about history [en] - Demo Ganesh

ABOUT US

THE CONSTRUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GANESH

Lord Ganesh is the Brahman-Hindu god widely worshipped by the people in India. The Indian believes that Ganesh is the god who removes obstacles and ensures success. Ganesh is worshipped by all classes of people and also worshipped by people from different believes and religions too.The worship of Ganesh in Thailand emerged in the era when Brahmanism was spreading into the South East Asia.

Since then, Ganesh has been playing the role as the god of knowledge and wisdom. The faith in lord Ganesh of Thai people has been multiplied by the past to present.

To centralize this prolonged believe of Thai people the Chachoengsao Association in the era of Pol Gen Somchai Vanichsenee has built a 39 meters tall bronze statue of lord Ganesh in his standing posture or the “success granted form”. It consisted of 854 pieces of bronze parts.. The statue is built on 40,000 square meter land in Klong Keun district, Chachoengsao, to watch over the land and stand in harmony with the local way of living and economy. The construction began in 2008 and was completed in 2012.

THE OBJECTIVE OF CONSTRUCTION

The Khlong Khuean Ganesh international park aims to be the top pilgrimage destination in Chachoengsao and Thailand. It also creates sustainability and prosperity to the community. Moreover, The Khlong Khuean Ganesh International Park is also the center of local history museum of Chachoengsao, and together they are the leading tourist destination around the area of Bang Pakong River.

TO BE GRATEFUL TO MY HOMETOWN

The objective of my life is to be grateful to my hometown and I personally believe in lord Ganesha for a long time. The Committee of Chachoengsao Association suggested that we should do something to benefit our homeland and Mr.Watcharapong or Khun Au Krung Siam came up with the idea of building the biggest Ganesh statue in the world. The committee agreed accordingly to the idea as lord Ganesh is the god of success and people from all around the world have faith in him. Immediately, we assigned a team to find a proper location. The location we were looking for, must be a big undeveloped land that sit by the road and also next to the river. Since this is a posture of lord Genesha standing high, the perk is, he can be seen by both who travels by the road and also by the river. We came to find this land in Klong Keun so we chosed Klong Keun Distict to be the location. Klong Keun is an agricultural district. It is the land of fertility and it is the perfect location.

Pol Gen Somchai Vanichsenee / President of Chachoengsao Association

Khlong Khuean Ganesh International park got a lot of donations because the Chachoengsao organization always do charity activities. The committees realized the importance of the number of donations that was growing up. In long terms, we need to manage the origin of donations to be sustainable. My idea is to build the sacred things rather than keeping the donations without doing anything. In fact, Chachoengsao has located the Sothorn buddha ,so, we should construct the international Goddess ; that is the Ganesh. The Ganesh Posture that we chose is the workmanship of Mr. Pitak Chalermlao . he Ganesh has 4 arms, each arms has carried the 4 various kind of Thai vegetation. Especially the mango, that is the symbol fruit of Chachoengsao. The mango that the Ganesh carried is the symbol of prosperity of Amphoe Pad Riew. This also create good attitudes and motivation to the agriculture of of Amphoe Pad Riew.

Interviewed: Mr.Watcharapong Radomsittipat

THE INSPIRATION

The philosophy of Sufficiency Economy by His Majesty the King Bhumibol has inspired Mr.Pitak Chaleumlao the artist of this statue. He is a highly expertise sculpturer in the Department of Ten Crafts, Ministry of Fine Art of Thailand. He has created the standing sculpture of lord Ganesh which is very refined and profound, and it later on became one of the most beautiful sculpture in Thailand.

When I think of every success of Thai people, the first one I think of is our King. He’s the one who brought us all this knowledge whether it is agriculture, technology or whatsoever. Thailand is the best place to produce agricultural product. In this form he has four hands holding sugar cane, jack fruit banana and mango. This form is use for blessing on children. The same as our country, we are in the stage of growing and this form suits us best. I adapted lotus into his attire including his crown and his bracelets. This is a very simplistic form of him. It’s not too fancy or dominated. We built him in his standing posture as he takes a step forward. This represents our country that is moving forward. The lotus crown is the symbol of wisdom. His lordship is blessing us for success and we built him as a protecting god so we also use his symbol, which is the word “Om” on top.

Interview : Pitak Chaleumlao

BUILDING PROCESS

The statue of lord Ganesh in his success granted form is 30 meters tall. Combining the base, it will be 39 meters in total.It consisted of 854 pieces of bronze parts. His four hands are holding mango, jackfruit, banana and sugar cane. At his feet, there is a mouse holding a modak which is the symbol of fertility. The Ganesh in his success granted form is the sculpture that combines technology, the faith and the fine art into one. It is also a perfect symbol and a representative of the prosperity of Thailand.

We took proportion from the original sculpture and expanded it by 16.7 times and then we get this 30 meters tall statue.. We use the original model which is made by plaster to make molds, scan it in a scaner and then cut it into pieces like jigsaws. After we got this molds, we casted it with bronze, which came in a block. We chose to use bronze because it’s durable and can be there for thousands of years. We melted the bronze in the heat around 1,200 degree celcious. We also have to poured it into mold within 6 seconds too. The molds are made from sand mix with resin which is the same technique they used to create King Rama V monument. We have to cast 854 pieces of bronze parts and then welded it together with electric welding. The process is closely inspected by the sculpturer himself. Then came the process of patina colouring. We coloured the statue with special chemicals which make him appeared greenish golden. Also when the time past, he will look more beautiful.

Interview : Mr.Tawal Muangchang

In the process of making something this big, most important thing is the foundation. From roughly calculation, the statue is consisted of bronze weighted around 40 tons and the iron structure weighs around 100 tons. The overall weight will be more than 200 tons. Apart from the weight of the statue, we also have to consider the force of the wind that will shake the whole statue too. Therefore, the foundation is a very important part. We secured the foundation pile very deep in the ground. From calculation, one pile can hold the weight of 100 tons. We decided to use 10 foundation pile which can withholds 1,000 tons of weight.

In the upper structure, the most important part is the legs which supports the weight between foundation pile and the body. Normally, in a big construction like this there will be several supporting structure to take weights, but as for this statue, the weight points will be only at his two legs. Therefore, the iron core structures are very important. Our engineers had to design and carefully select the iron that could support all the weight at the legs. The legs are also in curves because the sculpturer didn’t know that his work will became the big statue. Therefore, the changes had to be made. The distribution of the weight had to be calculated very carefully. We carefully built the statue storey by storey from the ground up. One storey is around 1 meter high. This took times. We started from November 2008 and it took us 4 years for the whole process.

One of the set back is that, this statue is 30 meters high. He can’t stand up by himself. There needed to be some supporting structures to support him. We have to get additional 100 tons of the iron for the job. Also in the part of his shoulder, because his arms are stretched out, so the weight management in this part became problems. We have to redesigned the part and have to find the material that is very light but also strong too. It took us sometimes to find the right iron and fix the structure, but everything went well. After that, we sent the plan to be examined and got it approved by the authority properly.

Interview : Mr. Anan Wongpanich

The association hopes that the world’s biggest “Statue of lord Ganesha in his success granted form” at “Klong Keun Ganesh Park”, Chachoengsao, will be the place of worship and also the attraction for tourists from around the world. By paying a visit to lord Genasha, we believe that he will grant you success in all of your wish. The Association wishes that this piece of art will be the commemoration of the faith, unity , and the heritage of Thailand for the long future to come.