The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia: Second Edition

Reforming the Tradition

buddhism and modernization 159 teachings of the tradition itself, however, is an equally important task. Not only the monks and nuns, but also the Buddhist worldview and the institutions that have been shaped by it, must adapt to and help guide the social and economic worlds in which they are embedded. Reforming the Tradition Theravada monks in Southeast Asia, as we have seen, are redefining their role in relationship to contemporary politics, pressing social issues, and current economic problems. Equally important, they have also criticized and attempted to reform inherited models of Buddhist thought and practice. All religious traditions move between times of reformation and counterreformation . Reformations serve to recall a religious tradition to its normative ideals while transforming outmoded institutions and teachings. Although reformation is not new to Buddhist history, Theravada sanghas have experienced major changes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, partially in response to Western influence. We shall briefly examine major nineteenthcenturyreformationmovementsinSriLankaandMyanmarbefore turning to contemporary Thai reformist movements in greater depth. Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand Nineteenth-century Sri Lanka witnessed the emergence of two reformist sects, the Amarapura and the Ramañña. They arose primarily to counter the domination of the Sinhalese sangha by the goyigama caste. In 1800 the Amarapura sect was created when a monk, five novices, and three laymen traveled to the Burmese capital of Amarapura where they were ordained in a ceremony sponsored by King Bodawpaya. In the late nineteenth century, monks of the Amarapura sect led the protest against Christian missions. News of debates between Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries brought the Western theosophist, Henry Steele Olcott, to Sri Lanka in support of Buddhism. 160 part iii Olcott, in turn, was a major influence on the Anagarika Dharmapala, a leader of the renewal of Buddhism in Sri Lanka during the period marking the end of British rule on the island. Considered one of the founders of Buddhist modernism, Dharmapala redefined the monk’s mission as one of reviving the glories of the Sinhala nation and restoring a pure Buddhism that was rational, ethical, and psychological to the exclusion of what he considered to be the superstitious beliefs and practices of Buddhist folk traditions.54 The Ramañña monastic fraternity, also begun in the nineteenth century through a Burmese ordination lineage, advocated a return to strict observance of the monastic discipline and helped revitalize the forest tradition of Buddhist piety and spiritual practice in Sri Lanka.55 The revival of the tradition of forest monks in Sri Lanka attracted Europeans to the island, several of whom made significant contributions to Pali scholarship: Nyanatiloka Thera Figure 3.7. The German monk, Nyanaponika Thera, at the Forest Hermitage, Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1967. buddhism and modernization 161 founded the Island Hermitage south of Colombo; Nyanaponika Thera was one of the cofounders of the Buddhist Publication Society and established the Forest Hermitage in Kandy. Both were German. Two British monks, Ñanamoli Thera and Soma Thera, translated important philosophical and meditation texts into English. The revival of the forest tradition, the promotion of Buddhist scholarship, and the mutual cooperation between Asian and Western Theravada monks and laity, combined to strengthen the vitality of Buddhism on the island. Nyanaponika, for example, was known for his scholarly studies of the Abhidhamma, the promotion of meditation, translation and analysis of the classical vipassana meditation text, the Satipat©h¡na Sutta (The Foundation of Mindfulness), and the promotion of the dhamma among the educated elites of Sri Lanka and in the West through his many publications that appeared through the Buddhist Publication Society. In the late nineteenth century, a revival of Buddhism occurred in Burma under King Mindon (r. 1853–1878). Mindon convened the Fifth Buddhist Council in 1871 for the purpose of producing a new redaction of the Pali scriptures. It was engraved on 729 marble tablets erected within the precincts of the Kuthodaw Pagoda located at the foot of Mandalay Hill. During this period several reformist sects came into being. New monastic fraternities, the Dwaya and the Shwegyin, advocated a stricter code of monastic conduct than the mainstream Thudhamma tradition.56 In this respect, they were similar to the so-called puritan reform movements that arose at the same time in Sri Lanka and Thailand. In E. Michael Mendelson’s view, the fundamental criterion for sectarian differentiation in Myanmar was “cleaving to the Vinaya.”57 Burmese reform sects objected to what they considered to be the...