Opportunities for Courtship of Youths that Appears in Mural Paintings at Northeast Buddhist Holy Temples

Abstract

The study results on opportunities for courtship of youths that appears in mural paintings at northeast Buddhist holy temples reveal that there are three kinds of murals revealing youths’ courting opportunities: 1) the mortar tradition. 2) the spin cotton thread tradition, and 3) the traditional dances and Isan folk singing in processions. All these three traditions aimed for giving youths opportunities to talk to each other in order to find their mates who possessed the qualities based on the Isan values, namely, diligence and others. The reason why artists painted murals at Sim I-San (Northeast Buddhist Holy Temples) might because the Heet Sipsong traditions were strong so that everyone respected and practiced in daily life, and that brought peaceful happiness to people in the I-San society. Therefore, artists chose to find spaces in the wall of Sim I-San for inserting images or courtship to present how the lineage descended.