plaza has Phra Lakshmi, the wife of Lord Vishnu," said Suchada. "Even if it's one of the busiest and most developed spots, it's still believed that the area is suffused with otherworldly forces."
Always festooned with garlands and covered in a thin layer of joss stick smoke, the Erawan Shrine has become popular among Chinese-speaking people since at least the 1970s. There is a Bangkok Post photo of a Taiwanese woman offering four large wooden elephants at the shrine in 1989. The belief that prayers made to the shrine would be answered -- couples asking for babies being the most popular, though students also ask for grades and lovers for requited love -- only grew and grew, leading to the coterie of beautifully sequinned nang ram -- traditional dancers -- positioned at the shrine and paid to perform their dance so as to please Bramha.
China expert and journalist Sa-nguan Khumrungroj said that Hong Kong actress Deborah Lee came to pray at the shrine 40 years ago. She went back and said that her prayers were answered, that her lucky star was perpetually on the rise. It made headlines and triggered the waves of Chinese-speaking visitors who have made a pilgrimage to the shrine since -- all the more so when mainland Chinese tourists began to flock to Thailand.
"The tourists at the Erawan Shrine follow the same drill [as Thai people]," said Anuwat Panprayoon, head of Damrong Thai Dance Drama crew who supervises the dancers at the shrine. "They pay respect to the four sides of the statue. They pray for their work and family." Anuwat was there when the bomb went off on Monday.
"This is our workplace and it's really sad," he said. "We've been here for years. Most of the damage occurred at the front gate. People were hit by the blast and bomb fragments. Dead bodies and limbs fell in front of our table. Some went over the roof, scattered all over."
In 2006, a man walked into the shrine and used a hammer to smash the statue, breaking the bust and shattering the body. He was dragged out and severely beaten up by upset bystanders, until later falling to his death on the footpath outside the hotel. It appeared that he was a mentally unstable person. A new statue was quickly put in place by being attached to the old base. But the aura of sacredness hasn't diminished an ounce in the eyes of believers.
After the killings during the red-shirt protests in 2010 and the Shutdown Bangkok campaign by the anti-Yingluck Shinawatra camp in 2013, the Ratchaprasong intersection -- and the Erawan Shrine -- has acquired even more far-reaching implications deeply tied with Thailand's political history, as well as its political superstitions: some believe that most of the new buildings in the area are jinxed because they sit on the land once belonging to the ruling elite, which means they carry a strong spiritual power that backfires against others.
And now, the terror of the Aug 17 bomb. Thus lies the complex layers of Bangkok's most favourite intersection: modernity and myth, politics and superstition, men and gods. All of these are intertwined inseparably at the site that has now become a place imbued with dark memories.
"[When something bad happens] we often blame it on the 'dark forces' or on superstitious belief, when in fact we should look at what we have done wrong and what has brought about the tragic incident," said Siripoj, the historian, emphasising the belief that has surrounded the place for more than 50 years. "We have to look at the bigger picture in order to solve the problem long-term. Putting it all on the gods isn't going to help."
The Erawan Shrine after the 2006 hammer attack.
