Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:16:09.756Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Visions of Salvation: a Thai Buddhist Experience of Ecumenism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David Gosling
David Gosling
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Migration from the countryside to urban provincial centres and capital cities is a major reason why rural communities in southeast Asia suffer extensively from acute poverty and ill health. In Thailand, as elsewhere, it is principally the young and able who move to the cities in search of jobs, and whose departure impoverishes even more their home communities. The Thai Sangha has traditionally accommodated this pattern of migration by providing educational opportunities for those who ordain at an early age, but in recent years a variety of schemes has enabled monks to learn secular skills which equip them to become ‘practitioners of development’ in their home regions. This training has gone hand in hand with attempts by leading scholar monks to reformulate Buddhist teaching to emphasize the importance of living in self-reliant communities which are alert to the most up-to-date scientific information available on health care and environmental protection.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 31 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Contribution to US Social Science Research Council conference on the theme ‘Communities in Question: Religion and Authority in East and Southeast Asia,’ 4–8 May 1989.Google Scholar

1 Somboon, , Suksamran, , Political Buddhism in Southeast Asia: The Role of the Sangha in the Modernization of Thailand (C. Hurst, 1977).Google Scholar

2 Keyes, Charles F., ‘Buddhism in a Secular City’, in Visakha Puja, Buddhist Association of Thailand, BE 2518 (1976), pp. 64–5; same authorGoogle Scholar(ed.), Ethnic Adaptation and Identity (Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1979), p. 7.Google Scholar

3 Gosling, David L., ‘Redefining the Sangha's Role in Northern Thailand: An Investigation of Monastic Careers at Five Chiang Mai Wats’, in the Journal of the Siam Society, 71, 1 and 2 (1983), p. 75.Google Scholar

4 Stanley, J., Tambiah, , World Conqueror and World Renouncer (Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 283.Google Scholar

5 Gosling, David L., ‘New Directions in Thai Buddhism’, in Modern Asian Studies 14, 3 (1980); same author,CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Perspectives in Thai Buddhist Involvement in Science and Social Development’, in Visakha Puja, BE 2522 (1979), p. 34.Google Scholar

6 Keyes, , ‘Buddhism in a Secular City’, p. 64.Google Scholar

7 In the U.K. maw saw 3 and 5 would approximately translate into GCSE and A levels and prayog 3 would be equivalent to a GCSE level in religion.Google Scholar

8 Tambiah, , World Conqueror, Part 2.Google Scholar

9 Klausner, William J., Reflections in a Log Pond (Suksit Siam, 1972).Google Scholar

10 Gosling, David L., ‘Thai Monks in Rural Development’, in the Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 9, 1–2 (1981), p. 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Wasi, Prawese, ‘The Sangha and Medical Care: An Appreciation’, in Visakha Puja, Buddhist Association of Thailand, BE 2522 (1979), p. 37.Google Scholar

12 For details of traditional Thai diagnostic procedures, see Darot, Matthayat, Guidelines for Examinations in Medicine and Pharmacy (Second Edition, Bangkok, 1972), p. 25.Google Scholar

13 Tambiah, Stanley J., Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 133.Google ScholarBunnag, Jane comments on the more general decline of saiyasat arts in Ayutthaya in Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman (Cambridge University Press, 1973). For a full list of Thai maws,CrossRefGoogle Scholar see Yoddumnern, Benja, ‘The Role of Thai Traditional Doctors’, Research Report (Mahidol University, 1974).Google Scholar

14 Gosling, David L., ‘Thailand's Bare-headed Doctors’, in Modern Asian Studies 19, 4 (1984), p. 761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 784.

16 Riley, J. N. and Sermsri, , ‘The Variegated Thai Medical System as a Context for Birth Control Services’, Working Paper No. 6 (Mahidol University, 1974), p. 33.Google Scholar

17 Between 10% and 20% were from the provinces of Nakhon Ratchasima, Surin, Khon Kaen and Si Sa Ket. For further details, see Gosling, David L., ‘Thailand's Bare-headed Doctors: Thai Monks in Rural Health Care’, in the Journal of the Siam Society 74 (1986), p. 96.Google Scholar

18 Tambiah, , Buddhism (see fn. 13), pp. 50, 118.Google Scholar

19 Gosling, , ‘Thailand's Bare-headed Doctors’ (see fn. 17), p. 91.Google Scholar

20 Examples of the misuse of many drugs in Thailand have been documented by Melrose, Diana in Bitter Pills (Oxfam, 1982).Google Scholar

21 Gosling, , ‘Thailand's Bare-headed Doctors’ (see fn. 14), p. 786.Google Scholar

22 Traditional Thai pharmacy has points of affinity with Chinese and Ayurvedic systems; see Mulholland, J., ‘Thai Traditional Medicine: Ancient Thought and Practice in a Thai Context’, in the Journal of the Siam Society 67, 2 (1979), p. 81.Google Scholar

23 For further details of this and similar examples, see Gosling, , ‘Thailand's Bareheaded Doctors’ (see fn. 14), pp. 766ff.Google Scholar

24 For a recent summary of available references, see Sivaraksa, S., Occasional Papers 1–9; Seri Pongpit, Religion in a Changing Society: Buddhism and the Role of Monks in Community Development in Thailand;Google ScholarJackson, P., Buddhadāsa: A Buddhist Thinker for the Modern World, all available via the Suksit Siam Publishing House, Bangkok.Google Scholar

25 Gosling, David L., ‘Buddhism for Peace’, in the Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 12, 1 (1984), p. 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Communities in Action, Newsletter No. 16, World Health Organisation, 1985, p. 27.Google Scholar