Clare Veal LASALLE College of the Arts The Feudal Photograph of a Democratic Dhammaraja Secularism and Sacrality in Thai Royal Imagery 4 Since the death of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2016, his image has continued to play a defining role in the articulation of Thainess (khwampenthai) in reference to the country’s “authentic” pre- modern past and its teleological “progress.” This essay addresses several paradoxes in this image and its relationship to Thailand’s embattled politi- cal history. How might the royal photograph be both sacred and secular? How are premodern understandings of kingship, including the taboo on the monarchy’s public representation, reconciled with the contemporary hy- pervisibility of the monarchy? And what implications do references to the premodern past have for debates over defining democracy in Thailand? O n 13 October 2016, I, along with people around the world, watched the online video streams from Bangkok. 1 For two days rumors had circulated about the declining health of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX, reigned 1946–2016). Crowds of people gathered at Siriraj Hospital where the monarch had resided since 2014. After hours of speculation, a spokesperson from the Royal Household appeared on television and online newscasts to confirm the king’s passing. In accordance with the conventions of royal language (ratchasap), which exists in a diglossic relationship with conventional Thai, the announcer’s speech drew parallels between the king and Vedic gods, including Indra (the ruler of the highest heaven in Buddhist cosmology). The king had not “passed away,” he had traveled to Indra’s abode (sadet suwannakhot). 2 The significance of these references is in their comparability to the idealized chakkraphat (from the Sanskrit cakravartin, “wheel-turning monarch” or “universal king”) (Reynolds and Reynolds 161). The use of microcosmic/macrocosmic equivalences Digital Philology 8.1 (Spring): 66–85 © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press 66