Animation from Phra Ubosot Wat Suwannaram Ratchaworawihan mural

Abstract

This research project has 2 objectives, which are 1) to study and analyze on the contents, stories and forms used for the creation of the murals of the Chapel of Suwannaram Ratchasorawihan Temple, Bangkok; and 2) to disseminate and conserve the story of Lord Buddha from the murals of the Chapel of Suwannaram Ratchasorawihan Temple, using 2D combined animation media.    

The finding of the study show that the position of each part of the murals in the Chapel has deem significant and related to the principal Buddha image in the Chapel. The murals can be roughly divided into 4 main groups, namely, 1) Mahanipata Jataka (the 10 significant past lives of Lord Buddha), 2) story of life of Lord Buddha, 3) the congregation of angels and 4) doorway guardians. The murals in the groups of Mahanipata Jataka and the life story of Lord Buddha depict many stories or event in a picture whilst the murals in the groups of the congregation of angels and doorway guardians depict only gestures during a moment of time. Also, the compositions of the murals in the groups of Mahanipata Jataka and the life story of Lord Buddha will depict stories that do not follow time or incident order. Thus, viewers of these murals who have never known the stories before will not understand the murals at all. When the animation work entitled “Temiya Jataka”  is created from the data collected from the murals in the Chapel of Suwannaram Ratchasorawihan Temple, and presented to the public, the findings are as follows. The satisfaction to the work in the aspect of ‘the appropriateness of the content’ has the highest mean, which is 4.48 which falls in the high level. Meanwhile, the aspect of ‘the appropriateness of sound/audio’ has the lowest mean, which is 4.19 which falls in the high level. The audience have satisfaction in high level to all aspects of the work.