This post is an expansion of the one I have written for BolehTalk. I feel very passionate about this that I have decided to post one here as well, and have taken the opportunity to widen the topic a wee bit ;-)
Many stories have sprung up surrounding the once-famed Snake Temple of Penang, Malaysia. The temple, more formally known as the Temple of Azure Clouds is not about snake-worship as the case in parts of Hindu India, and in ancient European and South American religions.
The temple is dedicated to the deity Chor Soo Kong, supposedly a Buddhist monk. I am not sure too sure about his religious denomination, but the temple practice had never been Buddhist. But then, with most Chinese religious worship in Penang, one is never sure when Buddhism gives way to Chinese native religion, or vice verse, or there has been a fusion of the religions. That is the unique characteristic and tolerance of Penangites.
Let me provide my version of how the temple came about, as I heard from a very senior uncle, long since departed us.
In the 1800’s when Penang was a crown colony of Britain, an Englishman residing in Penang had a strange dream. He ‘saw’ (in his dream, of course) a very old Chinese man, with long white flowing beard and all, who told him he would be rich and prosperous if he did this and that, and that if all were to come true, he could show his gratitude by building a temple for the immortal, namely the old man in the dream.
Apparently, according to my late story teller, all indeed did come true for the Englishman, who then donated both money and the land on which the temple is sitting on, to fulfil his part of the divine deal. That Englishman was a member of the very rich and well-known Brown family of colonial Penang, whom my uncle claimed had also donated to the Penang public a piece of recreational land known as Padang Brown - where once Penang's famed a-go-go sar-woh-farn hawker reigned supreme.
During its hey-days, and this is from my own family’s experiences, the temple had snakes all over, on the altars, offering tables, beams of the temple ceilings, every nook and corner, on flower vases, specially prepared resting perches for the slithery ones, and most interesting of all, even on a couple of ladders that temple maintenance workers left behind the main altar - anyone for 'snakes & ladders'?
There is only one species of snake, a viper (am not sure whether it’s a Wagner pit viper but it has the distinctive greenish, yellowish, slightly bluish colour). These snakes would remain virtually motionless at their stations - well, as I said, virtually, because some did at times slither from one perch to another, but they have never been known to slither on the floor among the worshippers, or frighteningly, between one’s legs. Nope, they were and probably still are the best well-behaved snakes in the world.
Not all visitors have been worshippers. A good percentage had been tourists, both from the South East Asian region and further abroad. Because of this, in recent times (the last 30 years or so), the temple has been specially promoted as a unique tourist attraction, as it is the only snake temple in the world where visitors may walk among the snakes (and may I add once again, the temple is NOT for snake worship, because otherwise it won't be unique as there are temples in India dedicated to snake-worship)
So the fame of the temple brought visitors from near and far, adding to the prosperity of the locals. Unfortunately mankind does not know how to respect a good thing when it has been enjoying one.
For a start, unthinking temple management permitted the construction of all sorts of stalls around the temple, to such an extent that true worshippers have slowly dropped the temple off their list of places of worship. The average tourist would be intimidated by the ‘gauntlet’ of annoying and unsightly vendor stalls and their owners leading up to the temple. The temple authorities have instituted a culture of aggressive alms or donation seeking from visitors. The resident photographer (undoubtedly with a temple contract) had been, from my personal experience, demanding and commercially aggressive – a bloody persistent salesman.
Then, worst of all, the snakes have slowly stopped coming. The temple ophidian population has slowly dwindled down to a worrying few – that is, worrying to the temple management. Well, they and the Penang development authorities had effectively killed the ‘goose that lays the golden eggs’ when they built highways and housing estates around the temple, virtually interdicting the temple from access by the vipers who had come from the nearby bushlands - or if one wants to provide a religious reason, incurring the divine wrath of Chor Soo Kong by their tasteless mercenary merchandising.
The once-incredible tourist attraction has lost its lustre, like all things in Penang. Once known as the Pearl of the Orient, Penang is now jokingly called by locals as the Lump of the Orient.
So, in an effort to revive its fortunes, the temple committee of wants to start a reptile house, breeding and exhibiting various species of snakes to attract tourists and educate the public about snakes.
I am against what they proposed for obvious reasons:
(1) It’s a temple, for god’s sake (pun not intended), not a bloody tourist spot, zoo or snake breeding lab. If the tourists want to visit the temple, well and good, but the primary purpose of the temple is for worshipping by devotees. The temple committee seems to have forgotten that’s what the temple had been built for.
(2) Many people may have forgotten that in the earlier days, the temple in fact had a python pit where several hugh pythons were kept, as is now proposed with the reptile house. But devotees then, troubled greatly by the incongruity of a Temple keeping wild creatures against their will, and in consultation with a monk, asked the temple authorities to release those snakes back into the jungle where they belonged. And to their credit, that was done.
The sanctity of the temple is such that no animals should be caged. If the vipers come in on their own will as they have done so over the last two centuries, then that’s OK. But no creature ought to be restrained against its will, especially in a temple.
Then, the feeding of kept snakes requires living prey, as snakes are fastidious carnivores and will not voluntarily eat lumps of meat or dead prey. This means that the zoo-keeper will have to offer, or rather sacrifice smaller live creatures like frogs, mice, chicken (and maybe temple committee members and the temple vendors too?). This is a form of killing that shouldn’t be conducted in a temple, especially one with a Buddhist connection.
(3) The practice of de-fanging snakes to indulge tourists with photographic opportunities is an unspeakable cruel practice, particularly more so when it’s done in a temple. Again, the commercialisation of the temple has introduced cruelty into a holy venue.
(4) As mentioned, the slow but steady decreasing viper population is an indication, a warning of how humans have destroyed its surroundings, and represents a wake-up call to reflect on what can be done to remedy the environmental-ecological loss, perhaps, like constructing special eco-snake-paths leading from some nearby bushland or undeveloped areas. Instead, the temple committee has opted for further commercialisation and the cruel practice of building a ‘prison’ for reptiles, so as to pretend that those caged snakes will be what the snake temple had been all about.
Somehow along their way, the temple committee has forgotten the original purpose and principal use of the Temple. It’s a place of worship, and god forbid (pun again not intended), not a bloody tourist centre.
What the temple really needs is a Jesus-character to chase those merchants including the temple committee away, and restore the place back to the worshippers and the snakes. ;-) No, I am NOT a Christian.
But, aha!, but I know all has not been lost. I recall as a very young teenager I lived in another temple during the December school holidays, as a volunteer helping with the housekeeping of that place of worship. I saw some of the same species of vipers nestling in that temple. They weren't as many as the Temple of Azure Clouds once had, but there is hope that those vipers may change residence to the temple I've just mentioned. Nope, I will never tell anyone where that temple is. But I'll give a clue - it's in Penang.
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