Thammayut-nikai

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Thammayut-nikai ( Thai : ธรรม ยุติ ก นิกาย ; from Pali dhammayutika-nikāya , literally "Those who strictly adhere to the Dhamma ") is the smaller of the two orders in the Theravada - Buddhist monastic community ( Sangha ) in Thailand , Laos and Cambodia . It is in contrast to the Mahanikai ("large religious community"). The Thammayut community was founded by the Siamese Prince Mongkut in the first half of the 19th centuryfounded when he was still a monk. Prince Mongkut was the son of King Rama II , he was later crowned King of Siam as Phra Chom Klao, known abroad as King Mongkut or Rama IV. The monks of the Thammayut-nikai strictly adhere to the original rules of the order and the Pali scriptures and reject mysticism.

founding

Prince Mongkut was the eldest son of Ramas II, born of a social connection. The Siamese nobility, however, preferred his half-brother Chetsadabodin, who was born by a concubine of his father, and made him king after his father's death in 1824 (Phra Nang Klao or Rama III). Mongkut was ordained a monk and became abbot of Wat Bowonniwet in Bangkok. His endeavor was to tighten the discipline of the monastic order after he noticed a large discrepancy between the rules of the order ( vinaya ) written in the Pali canon and everyday practice in the monasteries while studying the Pali language . In his view, the Siamese monastic order was only a sad reflection of the committed community that the Buddha himself had organized to pass on his teaching. The old rules were only applied mechanically, the discipline was lax, there were even corrupt monks, only a few were interested in further scientific training, and meditation was only learned in order to gain supernatural powers. In 1840 and 1843 Mongkut sent monks to Sri Lanka , the heartland of Therava Buddhism. They returned with 70 volumes of Sinhala Pali writings.

Mongkut created a reformed "orthodoxy" in Thai Buddhism based on Wat Bowonniwet, which he directed. On the basis of the texts he had studied, he issued precise regulations for the erection of the consecrated boundary stones around the ubosot (the central and most sacred part of the temple complex), for the monk consecration ceremony, and for the manner of wearing the robe (over both shoulders instead of just one) to hold the bowl for alms, accept the robes donated at the Kathin ceremony and recite the Pali chants. Mongkut strove for an intellectual, demythologized Buddhism that was in harmony with reason and modern science.

Entrance of Wat Bowonniwet in Bangkok

The Thammayut monks rejected all ceremonies that were only performed out of old habit but had no basis in the Pali canon. They redefined the Uposatha days based on the actual phases of the moon and not according to an old calendar. They saw the Jataka ("birth stories"), which tell of the last 550 lives of the Buddha, as pure folklore. They also rejected the idea of ​​heaven and hell, as it has been read for centuries in the ancient text Traiphum Phra Ruang , as a superstition. Thammayut monks only eat one meal a day, and only what they get placed in their monk bowls on their morning round. The Thammayut monks were expected to understand the sutras they were reciting. Prince Mongkut set up his own Pali school in Wat Bowonniwet , of which he had been appointed abbot shortly before.

In the tradition of the Thammayut-nikai, lay people have to take on all secular tasks, such as getting food, washing robes and cleaning the living quarters, for the monks so that they can devote themselves exclusively to their religious pursuits. Thammayut monks traditionally often come from families of the middle and upper classes.

development

Not least because of an abbot of royal origin and the express toleration of Mongkut's half-brother, the then King Phra Nang Klao (Rama III.) , The Thammayut order soon became very well known. Five other monasteries joined the movement, and the Mahanikai monasteries were also considering improving the current situation. As Rama III. Mongkut died in 1851 and ascended the throne. Since he and his government promoted and sponsored the order, the Thammayut-nikai got a prominent position in the Thai Sangha to this day, although only a minority of the monks belong to it. For more than 80 years a member of the Thammayut order has always been the Supreme Monk Patriarch of Siam. During this time, the brotherhood was able to expand into the country, especially in the northeast , and move previous Mahanikai monks to re-ordinate as Thammayut monks. Since Laos was still part of Siam in the 19th century, there is also a division into Thammayut and Mahanikai there.

In 1855 it was introduced to Cambodia by King Norodom I (there as Thommayut ) after the Cambodian monk Maha Pan got to know King Mongkut's reformed Buddhism in Siam. Norodom I had a new temple built next to his palace, the consecrated area of ​​which was provided with boundary stones according to the regulations of the Thammayut-nikai and made Maha Pan the supreme monk patriarch of Cambodia (sanghareach) . The establishment of the order met with considerable opposition and led to regular disputes with the monks who did not belong to it ( Mohanikai in Cambodia ). This also had to do with the influence of the colonial power France , which favored the Mohanikai and considered the Thommayut monks to be uncompromising and pro-Siamese.

With the Sangha law of 1902, Mongkut's son, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) institutionalized the entire Buddhist monastic community of Siam and gave it a hierarchical structure. The then abbot of Wat Bowonniwet Wachirayan Warorot , who was also a son of Mongkut, i.e. a half-brother of Chulalongkorn, and head of the Thammayut order, played a decisive role . The Thammayut-nikai thus became a model for state-organized Buddhism in Thailand.

importance

Although the Thammayut monks are still in the minority today - the ratio of Mahanikai to Thammayut is around 35: 1 - a number of highly revered monks have admitted to this religious community, for example Ajahn Sao Kantasilo Mahathera (1861–1941), Phra Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta (1870-1949) and Ajahn Maha Bua Nyanasampanno (1913-2011). The longstanding Supreme Monk Patriarch of Thailand, Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara Suvaddhana (1913–2013) was also a member of the Thammayut order. The monks of the forest tradition (phra thudong) also belong predominantly to the Thammayut-nikai. The Mahamakut University , one of the two supervised by the state and financed universities for Buddhist studies is associated with this Order.

In Cambodia about 3% of the monks belong to the Thommayut order. They differ from the Mohanikai monks mainly in questions of ritual and discipline, as well as the pronunciation of Pali texts and the liturgical recitation technique. The Thommayut monks, who are more represented in the big cities, were persecuted even more strongly than their co-religionists by the Mohanikai during the phase of Democratic Kampuchea . The Khmer Rouge considered them reactionary and "imperialist".

annotation

  1. The name is also transcribed as Thammayut-Nikaya or Thammayutika-Nikaya.

literature

  • AB Griswold : King Mongkut Of Siam . The Asia Society, New York 1961, distributed by The Siam Society , Bangkok
  • A. Thomas Kirsch: Modernizing Implications of 19th Century Reforms in the Thai Sangha. In: The Psychological Study of Theravada Societies. Contributions to Asian Studies, Volume VIII, Brill, Leiden 1975, pp. 8-23.

Individual evidence

  1. Donald K. Swearer: The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia. State University of New York Press, Albany 2010, pp. 162-163.
  2. ^ Charles F. Keyes: The Golden Peninsula. Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia. Macmillan, 1977, p. 104.
  3. ^ Lourens P. van den Bosch: Voices of a critical Buddhism in Thailand. In: Criticism within Religions and Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 10-11.
  4. Kamala Tiyavanich: Forest Recollections. Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand. University of Hawai'i Press, 1997, p. 6.
  5. a b Swearer: The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia. 2010, p. 163.
  6. Kirsch: Modernizing Implications of 19th Century Reforms in the Thai Sangha. 1975, p. 21.
  7. Keyes: The Golden Peninsula. 1977, p. 105.
  8. Ian Harris: Buddhist Sangha Groupings in Cambodia. (PDF; 368 kB) In: Buddhist Studies Review , Volume 18, No. 1, 2001, pp. 83-84.
  9. ^ Van den Bosch: Voices of a critical Buddhism in Thailand. 2008, p. 12.
  10. Kamala Tiyavanich: Forest Recollections. 1997, p. 43.
  11. ^ Rory MacKenzie: New Buddhist Movements in Thailand. Towards an Understanding of Wat Phra Dhammakāya and Santi Asoke. Routledge, Oxford / New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-40869-1 , p. 24.
  12. Justin Thomas McDaniel: The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk. Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand. Columbia University Press, New York 2011, p. 82.
  13. Harris: Buddhist Sangha Groupings in Cambodia. 2001, p. 84.