Qualla: Erawan Shrine

Erawan Shrine: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit กสิณธร ราชโอรส, CC BY-SA 4.0. The construction crew had every reason to worry. Workers were getting injured. Costs kept climbing. A shipload of Italian marble bound for the hotel had been lost at sea. Worst of all, someone pointed out that the Ratchaprasong intersection where the government-owned Erawan Hotel was rising had once been used to display condemned criminals. An astrologer was consulted. His diagnosis was precise: the foundation had been laid on the wrong date, generating bad karma that would continue until it was counteracted. His prescription was equally specific -- build a shrine to Brahma.

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Image: กสิณธร ราชโอรส | CC BY-SA 4.0

Erawan Shrine: Where Hinduism Meets Buddhism Meets Animism

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0. The Brahma statue was designed by Thailand's Fine Arts Department and enshrined on 9 November 1956. The hotel's construction proceeded without further incident -- a fact that believers cite as proof of the shrine's power. But what makes the Erawan Shrine remarkable is not the sta...

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Image: Supanut Arunoprayote | CC BY 4.0

Erawan Shrine: Destruction and Devotion

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. TongJar322~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5. In the early hours of 21 March 2006, a man named Thanakorn Pakdeepol climbed onto the statue's base and smashed the hollow figure of Brahma with a large hammer. He shattered the four-faced head, the torso, the eight arms and their weapons. Bystanders beat him to death on the spot...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. TongJar322~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 2.5

Erawan Shrine: The Bombing at Rush Hour

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chainwit., CC BY-SA 4.0. On 17 August 2015, at 6:55 in the evening, a pipe bomb packed with three kilograms of TNT detonated in the shrine grounds. Twenty people died. One hundred and twenty-five were injured. The blast ripped through the evening crowd of worshippers and tourists, scattering offerings an...

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Image: Chainwit. | CC BY-SA 4.0

Erawan Shrine: Sacred Ground on Commercial Soil

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY-SA 4.0. The original Erawan Hotel was demolished in 1987 and replaced by the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok, but the shrine remained -- too powerful to move, too beloved to question. It sits today at one of the busiest intersections in Bangkok, overlooked by the elevated walkway of the BTS S...

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Image: Supanut Arunoprayote | CC BY-SA 4.0