The Erawan Shrine exists because a hotel had a run of bad luck.

In the mid-1950s, construction of the original Erawan Hotel was plagued by accidents and worker deaths. A Brahman astrologer concluded the problem was a naming conflict: the hotel shared its name with the three-headed elephant mount of the Hindu god Indra, and the site lacked a spirit shrine. One was built, dedicated to the four-faced Brahma, and the accidents stopped.

The shrine outlasted the hotel. Worshippers whose wishes are granted must return to commission a performance by the resident classical dance troupe. Its recent history is darker: a man destroyed the Brahma image with a hammer in 2006 and was beaten to death by bystanders; a bomb in 2015 killed twenty people.

VoiceMap's self-guided tours place the shrine within Bangkok's layered belief system, explaining how Theravada Buddhism, Brahman Hinduism and animism coexist in everyday Thai life.