The Fate of Rural Hell

A new edition of Benedict Anderson's masterpiece of political and social interpretation, which asks what a rural Thai “hell temple” reveals about Buddhism and modern life. In 1975, political scientist Benedict Anderson encountered Wat Phai Rong Wua, a vast temple complex conceived by the monk Luang Phor Khom. Built as a cautionary museum, it uses striking tableaux, hell scenes, didactic statues, and eclectic displays, to imagine karmic consequence and to draw steady flows of Thai visitors. Returning to the temple over several decades, Anderson treats the site as a travelogue, an ethnographic puzzle, and a social commentary. He asks what kinds of piety, hierarchy, and desire are staged there, and what local community sustains it. The temple also becomes his lens on how capitalism and rural change reshape religious practice in Thailand.