Modern thai encounters with the sublime: the powerful presence of a great king of siam through his portraits

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the specific capacities of portraits as objectifications mediating religious experience (cf. Meyer 2006). It will be argued that portraits of a divine being—in this case of King Chulalongkorn, king of Siam from 1868 until 1910—enable worshipers to establish a direct link with the divine while producing its direct presence at the same time. This immediate presence of King Chulalongkorn does not concern the historical person of the king, however, but the mythical figure of King Chulalongkorn as the great Buddhist king who modernized his kingdom and saved it from becoming a colony. King Chulalongkorn, therefore, is the epitome of Thainess, the embodiment of a specific, nationalist sublime. The king is omnipresent in the Thai public domain through myriads of mass-produced portraits since the early 1990s. A number of cases of personal experiences will show how his worshipers experience King Chulalongkorn's mythical presence directly, and how the king is directly involved in their daily lives. Within the boundless category of material religious objects, portraits have a special place because each portrait, whether “original” or “reproduction,” has the same potential to establish the immediate presence of the sublime.