Buddhism in Thailand: Negotiating the Modern Age

Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives

Volumn , Issue , 2006, Pages 101-128

  McDaniel, Justin ^a,b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85187324084     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (25)

1. HeikkiläHorn, MarjaLeena. 1999. Two Paths to Revivalism in Thai Buddhism: The Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke Movements. Temenos 32:93–11.
2. Ishii, Yoneo. 1986. Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History. Trans. Peter Hawkes. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
3. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. 1991. Thai Women in Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
4. Kaeodaeng, Rung. 2542 [1999]. Rai ngan sathiti dan sasana khong brathet thai 2542 samnakngan gana kammakan seuksa haeng chat samnak naiyok ratamontri. Bangkok: Samnakngan gana kammakan seuksa haeng chat samnak naiyok ratamontri [Office of the National Ministry of Education under the Office of the Prime Minister].
5. Keyes, Charles. 1999. Moral Authority of the Sangha and Modernity in Thailand: Sexual Scandals, Sectarian Dissent, and Political Resistance. In Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium: Essays in Honor of the Ven. Phra Dhammapitaka (Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto) on his 60th Birthday Anniversary, ed. Pipob Udomittipong, 121–147. Bangkok: SathirakosesNagapradipa Foundation; Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
6. McDaniel, Justin. 2002. The Curricular Canon in Northern Thailand and Laos. Manusya: Journal of Thai Language and Literature Special Issue: 20–59.
7. Mulasilpa, Wutichai. 2539 [1996]. Kan patirup kanseuksa nai sami phrapatsomdet phracjulachomklaochao yu hua. Bangkok: Thai Wattana Panich.
8. Prangtip, Daorueng. 2000. Thailand: Temple Politics. Faith and Charity. An Angry Monk Is Drawn into a Political Row That Threatens the Democrat Party’s Election Hopes. Far Eastern Economic Review, June 29, 68–71.
9. Reynolds, Craig. 1972. Buddhist Monkhood in Nineteenth Century Thailand. PhD dissertation, Cornell University.
10. Santikaro Bhikkhu. 1996. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society through the Natural Eyes of Voidness. In Buddhist Liberation Movements, ed. Sallie King and Christopher Queen, 147–189. Albany: State University Press of New York.
11. SathaAnand, Suwanna. 1999. Looking to Buddhism to Turn Back Prostitution in Thailand. In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Joanne Bauer and Daniel Bell, 193–211. New York: Cambridge University Press.
12. Swearer, Donald. 1996. Sulak Sivaraksa’s Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society. In Buddhist Liberation Movements, ed. Sallie King and Christopher Queen, 195–230. Albany: State University of New York Press.
13. Taylor, James. 1997. “Thammachaat”: Activist monks and competing discourses of nature and nation in Northeastern Thailand. In Seeing Forests for Trees: Environment and Environmentalism in Thailand, ed. by Philip Hirsch, 37–50. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
14. Taylor, James. 1999. Forest Monks and the NationState: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
15. Yukio, Hayashi. 2003. Practical Buddhism among the ThaiLao: Religion in the Making of a Region. Kyoto: Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
16. Bizot, François. Le bouddhisme des thais. Bangkok: Editions des Cahiers de France, 1993. A good, basic (albeit short) introduction to mainstream Thai Buddhism. Bizot’s particular focus is on modern practices, especially those in rural areas. He also questions the arbitrary divisions among magic, ritual, philosophy, canon, and commentary that seem to dominate studies of modern Buddhism in Thailand.
17. Brown, Sid. The Journey of One Buddhist Nun: Even Against the Wind. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. This biographical study tells the story of Wabi, a young poor woman who struggles to educate herself as a Buddhist nun. The work presents a unique perspective on contemporary issues related to gender in Thai Buddhism.
18. Hirsch, Philip, ed. Seeing Forests for Trees: Environment and Environmentalism in Thailand. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 1997. Presents seminal articles by James Taylor and Santita Ganjanapan regarding the ways in which Buddhist, Karen, and Leu religious beliefs, especially in northern and northeastern Thailand, have influenced environmental policy and have formed the backdrop for ecological protests. A good place to start for understanding the relationship in modern Thailand between religion and ecology.
19. Ishii, Yoneo. Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History. Translated by Peter Hawkes. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986. Still the most reliable study of the relationship between state/royal reforms and Buddhist administration and practice in contemporary Thailand. Although excluding a serious examination of regional Buddhist practices, it offers an excellent overview of elite, topdown changes. It serves as an excellent companion to Craig Reynolds’ 1972 dissertation from Cornell University, “The Buddhist Monkhood in Nineteenth Century Thailand.”
20. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. Thai Women in Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1991. A wideranging series of commentaries on women and Buddhism in Thailand. Kabilsingh discusses the relationships between prostitution and nunhood, offers a feminist reading of several Buddhist texts, and presents her own vision of the future roles of women in religion in Thailand.
21. Sivaraksa, Sulak. Global Healing: Essays and Interviews on Structural Violence, Social Development and Spiritual Transformation. Bangkok: Thai InterReligious Commission for Development, SathirakosesNagapradipa Foundation; Distributed in USA by Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA, 1999. The most comprehensive collection of writings of Thailand’s most vocal Buddhist and social critic. Offers an indepth explanation of Sulak’s notion of “structural violence” and ways to incorporate Buddhist ethics into development work and democratic reform.
22. Swearer, Donald. The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Offers a novel perspective on the ways in which Buddhist ritual, state reform, and local religious beliefs and practices are woven into ritual, art, and narrative in modern Southeast Asia (with a heavy emphasis on Thailand). The clearest and most sophisticated introduction to religion in Thailand.
23. Udomittipong, Pipob, ed. Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium: Essays in Honor of the Ven. Phra Dhammapitaka (Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto) on his 60th Birthday Anniversary. Bangkok: SathirakosesNagapradipa Foundation: Foundation for Children; Distributed in North America by Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, 1999. A series of essays commenting on the growing trend in socially engaged Buddhism in Thailand. The contributors have been students and admirers of Thailand’s most famous scholar monk, Phra P. A. Payutto.
24. Van Esterik, Penny. Materializing Thailand. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2000. A provocative approach to the diverse ways in which Buddhist and social ethics are manipulated and created in Thai society. Through a wide range of stories, Van Esterik tries to present the sophisticated and often stultifying ways in which gender is constructed in Thailand; however, she refrains from offering one totalizing concept of gender or Buddhism.
25. Yukio, Hayashi. Practical Buddhism among the ThaiLao: Religion in the Making of a Region. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 2003. The most indepth and sophisticated study of the relationships among nation building, regionalism, religion, and ethnicity. Traces the history of state/royal religious reform, communism, millenarianism, and ritual practice in northeast Thailand during the past century.