The Cobra Temple
🐍 These images were taken at 'Cobra Temple' on Rama II., a place that I finally tracked down with a friend after hearing many stories about it. This temple, like many Thai Buddhist temples, hosts a conglomeration of Hindu/Buddhist/animist deities/statues which people come to pray to for good fortune, and to increase their chances they purchase chicken eggs & meat to feed to the snakes which live in a large jungly area next to the temple (even though it is right on Rama II, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Bangkok). As soon as we arrived, we saw an enormous monocled cobra eating chicken.
The monocled cobra pictured was enormous with my friend, a herpetology enthusiast, noting that it is the largest he has ever seen. It indulges on so much chicken throughout the days that it seems to have a bulging hernia protruding from its' side.
The temple has a pretty grim backstory. According to local legend, the owner of this expensive land had planned a development project which would require the bulldozing of the snakes' and other animals' habitat. The night before he was to begin, he had a dream in which the snakes visited him and asked him 'please don't destroy our home'. He ignored the dream, and the next morning, as he was pulling out of his driveway on the way to demolish the site, he backed over his infant daughter and killed her. This horrific accident led him to cancel his plans of development and instead build a temple on a small part of the land, while leaving the lush area of foliage for the snakes to live in peace.
Each day, a number of Thai Buddhists can be found at the temple throughout the day, stopping on their way to & from work to pray and make merit by feeding the cobras.
This temple is unusual, to say the least. Although making merit by feeding fish & other animals is very common in Thai Buddhism, merit-making via feeding snakes is uncommon as they are so often associated with evil or some kind of negative energy. It makes sense. Even though cobras certainly aren’t 'cuddly', they are still living creatures & cobras especially are symbolic of power.
Once it became dark, my friend Rob & I went out into the field of dense growth next to the temple to look for more snakes, of which there are a variety of species. We only saw 3 vine snakes before it began to rain heavily, but the search itself was fun, not to mention the spectacle at the temple. 🐍
Read MoreThe monocled cobra pictured was enormous with my friend, a herpetology enthusiast, noting that it is the largest he has ever seen. It indulges on so much chicken throughout the days that it seems to have a bulging hernia protruding from its' side.
The temple has a pretty grim backstory. According to local legend, the owner of this expensive land had planned a development project which would require the bulldozing of the snakes' and other animals' habitat. The night before he was to begin, he had a dream in which the snakes visited him and asked him 'please don't destroy our home'. He ignored the dream, and the next morning, as he was pulling out of his driveway on the way to demolish the site, he backed over his infant daughter and killed her. This horrific accident led him to cancel his plans of development and instead build a temple on a small part of the land, while leaving the lush area of foliage for the snakes to live in peace.
Each day, a number of Thai Buddhists can be found at the temple throughout the day, stopping on their way to & from work to pray and make merit by feeding the cobras.
This temple is unusual, to say the least. Although making merit by feeding fish & other animals is very common in Thai Buddhism, merit-making via feeding snakes is uncommon as they are so often associated with evil or some kind of negative energy. It makes sense. Even though cobras certainly aren’t 'cuddly', they are still living creatures & cobras especially are symbolic of power.
Once it became dark, my friend Rob & I went out into the field of dense growth next to the temple to look for more snakes, of which there are a variety of species. We only saw 3 vine snakes before it began to rain heavily, but the search itself was fun, not to mention the spectacle at the temple. 🐍
