DOC Pagan Soul by B Laubscher in History

Description

In 1975; when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua; a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom; he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world’s most bizarre tourist attractions; Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like. Over the next few decades; Anderson; who is best known for his work; Imagined Communities; found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects; returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phor’s personal museum of hell included; “side by side; an upright human skeleton in a glass cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s gigantic nude David; wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a swollen; un-Florentine penis;” alongside dozens of statues of evildoers being ferociously punished in their afterlife.