Eerie monks and magic diagrams

Field report from Yangon.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when I came across these life-sized wax statues of these wizard-monks who lived in the early half of the 20th century. I had come to this temple complex to find magical diagrams that had been copied from 18th and 19th centuries Buddhist manuscripts and replicated on the walls of the temple’s halls to guard the space, and it’s inhabitants, from any harm (physical or meta-physical) that might befall them.