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Despite the prevalence of ornament and decoration in Buddhist monasteries in Thailand, as an art form, ornament has been almost entirely ignored in favor of the study of narrative and didactic art and literature. In this paper, I approach the subject of temple ornament (focusing primarily on the use of decorative birds) in Thai Buddhism through the lens of Affect Theory. As scholars of this approach emphasize that to study affect is to study “of accumulative beside-ness.” It is the study of accumulation of encounters. The senses accumulate images, feelings, scents, and sounds constantly. It is the slow accretion of knowledge in the form of non-discursive impressions. It is not the systematic learning of facts, dates, titles, terms, narrative sequences, ethical standards, and logical progressions, but the body’s “capacity to affect and be affected.” Birds are so common in Buddhist stories, murals, illuminated manuscripts, dance dramas and comedies, jewelry, and decorative parts of clothing and temple architecture that they become, like ritual and music, repetitious affective encounters experienced in Buddhist popular culture. I assert that these affective encounters are as fundamental, if not more fundamental, to the ways Buddhists learn to be Buddhists, because they are more accessible and common, than ethical arguments, philosophical treatises, and doctrinal formulations.

The Bird in the Corner of the Painting: Some Problems with the Use of Buddhist Texts to Study Buddhist Ornamental Art in Thailand