thewalohk (เทวโลก)

Thai. ‘Angelic world’, ‘world of the gods’ or ‘heaven’. Term for the world (lohk) or plane where the gods live, in Sanskrit referred to as devaloka, i.e. a compound of the words deva and loka, and described as a plane of existence where gods and devas exist. It refers to the heaven where the angels live and is classified as the afterlife, one of the next worlds, where a chaht or soul is born after the death of a person who has done meritorious deeds. It is understood as either a temporary plane of existence due to one's good karma, or a permanent plane of existence that is reached when one is has attained moksha. In Buddhist temples, thewalohk is often depicted in murals, regularly behind the principal Buddha statue of the main chapel and is part of the trilok or Three Worlds, i.e. the three realms in Buddhist cosmology, namely heaven, earth and hell. Since the Ayutthaya Period onward, this is often portrayed as a number of symmetrically erected columns, usually fifteen in number and of decreasing height, with the largest in the middle and representing Mount Meru, centre of the universe in Buddhist cosmology with at its pinnacle Tavatimsa heaven, the abode of the god Indra and the 33 gods. The other fourteen columns, seven on either side, symbolize its seven chains of surrounding mountains. Each of the columns is topped with a kind of prasat noi (fig.), i.e. an angelic palace represented as a triple-arched edifice known as a sumwimaan (fig.). On either side typically is a circle, i.e. to one side an often red circle with a chariot and its charioteer Aruna, who drives the sun god Phra Ahtit —in Sanskrit called Surya— across the sky (fig.); on the opposite side is an often yellow circle that represents the moon with a depiction of a chariot pulled by a singha (fig.) carrying the moon god Phra Jan (fig.), known in Sanskrit as Chandra. Sometimes, the Sun is inhabited by a peacock, referring to the fact that this bird was once known as Sun Turkey and associated with the power of the solar deities, while the Moon is inhabited by a rabbit, referring to the rabbit on the surface of the moon (fig.). The peacock is a symbol for the sun, that ‒in combination with the rabbit‒ signifies Enlightenment (fig.), akin to the Chinese characters for sun and moon, i.e. 日 (ri) and 月 (yue), that when placed together as 明 (ming), become to mean ‘bright’, ‘clear’, or ‘to understand. The columns situated on the side of the Sun are sometimes painted in a lighter colour than those on the side of the Moon in order to create a contrasting effect between night and day. Compare with chakrawahn (fig.) and see also TRAVEL PICTURE. 回