Written and Researched by
Enrique Chaljub & Joseph Roskop

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One Sangha, One Nation

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          As any Thai school child can tell you, Thai society has three pillars: Nation, Religion, and Monarchy. Despite not being the official religion, around 95% of Thailand is Buddhist. As we’ll explore, Buddhism has played a key role in the formation of a Thai national identity. Subsequently, it has historically been a source of moral legitimacy for both the forces in power, as well as inspiration for those dissatisfied with them. However, in today’s progressively modernized (and capitalized) Thailand, Buddhism’s core institution, the state-regulated Sangha (monastic community) is almost universally viewed as outdated and decaying. Moreover, there is little consensus on any solutions.

         

          While divergent sects of Buddhism (as well as it’s hybrid theologies) make the religion’s exact time of arrival to Thailand difficult to ascertain, archeological evidence indicates that by the 3rd century B.C.E., versions of Buddhism consistent with Pali Canon were being practiced en masse (Kusalasaya, 2006). The sect of Buddhism most commonly practiced in today’s Thailand is Theravada, characterized by its belief that Buddha was a teacher rather than a deity. Despite an almost monolithic Buddhist identity in Thailand, some Hindu influence also pervades its religious ceremonies. This includes the required use of Hindu clergymen to officiate the royal coronation ceremony for the Thai monarchy (The Coronation Ritual and Thai Kingship since the mid-nineteenth century, NUS Repository).

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          Regardless of its precise origin, the ubiquity of Buddhism in Thailand has led many to view the faith as integral to concepts of “Thainess” (Elliott & Wattanasuwan, 1999). This reality has been interpreted as being exploitative by some who claim that Thai Buddhism has been “captured by the state” (McCargo, 2004).

 

"The symbiotic relationship between the state and sangha has effectively limited

Buddhism to the role of legitimating state power, and the universalistic teachings

of Buddhism have been subordinated to nationalist ideology."

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          Sentiments such as this were rooted in the 1902 Sangha Act, enacted during a period in which King Rama V was defining boundaries around a formal Thai state; this was coupled with the attempted centralization of the predominating regional faith at time— Buddhism. With the Sangha act, religious power “theoretically became centralized in the Council of Elders” a select group of senior Bangkok monks who tended to have close ties to Thai monarchy and the social elite. This council was headed by a Supreme Patriarch (the Buddhist Sangha’s top ecclesiastical post)— a position which was itself appointed by the king.

 

          The end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 coincided with an increase in pressure on the Sangha leadership to form more inclusive institutions. This was widely viewed as a response to the fact that the Council of Elders tended to be dominated by a circle of elite, urban-based Thammayut monks — “[...] Mahanikai–Thammayut relations [were] a Sangha and state concern going back to the mid-nineteenth century, and became a more acute worry after the 1902 Sangha Act passed and the Thammayut expanded their influence upcountry” (Subrahmanyan, 2014).

 

          In turn, rural areas were generally the domain of the more diverse and numerous Mahanikai monks, stationed in more modest temples, or Wats. The presiding semi-democratic government after the Revolution of 1932 was initially disinclined to mediate any disputes within the Sangha, generally deferring all authority to the established Sangha elites. Over time, Mahanikai monks were able to lobby some parliamentary support to the cause of Sangha democratization, arguing that Sangha leadership was unfairly dominated by Thammayut monks– “to [the Mahanikai] the system of hierarchy was open to abuse by unscrupulous monks and the rules of the discipline were ignored because of the general privilege of the palace-founded Thammayut” (Subrahmanyan, 2014).

 

          This parliamentary support was eventually leveraged to pass a new Sangha Act in 1941, which aimed to democratize the Sangha leadership. However, enforcing the new act was another task altogether. Subrahmanyan writes, “Faced with Thammayut resistance, in the late 1940s Mahanikai activists repeatedly petitioned the government for fulfilment of the spirit and letter of the 1941 Sangha Act that was now obviously in danger of becoming meaningless.”

 

          The 1941 version of the Act was eventually overturned by an authoritarian government in 1962, which returned the authority to select the Supreme Patriarch to the king; a stark departure from the aspirations of previous Mahanikai monks. This was done in an apparent rebuke to the wave of quasi-democratization that had washed over Thailand in the previous 2 decades; and was shortly followed by a new Thai constitution in 1963.

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Divergent Movements

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          The rise of contradictory religious movements began in the 70’s, an especially chaotic decade in Thailand both politically and socially (see student movement.) Two movements in particular best exemplify the societal tug-of-war under which the future form of Thai Buddhism still hangs: the Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke. Each approached the crisis of faith facing an increasingly modernized and capitalized Thailand in two radically different ways. While the Dhammakaya embraced the new era, the Santi Asoke condemned it.

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Dhammakaya Meditation and Wat Phra Dhammakaya

 

          The Dhammakaya movement is primarily centered around its meditative style, an allegedly ancient and superior form of meditation practiced by the Buddha and his early disciples. The movement’s founder, Luang Phaw Sot, claimed to have rediscovered Dhammakaya meditation in the early 20th century during a supernatural experience after spending four hours meditating (Mackenzie 2007).

 

          The higher levels of Dhammakaya meditation are purported to give one special powers. These include the ability to: visit past lives; discover where someone was reborn; cure oneself and others of any disease; gain extra sensory perception; and perform mind control. The feats rumored to have been accomplished by Luang Pow Sot and his early disciples vary from curing the terminally ill, to mind travelling to the halls of power in Washington D.C. and dissuading  American leaders from dropping nuclear bombs on Thailand, instead having them target Japan (Mackenzie 2007).

 

          After the death of Luang Pow Sot in 1959, his disciples split ways. One of them, Kun Yai Chan, an illiterate woman responsible for the nuclear bomb miracle, founded the Dhammakaya Foundation at the present site of Wat Phra Dhammakaya. This temple in particular began to grow rapidly in large part due to its business-like approach to fundraising and recruitment, as well as the charismatic leadership and vision of former abbot (and current fugitive) Phra Dhammachayo. Wat Phra Dhammakaya is presently the fastest growing temple in Thailand with around 600 - 800 monks, 300 - 500 novice monks, more than 1000 paid officials, and millions of followers worldwide. The temple now covers an area spanning ~800 acres and contains massive structures like a cetiya with 1 million depictions of the Buddha (Mackenzie 2007).

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