Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies Charles Keyes, Vicente Rafael, and Laurie J. Sears, Series Editors Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies This series offers perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies that stem from reconsideration of the relationships among scholars, texts, archives, field sites, and subject matter. Volumes in the series feature inquiries into historiography, critical ethnography, colonialism and postcolonialism, nationalism and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, science and technology , politics and society, and literature, drama, and film. A common vision of the series is a belief that area studies scholarship sheds light on shifting contexts and contests over forms of knowing and modes of action that inform cultural politics and shape histories of modernity. Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism: Ton Duc Thang and the Politics of History and Memory by Christoph Giebel Beginning to Remember: The Past in the Indonesian Present edited by Mary S. Zurbuchen Seditious Histories: Contesting Thai and Southeast Asian Pasts by Craig J. Reynolds Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects edited by Laurie J. Sears Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand by Monica Lindberg Falk Love, Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the Philippine Propaganda Movement, 1882–1892 by Raquel A. G. Reyes Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand by Justin Thomas McDaniel © 2008 by the University of Washington Press Printed in the United States of America Designed by Thomas Eykemans 13 12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. University of Washington Press po Box 50096, Seattle, wa 98145 www.washington.edu/uwpress The paper used in this publication is acid-free and 90 percent recycled from at least 50 percent post-consumer waste. It meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McDaniel, Justin. Gathering leaves and lifting words : histories of Buddhist Monastic education in Laos and Thailand / Justin McDaniel. p. cm. — (Critical dialogues in Southeast Asian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-295-98848-1 (hardback : alk. paper)—isbn 978-0-295-98849-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Buddhism—Study and teaching— Laos—History. 2. Buddhism— Study and teaching—Thailand— History. 3. Buddhist monks— Education—Laos—History. 4. Buddhist monks—Education— Thailand—History. I. Title. bq162.l28m33 2008 294.3'7509593—dc22 2008006065 This book is published with the assistance of a grant from the Charles and Jane Keyes Endowment for Books on Southeast Asia, established through the generosity of Charles and Jane Keyes. For Christine, Henry, and Jane We hibernate among the bricks and live across the window panes . . . indifferent to what the wind does indifferent to sudden rains softening last year’s garden plots and apathetic, with cigars careless while down the street the spring goes inspiring mouldy flowerpots and broken flutes at garret windows. T. S. Eliot (1911) ...