The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia: Second Edition

Ritual Occasions, Merit, and the Appropriation of Power

the popular tradition: inclusive syncretism 17 men might censure me. Better indeed is death through (leading a life of ) purity than a life subject to disdain. How will I, even for the sake of life, do an injury to another?28 The moral of this folkloric tale is conveyed, in part, through the medium of humor. In modern Western society there is a tendency to see religion as a sober and serious enterprise devoid of humor, but that is not the case for traditional, oral-based religious instruction in Buddhist Southeast Asia. Lay storytellers and even monk-preachers often used humor—occasionally ribald—to keep the attention of their audience. Ritual Occasions, Merit, and the Appropriation of Power Buddhist rituals can be classified in various ways. Melford Spiro characterizes Theravada ritual action in Myanmar in terms of a fourfold typology: commemorative , expressive, instrumental, and expiatory.29 Commemorative ritual is performed in remembrance of historical, legendary, or mythological events; expressive ritual serves to manifest emotions and sentiments felt toward objects of reverence, such as the Buddha, his teaching, and the monastic order; instrumental ritual aims to achieve some goal in this life or in future lives; expiatory ritual is performed to atone for misdeeds.30 Like most religious phenomena, rituals can be interpreted on several levels. Spiro’s useful analysis should not be regarded as definitive nor should these categories be construed as mutually exclusive. Furthermore, although rituals vary in nature, function, and intent, Theravada rituals in Southeast Asia often appear calculated to address a wide spectrum of beneficent and malevolent powers. Broadly speaking, these powers can be defined as either Buddhist or nonBuddhist . The Buddhist symbols operative in various ritual contexts are most often associated with the Buddha himself, images of the Buddha, his relics enshrined in reliquary mounds or cetiya, and Buddha amulets. Symbols associated with individual Buddhist monks or nuns reputed to be particularly 18 part 1 holy are an important extension of these objects. The charismatic power ascribed to individual monks derive, in part, from the power represented by the Buddha because monks follow his dhamma; even more so, monks’ charismastemsfromtheirreputedabilitytoforeseethefuture,tohealpsychic and physical maladies, and exhibit other extraordinary powers associated with trance states (jhana). As a consequence, images, relics, and amulets of famous monks are venerated in and of themselves.31 On the level of popular cult, the nonphysical, nibbanic values and ideals represented by the Buddha, his teachings, and the Buddhist sangha assume specific physical or material characteristics. Even the Buddha’s teaching has a physical representation in the material form of inscribed palm leaf texts. Because of their association with the Buddha’s teaching, palm leaf manuscripts become objects of power in their own right. The term, “sacred text,” in this sense refers not only to its content but also to the text as a material object of sacred power. Scholarshaveclassifiedsymbolstowhichspecialpowersareascribedwithin ritual contexts—which may or may not be overtly Buddhist—as animistic or Brahmanistic.32 They include Brahmanical deities such as Indra (Sakka in the Pali canon) and Vishnu who may be invoked to guard a specific site or be present upon the occasion of a Buddhist ceremony; a pantheon of Hindu gods in Sri Lanka that include Vishnu and Kataragama; 33 and other indigenous deities and spirits that include the nats in Burma34 and the chao and phi in Thailand and Laos.35 A syncretic flavor imbues most popular festivals, ceremonies, and rituals in Theravada Southeast Asia. In some, such as the Visakha Puja festival celebrating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death, the Buddhist element dominates. But Buddhist monks are invited to chant protective suttas (paritta) at a variety of rituals, ranging from house dedications to weddings, whose underlying significance seems remote from the Buddhist ideals of self-transforming knowledge.36 If religious ritual is interpreted as a system for gaining access to a broad range of powers constituted within a cosmology of human, superhuman, and subhuman realms, then the ritual context itself determines its precise meaning rather than a predetermined the popular tradition: inclusive syncretism 19 definition of what is considered as Buddhist or non-Buddhist (e.g., animistic or Brahmanical). In gaining access to power, Buddhist ritual in Southeast Asia functions in two primary ways: reciprocal exchange and appropriation. Reciprocal exchange emerges from the donor-recipient relationship found in meritmaking rituals. The layperson-donor offers material gifts for the benefit of the monastic order. In return, the...