ABSTRACT
Snake Temples (Mway Paya) are Theravada Buddist temples in Myanmar made notable through the incorporation of live Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus). The resident snakes are regarded as manifestations of nats, guardian spirits of Burmese-Buddhist cosmology. These temples are said to house powerful treasures (thaik) that inextricably link spirits, snakes, and devout followers. Practices take place on the consecrated land, creating and recreating entanglements between beings for lifetimes to come. The purported treasures are believed to date to primordial times and spirits who inhabit temple spaces are perceived as Indigenous to the land. Yet, these temples were established as recently as the late 1980s and are part of a larger, novel “prosperity Buddhist” movement. At Snake Temples, devout followers can engage in rituals that allow them to achieve both spiritual and material wealth. In this chapter, the author provides the first ethnographic record of these sacred spaces, providing details from three Snake Temples located in the peri-urban areas of Yangon and Mandalay. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2019, the author discusses the relevance of these unique multispecies spaces, Buddhist cosmologies, and novel spiritual learning(s) to the negotiation of political, economic, and karmic futures among a growing body of followers in contemporary Myanmar.
