in Twentieth-Century Thailand.
By Kamala Tiyavanich.
Volume 48, Number 3
July 1998
P. 514-516
Copyright University of Hawai'i Press
P.514 Wandering monks of the Theravada Buddhist tradition are known for their pursuit of patipatti(practice, i.e., of meditation) , as opposed to the pariyatti (learning) pursued by those labeled " town monks. " The lifestyle of wandering monks is impressive in its asceticism and strict adherence to the monastic discipline (Paali: vinaya). In addition to the 227 precepts to which all fully ordained Theravaadin monks adhere, wandering forest monks vow to follow additional precepts regulating austere practices (Paali : dhutanga ; Thai: thudong, which dictate total relinquishment of material wants. Thudong practitioners are allowed to depend on food received only from alms rounds, eating only one meal per day, and they must wear robes made from discarded cloth. Included among the additional precepts are the "tree-root- dweller's practice" and the "open-air dweller's practice." These dictate that the forest must be the monk's home. Kamala Tiyavanich's book Forest Recollections draws from published memoirs and biographical material written by or about some of Thailand's thudong monks. The study is both historical and anthropological, and its stated aim is "to introduce the reader to the thudong master Man [Phuurithatto] and his disciples through their writings, dictation, and recorded conversations... through their own recollections along with those of others" (p. 12). The book gives us glimpses of the lives of ten monks in particular, who became lifelong monastics and who followed the thudong lifestyle for several decades. All ten lived during an era Tiyavanich calls "the Forest-Community Period, " which spans the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. During this period Thailand's population was low, its urban areas were largely undeveloped, and its villages were remote from urban centers. While the text focuses on the intimate details of these monks' daily encounters, a fascinating subtext filters through, with views of the irreversible change occurring throughout Thailand's landscape and culture during this period, of unprecedented transformation. Tiyavanich first traces the background of the ten monks and recounts what little is known about their reasons for undertaking the wandering life and how they became affiliated with their teacher. The author is interested in the local traditions ( Lao, Mon, Khmer, Shan, Yuan, Siamese ) of these monks and those of the villagers they met. She explores what P.515 they were taught, how they trained, what they taught others, and why they thought their religion was worth preserving. She furnishes lengthy accounts of the various hardships encountered by the monks in the forests and among villagers unfamiliar with thudong practice, providing vivid impressions of their struggles to overcome bodily suffering and sexual desire. The book is filled with direct quotes from the monks' narratives and laced throughout with the philosophy of Ajan (teacher) Man, which is the foundation of their practice. Tiyavanich assumes that her readers are already familiar with the acclaimed Buddhist "saint" Phra Ajan Man Phuurithatto (1870-1949) , and she gives no explanatory introduction to him, his tame, or his importance in the recent history of Thai Buddhism. Instead, the author reveals Ajan Man himself, in his own words and through the voices of his disciples; the reader hears his teachings directly, rather than an interpretation or commentary on his ideas. For instance, Ajan Man insisted that staying in the wild was a proven method for reducing and eventually eliminating the defilement of fear. He taught that fear is a response of the ordinary, untrained mind, while the mind of a thudong practitioner dwells on the dhamma (teachings of the Buddha, truth) and is thereby "equipped with self protection" (p. 90). Similarly with pain and physical distress, Ajan Man taught that meditation can be used to overcome illness (p. 125); instead of trying to relieve physical symptoms, monks who are sick or hurt should observe pain without reacting, for thereby they can realize the truth of suffering (p. 111). Indeed, teachings on self-reliance were vital for thudong monks wandering the forests at the turn of the century; often a wandering monk "never knew where he would spend the night, where the next meal would come from, or what difficulties he would encounter" (p. 143) in his prolonged sojourns in the forest. Malaria was rampant in the early part of the twentieth century, with few commercial drugs available in outlying villages. Wandering monks had to rely on herbal remedies made from forest products, and many did not survive. Confrontations with tigers were an accepted and inescapable part of their lives. Equally difficult were ventures into remote areas where villagers had no idea how to treat monks or were ignorant of the tradition of giving alms. In more recent times, during the Vietnam war era when anticommunist hysteria was at its peak, thudong monks were targeted as insurgents or communist sympathizers. Many were arrested or prevented from wandering. It is perhaps to be expected that a work containing so much original material derived from so many different narratives would falter in the area of organization. This is noticeably the case with Forest Recollections. One gets somewhat lost in the manifold anecdotes, as if looking at a photograph album containing too many pictures scattered on each P.516 page without discernible arrangement. There is simply too much in the way of personal minutiae about who went where and who saw or thought what. Rhetorical connections between these disjointed details are in places lacking Yet it must be said that, for the most part, Tiyavanich's writing style is enjoyable and readable, which is remarkable for a work of such scholarship. Another weakness of the text is the disparity in its explanatory framework. In places Tiyavanich assumes that the reader has no background knowledge of the fundaments of Buddhism or Thai history, while in other areas the author leaves out or saves until later important preliminary explanations needed for a full understanding of the religious information presented. Specific Buddhist terms are not always defined as they arise, although a helpful glossary accompanies the text. One theme Tiyavanich uses to hold the material together is unfortunately employed to excess: her stance of antipathy toward Bangkokbased central Buddhist authority. She claims that officials within the national Buddhist hierarchy, whose power and authority began with the promulgation of the Sangha Act of 1902, have always believed that "their rationalized form of Buddhism was superior to local 'superstitions,' and they have insisted that state Buddhism was applicable to everyone" (p. 156). Tiyavanich argues that the thudong monks she investigated "refused to follow Bangkok's path" (p. 46), while those who adhered to modern state Buddhism "considered it shameful to live a thudong life, and some even saw it as undisciplined vagrancy" (p. 65). It is evident that much of what the author seeks to glorify is the wealth of local traditions from which the thudong monks came and in which they participated throughout the remote regions of northern and northeastern Thailand. Yet in 1902, the King's purpose in establishing a centralized Buddhist bureaucracy was to facilitate a comprehensive, nation-building process of cultural homogenization; thus it should not seem surprising that the nation-state and its religious affiliates were intolerant of divergent beliefs, practices, and lineages. Although the results of cultural homogenization deserve substantial criticism, it is regrettable that Tiyavanich gives Bangkok-bashing disproportionate attention. Beyond these minor criticisms, Forest Recollections stands as an invaluable sourcebook for those interested in Theravada Buddhism, and as mandatory reading for anyone learning the history of Thai Buddhism. Some eighty pages of notes accompanying the text attest to the work's meticulous research and the author's respect for the complexities of her subject. The wealth of previously untranslated original material presented in this volume makes it a refreshing resource for Buddhist and Southeast Asian studies.