Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Vol.24 No.2
Sept 1993
Pp.330-339
Copyrigth by Singapore University Press Pte. Ltd.
Interpreting Thai Religious Change
Thai religion is changing. So is Thai society. To most scholars the
connection is obvious: social and especially material changes drive
religious ones. So a new middle class causes religious ferment(1)
while a crisis in legitimacy explains a militant Buddhist
movement(2) as well as the fervour for amulets and forest monks.(3)
Such explanations are typical in using extra-religious current
events to explain religious change. We need not dispute their
specific interpretations to make a larger historical point: today's
religious changes are, if only in part, the unintended consequences
of a century and a half of Sangha reform that has undermined the
local Buddhism of the temple or wat. In effect centralizing reforms
took the wat away from locals and, by driving folk practices out of
the temple, fostered today's religious "free market". This long-term
institutional shift, changing the wat's place in Thai society, can
be the context for understanding today's religious changes.
My paper has three sections. The first considers the wat in
traditional society, the second discusses how reforms undermined the
wat as a local institution, and the third reflects on the
implications of this change for interpreting contemporary religious
change. I conclude by arguing that historically evident change in
the wat, being endogenous, should take precedence over exogenous
explanations of religious change.
Wat in Traditional Society
A wat unites monastery and shrine. Early Buddhism had no wat as the
monks were wandering ascetics. Many centuries later, when Tai(4)
became Buddhists, monks often lived in settled monastic communities,
but the early inscriptions do not mention wat literally and, as they
record endowments to support each element separately, they do not
suggest a wat-like whole.(5) Apparently Buddhism was like its
Burmese variant where monastery and shrine are distinct entities.(6)
By the late fourteenth century wat appears as a word but usage is
inconsistent and so this may still be just an assemblage of sacred
elements.(7) Yet over centuries these elements solidified to make
the wat into a discrete entity. When the Bangkok era (1782-present)
began the wat was already taken for granted as the basic unit of the
Thai Sangha and the centre of lay Buddhism. The wat is a Tai
creation. Joining monastery and shrine creates a social whole that
is a community in itself and often the centre of a lay community.
Thai custom makes the wat the moral, social and symbolic centre of a
community(8) and certainly farmers say a village needs a wat to be
complete.(9) Ethnographic reports generally confirm the functional
and symbolic centrality of the wat,(10) but exceptions exist and
statistics collected by Jacques Nepote suggest complex regional
variations in the actual wat/community relationship.(11) Such
variety testifies to localism but apparently everywhere the wat
weaves Buddhism into local life.
Wat operate like other Thai institutions. Each houses one or many
entourages that compete to take care of their own.(12) All wat need
resources to survive. Few have endowments, the Sangha itself has no
treasury, government stipends are meager, and monastic discipline
prohibits earning a living. So the laity must support a wat or
hunger drives its monks away, rot brings its buildings down, and
thieves loot what is left. Many wat have died that way. Most vanish
into paddy fields or jungle, but in one year, 1899, a census of
provinces near Bangkok reported 23 deserted wat under the control of
167 active ones, while on the edge of the city land clearance for
one new palace revealed the remains of three wat.(13) Even great wat
fall. In the nineteenth century Chaophraya Sisuriyawong's patronage
made Wat Prayurawong one of the capital's most opulent and
prestigious temples, but when he died support collapsed and the wat
fell apart. Some monks left, others went hungry, and vandals dared
to pick gold from its doors.(14) But on the other extreme, then as
well as today, charismatic monks can revitalize failing wat or start
new ones.(15)
The rise and fall of wat shows competition. Wat compete with each
other for followers, wealth and honour, but they also must compete
with other religious interests and indeed the rest of Thai life. Wat
Buddhism, being local and communal, competes with regional shrines
as well as individualizing practices from amulets to meditation.
Even in a one-wat village households have many other needs and to
attract men into the monkhood the wat must compete locally with
farming, courting and marriage just as these latter activities
compete with what the outside world offers. This is not new.
Competition shaped and perhaps even created the wat. Of course in
traditional society the king looked after religion, but he did not
have to favour wat and, in any case, Buddhism was not his only
interest. Courts let religion languish to favour poets or dancers,
to build palaces or make war.
In the past, competition ensured wat pleased their supporters. A few
wat had elite patron whose support let them ignore popular wants,
but the vast majority had to accommodate local interests. That
brought the monks into the very heart of the local community and
fostered what we might call wat Buddhism. Of course this continuity
ensured divergence. Localities differed greatly. Thus Buddhism
underwent centuries of not just popularization but local
diversification. Traditional Thai rulers knew and cared little about
religious diversity in the countryside, but in the capital
difference was integral to the ranking that ordered society. Wat
were an arena of elite competition that pulled buddhism towards
conspicuous rituals of display.(16) Of course all of this changed
when, in the nineteenth century, Bangkok began to assert actual
control over its realm, and a Siamese elite started to make a
galactic polity(17) into a nation-state. Wat, being wedded to the
traditional polity, also had to change; and Buddhism became salient
because the West was non-Buddhist.
Wat and Reform
In the latter part of the nineteenth century Bangkok began to build
a nation by centralizing what elements of traditional society it
could and bypassing the rest. Where it faced entrenched provincial
elites, the capital sent its own officials and left the old lords to
wither. Where Bangkok's nobles resisted, the king governed through
his brothers. Sangha reform went the same way. Regional monkhoods
gave way to a national Sangha as recalcitrant monks were forgotten
and progressive ones staffed the new administrative hierarchy.(18)
Wat lost in many ways. When the old families fell their wat went
with them or adjusted to fill a new social niche. No longer was the
wat integral to the social hierarchy. Wat patronage was once
essential to lay status. Now it was only an option as the new elite
claimed position by ability and modern knowledge, not patronage and
character. Naturally most wat had no elite clientele to lose, but
this change still hit every wat. Cutting the tie between wat and the
social hierarchy at the top of society let wat become symbolically
peripheral everywhere. In decades it undid a wat-community intimacy
evolved over centuries.
Behind this sea change lay a sociological fact: Bangkok could
centralize the Sangha quickly and cheaply but bringing the wat along
too was slow, costly and self-defeating. Monks could be transferred,
trained and manipulated by rewards but wat entailed lay and monastic
communities that could and sometimes did resist outside rule.
Inevitably then the modernizing centre moved towards what worked. No
policy abandoned wat -- indeed the king tried valiantly to keep
Sangha and wat hierarchies aligned(19) -- but what the centre could
not control it had to forget and thus subtly devalue. So the wat
lost out just as many old families did.
Left behind, the wat was not left alone. Reformers asserted central
control to improve Buddhism and root out corrupt practices. Of
course many of these "corruptions" accommodated popular needs and
thereby made the wat the centre of lay Buddhism. In effect,
integrating monks into a national Sangha pulled them away from the
lay community and its local needs. Resistance could be strong but
two powerful mechanisms supported the centralizing tendency: rewards
pulled monks toward the centre while regulations reached out into
the countryside. Rewards encouraged reform. Who got what title,
honour, position, gift or invitation let rulers control monks and
wat. Such rewards were old but Bangkok's reach was new. Upcountry
local elites or villagers once decided honours. Lao villagers even
gave revered monks "royal" titles.(20) No one asked the king. But
now Bangkok "owned" the great honours, and these outshone and often
precluded local ones. Thus locals lost social controls and localism
thereby lost power. Of course as donors they still had a say, but
using its prestige and authority Bangkok got locals to pay for wat
that, increasingly, they did not run. Early on Bangkok encouraged
Pali scholarship but ignored meditation.(21) Administrative monks
won titles. Such monks encouraged well kept temples and so wat
prospered physically. Honours went to monks who built new wat or
restored old ones. Such deeds required great resources and yet the
catch was officials cut off many of the old routes of wat support.
Temple fairs illustrate this. These celebrations united wat and
community in fun and charity. But reformers found the frivolity
unseemly. So today the "best" wat do not have fairs and holding one
requires elaborate approval from civil as well as ecclesiastical
authorities.(22) Or take the great preaching monks (nakthet) whose
sermons made the Dhamma so entertaining that crowds and offerings
flooded the wat.(23) To early reformers a pure Sangha had no place
for undignified sermons and undisciplined preachers, and King Mongut
himself inveighed against this practice.(24) Not fun but purity
alone would have to draw people to the wat. While rewards encouraged
reform, regulations compelled change. Edicts forbade curing and
magical arts,(25) denying the benevolent protective powers that
brought people to the wat. Ordinations once joined the generations,
making the locality into a community.(26) But then reforms
restricted what wat qualified as ordination sites and who could be
an ordainer or get ordained.(27) No longer were the local abbot and
village wat at the heart of every ceremony. Now ordainers had to
meet educational standards and ordination sites needed royal
approval.(28) Such rules protected the Sangha's integrity at the
expense of local Buddhism.
Rules also tried to protect wat. Officials would not approve
starting a new wat near an old one lest one or both starve.(29)
Their fears were realistic but it was precisely such competition
that had kept wat close to local wants. Of course a monopoly lets a
wat follow official orders and forces locals to go along or give up
wat Buddhism altogether.(30) Similarly, abbots once redistributed
wat resources to build followings, but such "generousity" was not
always proper and here too reforms clamped down. Regulations
protected the wat as a public institution against the private
interests of its patrons and abbot.(31) At major wat officials
scrutinized the books and even began to collect wat rents and hold
them in trust. That protected the wat's assets but it also precluded
leadership. Entourages grow by giving. Dry up redistribution and the
wat's community dies as people seek more benevolent leaders and
institutions. Such reforms continue. Even in a remote village
Moerman notes "the tension between the temple as an agent of village
solidarity and the temple as an agent of the national state".(32) On
the other extreme, in Bangkok, the village is long gone but its
religious legacy -- popular Buddhism -- remains an issue. After over
a century of reforms, the results are complex and contradictory.
What Olson aptly calls "Phra Rajavaramuni's 'middle path' between
Thai tradition and the texts ..." faces more radical reformers.(33)
Both sides accept wat and their debate centres on correct practice,
not the unintended consequences of reform. So the wat is not even an
issue. Yet while the Sangha centralizes and turns monks towards the
centre, the wat remains inextricably local. Wat arose by joining lay
and monastic communities. Where these two diverge, the wat dies.
That happened often in the past but today the split is structural.
True, wat live on as property that can be protected or even gilded,
but reforms have made today's wat less local and more national, less
Thai and more Buddhist. Once a centre and often the centre of local
life, the wat is now an increasingly specialized institution cut off
by the rents and regulations aimed to protect it.
Is this all modernization? The label fits but such global externals
cannot replace specific internal causes. Here we see religion
changing religion in two ways Kirsch would call Buddhaization.(34)
One change, Buddhist reform, sought purity but sacrificed the wat's
popularity. True, Buddhist texts assume a pure monk is popular, but
then that says nothing about the wat. Indeed, the Pali texts never
mention wat, and so it is hardly surprising that text-based reform
is wiping away this Tai creation. The other impetus, centralizing
Sangha reforms, countered the wat's localism but failed to win
control of religion. What it did was turn the laity out of the wat,
breaking them out of communities and making them into religious free
agents. That created a clientele for today's religious
entrepreneurs, lay and monastic alike. Interpreting Contemporary
Change
Thai religion is changing. Amulets proliferate as shamen prosper and
Christianity grows. A new monkhood arises (Santi Asok) while in the
old one an eco-monk ordains trees.(35) Such events are odd, and yet
few doubt they tell us how Thai religion is changing. It is like the
news: what everyone knows, the "obvious", goes unsaid to let odd
events show what is happening. In effect we see where we are going
by first assuming we know where we are. In this case what everyone
"knows" is the traditional religion. Of course this is not how
religion actually was. It is an imagined religion, a past already
"corrected" by Sangha reforms. This has two direct implications.
First, by denying the past's actual diversity it magnifies the
present's apparent disintegration. Second, the historical source of
change, Sangha reforms, turns into an agent of continuity and thus
something else must explain the quite obvious fact of change. Of
course today none need look far, but once we leave the historically
evident institutional shift, it is all too easy simply to pair up
religious changes with social or material ones and assume the latter
cause the former. In this situation it helps to begin with the wat
where, at least in principle, we can track some historical changes
that put the present's changes in perspective. Let's work outward
from the wat to Thai Buddhism and then Thai religion. The wat has
changed. As Sangha reform pulled one way, society went another. Now,
as wat and society stand further apart, the wat becomes peripheral.
Ironically we could call this gap secularization or Buddhaization.
Both apply. Moving the wat away from society brought the Sangha
closer to its texts. If as Keyes says, "cultural life ...
traditionally centered on the wat ..." and, as we have argued, the
wat joined Buddhism and society, then changing the wat reconfigures
society and culture.(36)
Thai Buddhism has also changed. Buddhaization has made it "purer"
but as Kirsch argues the lost folk elements served functions that
Buddhism must now meet unmediated.(37) Here the wat is just one folk
element but its decline poses the issue of how to represent
community. Institutionally we can say Buddhism is moving from a
wat-localized to a Sangha-centred religion. Lay religiosity is
moving the same way. Look at amulets and meditation. Neither is new
but their popularity is growing.(38) Both dote on monks as
personalities, not wat as institutions. Each individualizes what the
wat made communal. So sanctity follows the institutional shift. What
leaves the wat goes to a monk who, as a leader, is a centre. Amulets
epitomize this shift. Once a wat's image or relic protected a whole
community. It still can but now the most coveted protecting power
goes from a monk to his follower. In effect sanctity shifts from a
societal container to an entourage, from Georges Condominas' model
of Thai society to that of Lucien Hanks.(39) Indeed breaking down
containers is how Bangkok's centralizing reshaped Thai society.(40)
In this instance officials did just what they set out to do -- they
got control of the Sangha -- but the ironic result has favoured
religious entrepreneurs of a sort officials disdain. Thai religion
is also changing. Three facts stand out. First, narrowing
"acceptable" Buddhism widened Thai religion. Practices and people
driven out of the well-controlled wat now flourish on an
uncontrolled religious market. Second, religion has a new clientele:
a middle class whose tastes and money already back reform Buddhism
and some new movements.(41) Where old money approached wat as
patrons wanting honour, this new wealth comes to religion as
consumers expecting results. Third, Bangkok overwhelmed localism to
make a nation whose variety now threatens to remake religion.
Centralizing brought the countryside under the capital, and now the
country's ways come into Bangkok and onto a mass market. Localism's
religious practices, evolved over centuries, are now free from place
and available to any Thai. So is every new concoction. Such choice
is new. Once every religious form belonged to a social or physical
niche, to an ethnic or occupational group. Today, however, anyone
can try anything -- and a lot do. Ritual practices still define
identity, but the person remains Thai amid the shifts. That lets
people choose as never before. Are people "shopping" for new
religious forms because the old ones failed? Not entirely. Few chose
to give up local wat, curing monks or great preachers. Sangha reform
took them away. Surely we need to know this before we impute angst
or infer Buddhism cannot meet modern religious needs. Urbanization
is the same. Religious ferment does centre in cities, but then so do
the wat-crippling reforms as well as the new middle class.
Are more opting out of religion, "buying" none? The issue arises
because religion itself is changing from practices conditioned by
social place to beliefs freely chosen. So far the result has been
religious enthusiasm, not estrangement. Of course, on the one hand,
choice stimulates enthusiasm while on the other skepticism was
already so well developed that it is hard to see how it could
spread.(42) What we do see, however. is an intense and engaging
world of entourages that includes religion and presumes religious
forces just as volatile and diverse as this social life is. Here
today's cults compete as wat once did. Is Thai Buddhism fragmenting
into cults? A movement like Thammakai differs from the official
Sangha, but these two are closer than the Siamese and regional
Sanghas were a century ago.(43) Of course differences once dispersed
across the land and often embedded in wat are now options
everywhere. That changes diversity from a reflex of place to a
consequence of choice. Obviously the latter is more volatile and, as
Thai society modernizes to imagine itself as the sum of individual
choices, diversity starts to look like disintegration. This is
ironic. Historically this is still an era of religious
homogenization. Indeed it is this new coherence that makes movements
like Santi Asok and Thammakai so threatening.
Conclusion
To interpret religious change we must connect religion and society.
In principle these two abstractions allow a multitude of
connections, but in practice we look for what we already expect to
see. That can hide the unexpected such as the consequences of reform
we have discussed. Whatever its intrinsic value this case also lets
us reflect on our expectations.
Every society and era prefers some explanations over others. Long
ago Alexis de Tocqueville suggested how aristocratic and democratic
eras differ in their preferred explanations. In aristocratic ages,
he observed, thinkers "are inclined to refer all occurrences to ...
certain individuals; and ... attribute the most important
revolutions to slight accidents". We may smile at their elitism, but
Tocqueville goes on to say our age is prone to the opposite
prejudice. We "assign great general causes at all petty incidents"
and imagine society moves "by the free and voluntary action of
all".(44) In Thailand today "aristocratic" and "democratic"
explanations of religious change abound. The former see
personalities and assign credit or blame, while the latter --
including social science -- do indeed "assign great general causes"
to every cult and fad. Time will tell who is right, but here our
interest is simply to identify their presumptions.
A further presumption is that modernity remakes the world. Once this
was an active West changing a passive East, but now modern ways
claim to carry their own irresistible force. Thus the past is dead,
religion must die or change, and society is no more than the sum of
its individuals. Accepting this, social science studies religious
change to see the old die and the new arise.(45) Take some "real"
force like capitalism or modernization, pair it up with a religious
change, and the former appears to cause the latter. In fact that may
be true, but the presumption replaces proof and further
investigation. In Thailand many argue over why religion is changing
but most agree on what the changes are. Such agreement is remarkable
in light of the religious diversity of just a century ago. It shows
people of differing pasts are becoming one. As they acquire a common
past, they learn to identify a religious "change" by whatever
deviates from the "traditional" religion, even if this fixed point
was not their tradition. Scholars who take this perception as
historical fact are likely to treat cults as seriously as officials
do. Here Tocqueville's aristocrat and democrat meet, although the
one is stopping troublemakers while the other is reading symptoms.
In this sweep of events the common wat and Sangha reform hardly seem
to matter. On the one hand, our stress on unintended consequences
offends the "aristocratic" intuition that powerful individuals get
what they want. On the other hand our focus on specific
institutional changes amid massive social change ignores the
"democratic" insight that revolutions sweep all along.
Yet there are methodological grounds for preferring our modest
explanation to grander ones. All else being equal, internal
explanations take precedence over external ones because the
endogenous is necessarily related to the change while the exogenous
need not be. Thus the wat takes precedence over extra-religious
explanations because, first, the wat's connection to religion is
never in doubt and, second, any extra-religious source of change
must work through religious phenomena such as the wat or it will not
have changed religion. The opposite need not be true (i.e., the wat
could change and have no extra-religious consequences). This is not
a special case. After all why do we prefer capitalism to global
warming as an explanation of religious change? Here capitalism is
endogenous, being in the society that includes religion, while
global warming is exogenous. Capitalism has an obvious impact on
religion and thus exploring it comes before invoking global warming
where the more distant connection multiplies the chances for error.
This methodological rule merely tells us how to proceed. It does not
preclude global warming as an explanation, but it does discourage
letting a distant cause replace an immediate one. In this sense our
argument for the wat's importance need not deny more distant causes,
but it may prove useful in tempering more sweeping conclusions. 1
J.L. Taylor, "New Buddhist Movements in Thailand: An
'Individualistic Revolution', Reform and Political Dissonance",
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 21, 1 (1990): 153.
2 Charles F. Keyes, "Political Crisis and Militant Buddhism in
Contemporary Thailand", in Religion and Legitimation of Power in
Thailand, Laos, and Burma, ed. B.L. Smith (Chambersburg: ANIMA,
1978), pp. 147-64.
3 S.J. Tambiah, The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of
Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, and
Millennial Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
pp. 344-46.
4 Tai refers to an ethnolinguistic family of related peoples who are
scattered from South China westward to Assam and southward to the
Malay peninsula. Within Thailand Tai peoples include Siamese, Yuan
(Northern Thai), Lu and Lao who are all now Thai.
5 Richard A. O'Connor, "Centers and Sanctity, Regions and Religion:
Varieties of Tai Buddhism" (Paper presented at the American
Anthropological Association Meetings, Washington, D.C., 5 Dec.
1985).
6 A.W. Sadler, "Pagoda and Monastery: Reflections on the Social
Morphology of Burmese Buddhism", Journal of Asian and African
Studies 5, 4 (1970): 282-93.
7 Wat first appears in the Vat Traban Jan Phoak Inscription but
later inscriptions (XCV, XIV, IX and XV) either do not use wat or
use it erratically with older forms (awat, aram, awatthammaram). See
A.B. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara, "The Inscription of Vat Traban
Jan Phoak: Epigraphic and Historical Studies No. 7" (henceforth
EHS), Journal of the Siam Society (henceforth JSS) 59, 1 (1971):
157-88; "EHS No. 22: An Inscription from Vat Hin Tan, Sukhodaya",
JSS 67, 1 (1979): 68-73; "The Inscription of Vat Khema: EHS No. 15",
JSS 63, 1 (1975): 127-42; "EHS No. 12: Inscription 9", JSS 62, 1
(1974): 89-121; and "The Inscription of Vat Brah Stec, near
Sukhodaya: EHS No. 16", JSS 63, 1 (1975): 143-60.
8 See for example Anuman Rajadhon, Life and Ritual in Old Siam:
Three Studies of Thai Life and Customs, trans. and ed. W.J. Gedney
(New Haven: HRAF Press, 1961). 9 Lucien M. Hanks, Rice and Man:
Agricultural Ecology in Southeast Asia (Arlington Heights, Ill: AHM
Publishing, 1972), pp. 103-110; Georges Condominas, "Pour une
definition anthropologique du concept d'espace social", Asie du
sud-est et monde insulindien 7, 2 (1977): 5-54, p. 43; Jack M.
Potter, Thai Peasant Social Structure (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1976), p. 150. 10 Potter, Thai Peasant, pp. 222-23.
11 Michael Moerman, "Ban Ping's Temple: The Center of a 'Loosely
Structured' Society", in Anthropological Studies in Theravada
Buddhism, ed. Manning Nash (New Haven: Yale University Southeast
Asia Studies, 1966), p. 138; Brian L. Foster, Social Organization of
Four Mon and Thai Villages (New Haven: HRAF, 1977), p. 108; Jacques
Nepote, "Pour une approche socio-historique du monachisme
Theravada", Peninsule 1 (1980): 94-135, 2-3 (1981): 119-84, 4-5
(1982): 135-88, 8-9 (1984): 137-96.
12 Hanks, Rice and Man, p. 108, and "The Thai Social Order as
Entourage and Circle", in Change and Persistence in Thai Society:
Essays in Honor of Lauriston Sharp, ed. G. William Skinner and A.
Thomas Kirsch (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1975), p. 215.
13 Report of Phra Thammatrailokkachan on organizing education,
Monthon Krungthep", 1899/1900, National Archives Bangkok !henceforth
NAB^ R5 S12/23; "Wat land of four wat in the area of Suan Dusit
!Palace^", 28 Sept. 1899, NAB R5 Kh4.5/4.
14 Letters from Chaophraya Phatsakorawong to Phraya Siharat, 3 Nov.
1900; and to Prince Sommot Amoraphan !letters no. 168 and 169^, 6
Nov. 1900, NAB R5 S10 Kh/1. 15 Richard A. O'Connor, "Urbanism and
Religion: Community, Hierarchy and Sanctity in Urban Thai Buddhist
Temples" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1978), pp. 128-51.
16 Richard A. O'Connor, "Cultural Notes on Trade and the Tai", in
Ritual, Power and Economy: Upland-Lowland Contrasts in Mainland
Southeast Asia, ed. Susan D. Russell (DeKalb: Northern Illinois
University Center for Southeast Asian Studies 1989), pp. 27-65.
17 S.J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976).
18 Charles F. Keyes, "Buddhism and National Integration in
Thailand", Journal of Asian Studies 30, 3 (1971): 551-67; Craig J.
Reynolds, "The Buddhist Monkhood in Nineteenth Century Thailand"
(Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1973); Tambiah, World Conqueror.
19 O'Connor, "Urbanism and Religion", pp. 172-88.
20 S.J. Tambiah, Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east
Thailand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 109-115.
21 O'Connor, "Urbanism and Religion", pp. 150-51.
22 O'Connor, "Urbanism and Religion", p. 228; Thalaeng Kan Khanasong
55, 9 (1967).
23 O'Connor, "Urbanism and Religion", pp. 149 fn 4, 228, 241-42.
24 G.E. Gerini, Chulakantamangala: The Tonsure Ceremony as Performed
in Siam (Bangkok: Siam Society, 2nd ed, 1976), pp. 57-58.
25 Thalaeng Kan Khanasong 44, 9 (1956): 265; 41, 1 (1952): 15.
26 Tambiah, Spirit Cults, p. 107.
27 Tambiah, World Conqueror, pp. 233-41, 387.
28 Burmese kings readily used their own royal ordainers and
ordination sites to control the Sangha, but the current Thai
practice goes back to King Mongkut whose insistence on a correct
site and proper ordainer created the Thammayut sect. Such
distinctions are intrinsically political and remain highly
controversial.
29 Wachirayan Warorot, Kankhanasong (Bangkok: Mahamakut
Ratchawithayalai, 1971), pp, 34-36; O'Connor, "Urbanism and
Religion", pp. 276-77.
30 Laos avoided these changes until recently, but now Taillard
observes that Lao villagers lose interest in festivals as officials
increase outside control. See Christian Taillard, "Le village lao de
la region de Vientiane: Un pouvoir local face au pouvoir etatique",
L'Homme 17, 2-3 (1977): 87.
31 O'Connor, "Urbanism and Religion", pp. 207-214; Craig J. Reynolds
"Monastery Lands and Labour Endowments in Thailand: Some Effects of
Social and Economic Change, 1868-1910", Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient 22,2 (1979): 190-227.
32 Moerman, "Ban Ping's Temple", p. 165.
33 Grant A. Olson, "Cries over Spilled Holy Water: 'Complex'
Responses to a Traditional Thai Religious Practice", Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies 22, 1 (1991): 85.
34 A. Thomas Kirsch, "Complexity in the Thai Religious System",
Journal of Asian Studies 36, 2 (1977): 241-66.
35 Susan M. Darlington, "The Ordination of a Tree: The Buddhist
Ecology Movement in Thailand" (Paper presented at the American
Anthropological Association Meetings, Chicago, 21 Nov. 1991).
36 Charles F. Keyes, Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern
Nation-State (Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1989), p. 178.
37 Kirsch, "Complexity", pp. 265-66.
38 Tambiah, The Buddhist Saints.
39 Georges Condominas, L'espace social a propos de l'asie de sud-est
(Paris: Flammarion, 1980); Hanks, "The Thai Social Order".
40 Richard A. O'Connor, "Siamese Tai in Tai Context: The Impact of a
Ruling Center", Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies 5, 1 (1990): 1-21.
41 Charles F. Keyes, "Ethnography and Anthropological Interpretation
in the Study of Thailand", in The Study of Thailand, ed. E.B. Ayal
(Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies,
Southeast Asia Program, 1978), p. 36; Taylor, "New Buddhist
Movements"; Edwin Zehner, "Reform Symbolism of a Thai Middle-Class
Sect: The Growth and Appeal of the Thammakai Movement", Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies 21, 2 (1990): 402-426.
42 On everyday skepticism see Richard A. O'Connor, "Merit and the
Market: Thai Symbolizations of Self-interest", Journal of the Siam
Society 74 (1986): 62-82. 43 Much of this diversity went unrecorded
and is ignored by "official" histories. Reynolds ("The Buddhist
Monkhood") notes some critical archival sources and Kamala
Tiyavanich supplements archival evidence with interviews and
biographies to trace variant traditions. See her paper "Center and
Periphery in the Thai Sangha since 1902", presented at the 43rd
Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, New Orleans, 13
Apr. 1991.
44 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage
Books, 1945), v. 2. p. 90.
45 Where social science imagines society as a collectivity of
choice-making individuals, it has a strong methodological bias
towards studying change to confirm its model of society. The reason
is change reveals choice as continuity cannot. Continuity makes it
impossible to differentiate between a person who agrees with his or
her choice, and another who has not thought to choose. Thus the
immense historical continuity of social life disappears behind
myriad studies of change.