Swearer, Donald K.

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Swarthmore College Works   Religion Faculty Works   7-1-1975  Review Of "Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study Of Urban Monastic Organization In Central Thailand" By J. Bunnag  Donald K. Swearer Swarthmore College, dsweare1@swarthmore.edu   Let us know how access to this work benefits you.  Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion   Part of the Religion Commons   Recommended Citation Donald K. Swearer. (1975). "Review Of "Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study Of Urban Monastic Organization In Central Thailand" By J. Bunnag". Journal Of The American Oriental Society. Volume 95, Issue 3. 548-549. http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-religion/135  This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu.    ReviewReviewed Work(s): Budhist Monk, Buddhist Layman. A Study of Urban MonasticOrganization in Central Thailand by Jane BunnagReview by: Donald K. SwearerSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 95, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1975), pp.548-549Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/599404Accessed: 25-08-2017 18:02 UTCJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a widerange of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity andfacilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/termsAmerican Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Journal of the American Oriental SocietyThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:02:59 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:02:59 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termssouth-eastern and north-western group according to the use they make of Jong final vowels in various syntactic environments. Of particular interest is the general retention of long -ii before enclitics. The comparison of this phenomenon with pluti (p. 88) seems barely justified, since pluti occurs in a totally different semantic and syntactic context, in urgent questions and in calling from a distance. It would have been preferable to link the retention of long final -ii with other features of emphasis noticeable before enclitics in Prakrit: these need to be investigated further, e.g., the preferred use of -iini instead of -iiir[I in the neuter plural before enclitics. But the present study does not deal with any linguistic matters as general as this, it is a true depth study, exhaustively documented. The style of the work is cumbersome, but the headings above each page facilitate reference. The author could be accused of over-stating his case but he does show convincingly that the notation of final vowels in the Asokan inscriptions is by no means as random as had been thought, and that the pauses are meaningful probably even beyond their function as punctuation marks. He goes further and speaks of "zwei unterschiedliche Vortragsweisen der kaiserlichen Urkun-dentexte, rezitiert jeweils in Gegenwart der je fiir sich fiir die Fixierung verantwortlichen Schriftklinstler." (p. 38). This may appear somewhat exaggerated, because as Janert himself admits (p. 39) we do not know how the texts were transmitted from the imperial court to the stone-mason . The second and major part of the book is also a con-tinuation of earlier work by Janert: it was started already in 1956 and consists of an edition of the IG!si Rock Inscription and a synoptic edition of the Pillar Edicts, as well as the inscriptions of Rummindei, Nigali Sagar (Calcutta)-Bairat, Sopiira, Ahraura and the Bombay Vase. Janert gives his own transcription for each line of text followed immediately by Hultzsch's transcription, and by detailed notes on graphical matters. The main change introduced by J anert lies in the notation of pauses, even small gradations of distances between letters are noted. This is a very useful piece of work: it is followed by 107 excellent photographic reproductions of impressions showing those inscriptions which were transcribed. Whereas the first part of the present book contains material and argumentation that will serve for reference, this second part is ideally suited for a much wider public than appears to be envisagfd by the author; the tran-scriptions and the beautiful clear reproductions combine to make a fine reader for students learning the Brahmi script. This book will therefore be of great value for the future study of Afokan inscriptions. L.A. ScHWARZSCHILD AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, CANBERRA 548 Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.3 (1975) Buddhist Alonk, Buddhist Layman. A Study of Urban Monastic Organization in Central Thailand. By JA!'.'E BuNNAG. Pp. 219. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVER-SITY PRESS. 1973. $17.00. Jane Bunnag's Buddhist Nlonk, Buddhist Layman proposes to analyze the religious roles of these two groups and the relationship between them. She does so from the somewhat behaviouristic perspective that the nature of their role performance hinges largely on the social and economic status of the individual actors. She does not engage either the kind of social-psychological correlates pursued by Melford Spiro in his study of Burmese Bud-dhism (Buddhism and Society, reviewed hl OS 93.4 [1973] pp. 603-7) or the functional and structural cor-relates S. J. Tambiah synthesizes in his study of myth and ritual (Buddhism and Spirit Culls in Northeast Thailand, reviewed JAOS 92.2 [1972] pp. 327-8). In relationship to the two above mentioned works Bunnag is closer to Spiro in that both locate the explanatory key to role performance in the social matrix. They differ considerably, however, in that Spiro focmes on the isomorphism between child-rearing patterns, religious role performance, and religious belief while Bunnag concentrates on the economic status of menk and layman within Thai society. Consequently, she is interested in such i~sues a;: the great majority of monks in permanent residence in the Ayutthaya region of her study come from farming or lower class urban grouw for whom the monk-hood offers a form of social mobility; and, the degree to which a layman's economic status affects the nature of the reciprocal relatiomhip (merit-material support) be-tween monk and layman. Bunnag organizes her vast amount of material in a logical, coherent manner moving from a brief analysis of the Thai social system, then on to a study of the monk, the relationship between the monastic and lay commu-nities, the wat (temple-monastery) and its social matrix, the role of the layman, and an interesting addenda where she casts new light on the characteiization of Thailand as a loosely structured social system. The research for this study was carried out in the town of Auytthaya, central Thailand, in 1966-67, and holds a special interest for its attempt to analyze institutional Buddhism within a provincial town rather than a village. Consequently, some of the special features of Dr. Bunnag's study stem particularly from this context, e.g. the mulliplicity and variety of wats, religious and l:Jy actors; the effects of modernization and westernization on role performance. Indeed, this last issue is not discussed thoroughly enough and is one of the disappointing features of this volume. For example, no mention is made of the Dhammadhula This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:02:59 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsReviews of Books 549 in Ayutthaya, an arena in which some interesting role relationships are emerging between monk and layman. From this reviewer's perspective the most provocative part of the study is the chapter on the monk and the lay community. There Dr. Bunnag analyzes the most eminent Ayutthaya monks into two basic types-active and passive. The most highly revered monk in the town, Chao Khun Thep, is a passive type-elderly, generous, detached-embodying many of the highest Buddhist ideals. The active type may have special educational qualificatiom, be a particularly good administrator, or a charismatic speaker. This discussion addresses in its own way the "'eberian problem of the other-worldly/this worldly dilemma. Bunnag avoids an easy generalized solution and seems to be almost implicitly contending that in a monk like Chao Khun Thep the polarity is resolved by someone who is in the world but not of it. His attitude toward life, exprefsed in a variety of religious activities, gains the respect of the lay community. There haf been and continues to be among western students of Buddhism 3 tendency to make the ideal of Buddhism too other-worldly, thereby emphasizing the apparent dilem-ma or contradiction between normative Buddhism and its institutional form in modern southeast Asia. Such a simplistic binary perspective does justice neither to the complexity of early Indian Buddhism nor modern Southeast Asian forms. On the level of Buddhist texts or the normative ideology of Buddhism as embodied, for example, in the Sutta Nipata there are several levels of interpretation and it is really somewhat amazing that western students of Buddhbm raised in a form-historical, critical milieux should often be so literalistic in their approach to Buddhist scripture. Buddhist l'tfonk, Buddhist Layman is to be commended for ils vast array of data which, however, borders on the excessive. This study will allow future researchers helpful statistics for comparative work in other parts of the country; nevertheless, the reader wishes they would have been assimilated into a more decisive interpretative scheme or perspective. While challenging crude attempts at correlating Buddhist ideology and social behavior, Dr. Bunnag does not really address that interesting issue at all, and afte1 completing the volume the reader is apt to be left with a rather vague feeling of not knowing quite what to do with the vast specificity of the data. Still, Dr. Bunnag has addressed a problem in need of serious attention and her volume is a welcomed addition to the growing body of material on Thai Buddhism. One hopes that the study of the literature of Thai Bud-dhism will, in the not too distant future, begin to catch up with array of sociological and anthropological research. DoNALD K. SWEARER SWARTHMORE COLLEGE Cosmogony and Creation in Balinese Tradition. By C. HooYKAAS. Bibliotheca Indonesica - No. 9. Pp. vii + 177. 2 Plates (and numerous drawings in the text). The Hague: :\IARTI~t:s NuuoFF. 1974. DGu. 50,-Of the Saiva sects in India the Lakulifa-Pasupatas have become particularly important for Indonesia. The Vayupurd{la XXIII. 217-225 and the Lingapura~w XXIV. 124-133 contain a passage about the last (28th) incarnation of Siva as Lakulin (Lakulifa) and his four ascetic-disciples Kusika, Garga, Mitra and Kauru~ya (R. D. Bhandarkar, JBBRAS. XXII (1910), p. 154). In a pillar inscription from Mathura, dated 380 A.D. and dealing with the installation of two lingas, a spiritual leader states that he is the tenth in succession from Ku-sika, the latter apparently being the founder of a partic-ular branch of the Lakula system of yoga and the disciple of Lakulin (Bhandarkar, Epigraphia Indica XXI (1931-32), p. 5). This points to the first quarter of the second century A.D. as Lakulin's date (idem, p. 7). The sect must have spread from Karvdl) (not Karwar, Hooykaas, p. 130) in the Baroda State. A Gargya branch in Kathiii-wa<;I, known from a prasasti of about the end of the 13th century A.D. (later than the purd{lu-passage), mentions Kusika-Cargya-Kauru$a-Maitreyal} as the names of the four disciples. No doubt, the four branches faithfully kept the memory of the founder "Bhattaraka Sri-Laku-lifa." About the tenth century there seems to have been a revival owing to the activities of a monk Chilluka, in whom LakuliSa was said to have been born again. In the following centuries the Lakulifa system spread widely, as is testified by inscriptions ranging from Gujarat and Rajputana to Mysore. Particularly Belgami in N. W. Mysore was the center of Kii.liimukha monks "where commentaries were made on the Lakulifa-siddhanta, the Pataiijali, and other Yoga systems" (Lewis Rice in Hastings, Encyclnpaedia of Religions and Ethics IX, p. 68; cf. R. W. Frazer, XI, p. 93). In Central Java the "five Kusikas" (Paiica-Kosika) are mentioned for the first time on the copper-plates of Kaiicana, dated 860 A.D. In accordance with the Indo-nesian system of classification they were, as the "five Seers" (Paiica Resi), associated with the four cardinal points (in the order E.: Kusika, S.: Garga, W.: Metri, N.: Kurusya, center: Prataiijala) and as such equated to the five gods Isvara, Brahma, Mahadeva, Vigm and Bhattara Guru, to the five colours, the five Tathagatas of the Buddhists, etc. So far this is the well-known story of acculturation processes. In Bali, however, an entirely new element was introduced by the incorporation of the four "concomi-tants of physical birth," viz., the amniotic fluid, the blood, 

Review Of  Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study Of Urban Monastic Organization In Central Thailand  By J. Bunnag

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Review Of Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study Of Urban Monastic Organization In Central Thailand By J. Bunnag

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