Buddha Casting

Thailand is a predominately Buddhist country and as such there are temples nearly everywhere. Having been here for a good bit of time, I've seen my far share of temples. One of the most common sights in the temples are the images of the Buddha. These images occupy a place on honor within the temple as well as many peoples homes. Recently I was able to witness the casting of a Buddha image at a temple in town. The director of the English Program decided to have a Buddha image cast and invited us to the casting.

The casting took place at a temple in town. There was a short ceremony before the casting in the temple and then most everyone moved out into the courtyard where the casting would take place. They had set up the molds and were heating the metal when I arrived. In the picture below, you can see the molds in the left part of the picture. The metal is being melted in several different fires/ovens and those are fairly easy to spot (hint - look for the flames).
We arrived to the scene above and then entered the temple for a ceremony. But the ceremony lasted longer than our attention span so we ventured outside to watch what captured our attention which was the incredible bright flames and the steady buzz of activity around the molds and the fires. The kept feeding the fires and stoking them; keeping the metal molten until the ceremony finished.
It came time for the image to be cast so they pulled the bricks down from around the molten metal housed in what was now a glowing container. Using very long poles they exposed the container which was now bright orange.
Very carefully they used this clever little tool to lift the molten metal up out of the fire/oven and proceeded to clean off the outside of the container. These containers didn't have a lid to them and if you remember they just threw charcoal on top of them assuming (and correctly so) that the surface of the molten metal was hot enough to ignite all the charcoal and burn it off.
They transferred the molten metal from the lifting tool/contraption and put it into a tool/contraption more suited for pouring. They carefully lifted the molten metal up onto the platform which surrounded the molds and began to pour the metal into the mold.
The steam which was coming off of the metal as is streamed into the mold was incredible. The color of the metal was also equally amazing. This black and white photo shows the steam a little bit better than the color photos could.
Here's a picture of the molten metal (which I'm assuming to be bronze...I never got confirmation of that, but most of the Buddha images are made from bronze) as it is poured into the mold. This picture doesn't do justice to the color of the metal. But you can still see the oranges and the yellows in the container nonetheless.
While this was all happening, people had gathered around the men working and had run a string through their hands (a common part of Buddhist ceremonies) and held their hands up in a wai while the image was being cast.
And that was that. The image was cast. The image had to sit for a few days before it could be broken out of the mold and then polished and have the finishing touches added to it. The image will stay at the temple for a few days and then it will be taken to my boss's house where he'll keep it or store it until he decides to donate it to a temple.

And that's how Buddha images are made - Thai style.