Religion and Resistance: Christianity and the Refashioning of Theravada Buddhism in Nineteenth-Century Siam
Asian Studies
Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
History of Science
Final Report Abstract
From c. 1830 onwards, discussions on religion became a central arena of conflict between rival regimes of knowledge in Siam (present-day Thailand), confronting traditional Siamese Buddhist views on nature and man’s existence with the ideals and practices of science and rationalist thought coming from the West. The project explains how Buddhism became a major instrument in the struggle for spiritual and political authority in Siam, and describes how the intrusion of colonial modernity and the enduring power of Thai culture and identity were negotiated in the nineteenth century. Buddhist reform movements in Siam from the late eighteenth century onwards have paved the way for a new form of religious orthodoxy based on scripturality and canon. The Project demonstrates that Buddhists and Protestants shared from the outset a belief in textuality, religious purity and scientific knowledge that has developed coevally in different religious contexts. Despite many religious conflicts between Christians and Buddhists, these convictions could serve as a common ground for religious debates and at the same time provided a basis for creating a modern vision of Buddhism as a ‘rational religion’. Encounters with evangelical Christians inspired Siamese Buddhists to engage in a comparative study of religions used to developing and reaffirming a distinctively Buddhist national identity. Nineteenth-century missionary writings in Thai were profoundly exclusive in perspective and were informed by a notion of radical alterity that forced Buddhists scholars to reformulate their doctrines in ways compatible with Western concepts of ‘religion’. At the same time, the introduction of printing technology and new concepts of education opened up an avenue for the Siamese to disseminate their own religious ideas to a wider (Thai-speaking) audience. The confrontation with Christianity strengthened rather than weakened the ties between Buddhism and the Thai monarchy. The royal government left the traditional hierarchical order (Sakdina) intact and did little against the almost unlimited power of the king and his court. Critics of the absolute monarchy were either banished or silenced, irrespective of their social status. Siamese kings used their authority as the only remaining independent rulers in the Theravāda-Buddhist world to support the Buddhist communities in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, and (to a much lesser extent) Burma, while carefully avoiding any political conflict with European colonial powers. The project has complicated the postcolonial narrative of a Western transformation of Buddhism by calling attention to the Siamese as central agents of religious change. In contrast to developments in Sri Lanka, Siamese Buddhists made use of but did not depend on Western-language concepts to express their ideas on Buddhist modernity, and adopted Western forms of education only under the condition that Christian teachers used a ‘secularized’ curriculum. The most important Thai Buddhist writings were published in the vernacular, above all the Kitchanukit of 1871 and the Thai language edition of the Pāli Tipiṭaka of 1898. This may explain why the direct impact of Siamese ideas of ‘modern Buddhism’ in Western countries was smaller than initially thought. While progressive Singhalese Buddhists published much of their work in English, only few Siamese books or treatises on religion have been translated into Western languages. While the project demonstrates that the influence of Siamese reformers in South and Southeast Asia was stronger than is reflected in present scholarship, most of their ideas were only available in Thai or Pāli and therefore could not reach a Western audience.
