Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand

7. Relations with Sangha Officials

1 7 2 CHAPTER 7 Relations with Sangha Officials During the Forest-Community Period, the same wandering monks who had little difficulty communicating with villagers or coping with wild animals frequently had problems relating to certain administrative Thammayut monks, who viewed them either as outlaws or just lazy. The relationship between the wandering monks of Man’s lineage and the urban-based Thammayut administrators was complex and ambiguous. After the passage of the 1902 Sangha Act, wandering monks were under the control of sangha officials in the major towns of the Northeast or in Bangkok where their preceptors resided. Three senior Isan monks are most often mentioned in thudong monks’ accounts: Jan Sirijantho (Ubali Khunupamajan ), abbot of Wat Boromniwat; Nu Thitapanyo (Panyaphisan ), abbot of Wat Sapathum; and Uan Tisso (Somdet Maha Wirawong), sangha leader of monthon Nakhon Ratchasima. Although all three were born and raised in the Northeast—they were natives of Ubon Ratchathani—these senior Thammayut monks were wedded to modern state Buddhism, and their overall attitudes rep-resented those of Bangkok.1 Due to the isolation of the region and the small number of local monks with academic training who could teach Thai, the sangha authorities had difficulty spreading Bangkok’s curriculum to the remote towns. It took them over two decades, until 1925, to CHA PTE R 7 • R e l a t i o n s w i t h S a n g h a O f f i c i a l s 173 finally establish state monastic schools in all four major towns in the Northeast (the capital towns of monthon Ubon Ratchathani, monthon Nakhon Ratchasima, monthon Roi-Et, and monthon Udon).2 Although initially the central sangha did not approve of the thudong practices, it tried to recruit Man’s disciples during the early 1930s. It got them to help convert villagers to its form of Buddhism and establish new Thammayut wats—activities which helped the state consolidate its influence over the countryside. During this period the monastic order to which the wandering monks and their superiors belonged had been weakened by the decline in power of the Thai monarchy. A series of events that took place in Bangkok reveals why the Thammayut elders began to accept Man and his disciples. One Thammayut leader in Bangkok , who was nearing the end of his life, underwent a complete change of attitude with regard to wandering monks and abandoned his suspicions about them. THE VIEW FROM BANGKOK Whereas villagers who followed the Lao and Khmer traditions respected wandering ascetics, sangha authorities saw them as undisciplined vagrants. This suspicion created considerable tension within the small Thammayut order. Like many other high-level monks of his time, Uan Tisso, an academic monk and a monthon sangha head known for his administrative skills, paid no attention to meditation practice.3 Having become a sangha head at a relatively young age, Uan got a strong dose of Bangkok values and looked down on thudong monks. Although he performed ordinations for Thammayut monks in the Northeast, many of them had later turned their backs on academic studies and embraced the thudong practice. Until late in life, Uan was known for his contempt for wandering meditation monks. He believed that a monk’s main duty was to teach and serve in a monastery. Thet recalls how Uan tried to get monks who had passed the naktham or Pali exams to teach and do administrative work. Such monks, he hoped, would teach local Lao or Khmer monks and novices to read Thai textbooks. In 1923 the first Thammayut monastery, Wat Phothisomphon, had just been established in the 174 CHAPTER 7 • R e l a t i o n s w i t h S a n g h a O f f i c i a l s capital of meuang Udon Thani.4 Maha Jum was brought from a Thammayut wat in Bangkok to be its abbot, but Uan wanted more Bangkok-trained Thammayut monks to stay there.5 In November of that year Sing, Maha Pin, and Thet were summoned from Ubon to Udon Thani.6 They traveled on foot, accompanied by eight other monks and novices. To avoid going into town they stayed at Chiang Phin Village, west of Udon, and waited there for Uan to arrive from Bangkok. After arriving, Uan summoned the thudong monks in order to assign them administrative posts. Pin was to...