Charismatic Monks of Lanna Buddhism ed. by Paul T. Cohen (review)

Ever since Max Weber wrote about 'charismatic authority' this sociological theme has served as an important anchor for understanding the rise of religious movements and the attraction that certain men and women have on other people. Although Weber's concept of charismatic authority does not necessarily conflate with religious authority, the sociological study of charisma thematically slips easily into the sociological study of religion. The collection of essays in the edited volume Charismatic Monks of Lanna Buddhism explores a tradition of Buddhist movements in northern Thailand and invites an elucidation of the Thai Buddhist conception of charisma referred to by the word barami. Its particular focus is on a lineage of charismatic monks (ton bun) that goes back to the early twentieth century and who are respectfully titled Khruba. These ascetics are monks who receive signs (nimit) through meditative absorption and special miraculous powers are attributed to them. In turn, they have had the ability to mobilize people for the construction of religious monuments.

In his introduction, Paul T. Cohen points out that although the studies in the book are consistent with Weber's definition of charisma, they try to reveal the distinct Thai Buddhist notions of barami. The Thai Buddhist concept is derived from Pali and emerges from a tradition that states that the Buddha-to-be (Bodhisattva) has to accumulate ten kinds of barami in each round of rebirth in order to achieve a state of moral perfection. Both Cohen and Lovenheim Irwin stress that in the northern Thai holy-man context, the individual who can attract a large following and mobilize people to build religious monuments is a person with barami. It is through their barami that the monks can generate a field-of-merit for laity who, by participating in the construction work of religious monuments, accumulate merit though their reverential involvement. In northern Thailand, as Lovenheim Irwin asserts, barami (charisma) emerges as a crucial means in the production of religious material spaces. Lovenheim Irwin also discusses an interesting feature of Buddhist holy-man charisma that is rooted in the idea that individuals can be united in barami as they support each other in enlightenment. Monks who share a barami-based relationship that recurs in their cycles of rebirth are individuals who are moving together towards enlightenment. In the northern Thai context some devotees believe that certain monks have this type of relationship with each other. Thus charisma here is also understood to accumulate across life-spans and can be shared between certain individuals. Cohen asserts that these monks form a specific charismatic tradition in which the expression of their charismatic practices circles around a relationship between meditation, receiving signs (nimit) and the building of Buddhist monuments. To further this point, Cohen, in his essay, compares one such northern Thai monk with the activities of a revered Theravada monk from the northeast. The northern monks of this tradition have been identified as bodhisattva who, through their activism, forgo the attainment of enlightenment out of compassion for others. Their activism generates fields-of-merit for people. Cohen attests that the Lanna holy-man tradition expresses itself in a form of Buddhist revivalism and active utopianism in contrast to the world-renouncing and mystical tradition of the forest monks in the northeast.

The most famous of the charismatic monks of this Lanna Buddhist tradition, and the one started this lineage, was Khruba Siwichai (1878–1938). This monk was active during the period when central Thailand was consolidating its hold on the area that is now its northern provinces and also tried to bring the northern sangha under centralized authority. Siwichai seems to have acted in opposition to these developments. When Siwichai was alive he had already developed a large following who attributed miracles to him, but he was considered to be a millennial holy-man and rebel by central Thai authorities. Katherine A. Bowie, in her contribution, discusses this monk's activities and their...