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This spirit is supposed to bring wealth to the household and is particularly popular with shopkeepers. The spirit is dressed in traditional Thai dress. In her left hand is a money bag and her right hand is beckoning Thai style - palm down. She is either beckoning customers to come into the store or asking for wealth to come her way.
It has been said that this goddess is one Thailand's most intriguing cross-cultural and cross-species religious luck symbols that exists.
It is thought that Nang Kwak originally evolved from the Hindu Goddess Parvathi, the daughter of the mountains, who it was said was the first to grow rice.
She first appeared in Thailand as a rice and prosperity goddess with a sheaf of rice over her shoulder. (The pre-Buddhist Mae Posop) The money bag in her lap and the beckoning hand were added at later dates, design elements almost certainly borrowed from the familiar Japanese Maneki Neko beckoning cat, a good luck talisman for merchants. In some examples she is even featured with feline characteristics, notably a tail
Add to this to the fact that Nang Kwak is often represented in the form of a phallus or Thai Palad Khik with her body conforming to the shaft of the male organ and wearing a hat in the shape of the glans - an iconographic reference to the incorporation of very early Hindu Shaivism into Thai Buddhism.
Similar to other spirit amulets, her favour is sought through daily offerings and prayers. |
