Comments

At first when I saw your title “Chulalongkorn abolished prostration” I read it as a present-tense article about a new policy of a major government university. I had a glimmer of hope that the educational system in Thailand would reform to promote universal human rights. Alas, my hopes were crushed like a boy’s love twice scorned.

Of course the practice of prostration and the principle of subservience to superiors is alive and well in government universities as well as private ones in Thailand. A noted exception is in international colleges and schools whose tuition prices place them among the elite for whom no kow towing is expected.

In poorer rural schools, it is interesting to see how people line the sidewalks to receive a royal visit. Are they standing or kneeling or putting their face to the ground? You tell me.

Justice is the egalitarian application of rules to public human relations. It is a vision of equality and equity that drives this. It is possible that justice can become a primary aspiration for people who have lived in circumstances where economic opportunities have been horded and where people have been left voiceless over the conditions in which they live. The search for justice is one of the fundamental plots in human history.

Ajarn Somsak is a hero for telling us this with respect for the quest for justice of Thai people in 2011. His letter shows an academic attention to distinguishing and defining. I hope to read other things he has written and should like to visit him in jail. Where is he being held?

Mr Marshall has already been alleged that he had been bought by Thaksin since last year, Khun Anonymousth. Read his ‘Thaksin and Me’ article http://blogs.reuters.com/andrew-marshall/2010/06/12/thaksin_and_me/

and you will realise that if it is possible that anyone could be bought by Thaksin to start with, Mr Marshall is probably going to be one of the last (if not the last) persons who would sell himself to Thaksin :p

Is there a link to the princess’s response, either in Thai or English?

Well, ‘don’t let animals go through the parliament’; this is a good comparative of the current of Thai politics. I think not only Pheua Thai but also Democrat party will be unhappy about the campaign if both parties have got lots of animals which need to be fed by providing seats in the House of Representatives.

The thing needs to be realised is that which party have got enormous numbers of varied animals.

The Princess has already responded. As has been shown in a very few past cases, if the Palace does not want a prosecution, then a nod and a wink in the right place sees it kicked into the long grass.

Conversely…

We must all understand that these people are fighting for their money. Oops, I meant the cultural heritage of Thailand. Sorry.

Anonymousth #73

“you will be alleged “bought by square-faced guy”.”

… or “seduced” by Prem

depending on ones sense of balance

Dear Andrew Marshall,
Thank you in advance for your article. You do a great service to us Thais. But given the timing of your article before the leading up to the poll, it won’t be before long you will be alleged “bought by square-faced guy”.

Tukkae, #68

I agree with you. How come a columnist with such personal bias still manage to write articles for Atimes. Many people now, including myself, now take a grain of salt on his writings.

A brief reply to Steve (my biggest fan!) and a brief reply to a few of the others who commented recently.

Lindago asks a general question, that I could here reply to with a long and thoughtful answer (because I do think that the medium of publishing has changed dramatically within my lifetime, and the medium of this article has been changed by comments added after the end of it by readers).

The fundamental problem here is one of concision: I can’t allow this one article to be extended into a blog, nor an advice column wherein I answer every possible question or tangent.

The article itself answers one very fundamental question, and even then has a few digressions for the sake of interest; I did try to write a tightly organized article that would not waste my reader’s time, nor distract them from the chronology that differentiates the earliest sources from later ones, nor that would repeat prior scholarship. Thus, in direct reply to Lindago (and indirectly replying to others) this is indeed an article intended for an audience of non-specialists and I think it should contribute to general discussion.

What has followed in the comments below the article is not general discussion.

There is a difference between asking a question of an author and attacking the author (ad hominem, to use the Latin phrase of the day) –and there is a difference between asking a question and seeking to dismiss the article through the pretense of telling the author something he supposedly doesn’t know.

This is why Steve’s latest objection is so laughable (whereas the former ones were disgraceful): he is reproaching me as if I knew far less about the 32 marks than he does, and he is attempting to dismiss the article as if this omission were a great lapse on my part, but, in fact, it is self-evident from his comments that he knows much less than I do about the interpretation of the texts in question –and, if he had looked carefully (or just asked respectfully) he would know that it was no accident at all that this article presents precisely the argument it does (without veering into others).

He could have asked, "But what do you think about the 32-marks, in contrast to these sources you've quoted here...?" Or, indeed, he could have asked, "Would you consider writing a further article dealing with the interpretation of the 32-marks in the Pali canon?" There was no such question: only a very laughable attempt to dismiss the article, and, not for the first time, to insult me personally.

One problem with providing a survey of sources, e.g., on the 32 marks, is that one gets into a critique and comparison of the sources… and, before you know it, you’ve got 20,000 words, and you’ve made it impossible for “the general reader” to access the point of the article.

As brief as this article currently is, I would note that one reader has just complained that it is too long: "However, I’m not as concerned as you are about the difference, and indeed I’m not sure that it was worth a long article."

Is this article necessary? My answer is yes –and a very simple proof of just how necessary it is can be seen in the passage I’ve quoted from Don Lopez in the conclusion. Lopez is a respected professor emeritus with a long list of publications –and yet his view of the matter shows (shall we say) a lack of sensitivity for the facts.

If you put the phrase “the buddha was bald” into Google, you come up with almost nothing aside from this article (or other articles referring back to it) –although, I note, there was one very modest attempt to raise some of the same issues by someone on the “dhammawiki”* (a very brief article, with almost no sources, that is nevertheless much better than the mess of anachronistic misinformation that now occupies the Wikipedia on this matter).

* [ http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=The_Buddha's_physical_appearance ]

Was this “long” article necessary? Yes, and it was necessary precisely because the primary sources that I have disclosed here are otherwise inaccessible to the general reader. What is the purpose of the article? To make those sources accessible.

The misinterpretation of the 32 marks (etc.) that Steve raises is, by contrast, a well-worn corner of European Indology –and although Steve did not express sincere interest in reading more on the subject, I did reply to his comments by directing him to further reading. That is a sincere reply –even though I sincerely find Steve’s antics ridiculous.

I said of myself earlier, and more than once, that I’d love it if I received criticism from people who actually could (or actually did) read any of the primary sources concerned, or who were responding to the substance of the article. This is in contrast to the prolonged attacks against me –and it does not mean that people who lack familiarity with primary sources should not be able to ask me a question. The problem is precisely that none of these comments has been stated as a question –they have been instead stated as rather lame attempts to attack me, and/or the article. If (e.g.) you haven’t actually read the Nid─Бnakath─Б (and don’t know anything about the social history surrounding the text) the resulting “attack” is pretty lame; if (e.g.) you really don’t know your stuff about the 32 marks, and you then try to throw it in my face with disdain, that is especially lame (and, for the few who do know the material, it is laughable).

As I’ve said above, I cannot possibly extend this article into a perpetual blog, wherein the author answers any (and every) disparaging remark. I wish I could say that I was even tempted to do so, but the comments have neither been sincere questions (from people who don’t pretend to know more than they do) nor have they been sincere criticisms from people who are concerned with the content of the argument, nor the primary sources, etc.

For those who consider themselves academics (and, N.B., I am not one of them) please ask yourselves: if a question this fundamental and obvious, proven so fully from primary sources, cannot be discussed more constructively than this… what can be?

For those who consider themselves Buddhists (and, N.B., I am one myself) please ask yourselves: if it is not possible to plainly state the contents of the actual sutta without this type of reaction, who will venture to do so? In this article I have neither presented my own philosophy, nor my own theory on any matter: I have simply disclosed a set of primary source texts that have otherwise been ignored –and the response is a chorus of voices demanding that the primary sources should be ignored.

Finally, as I have said before, many of these comments seem to have so little contact with the substance and purpose of the article, that I infer some commentators have followed their own instinct –and have indeed ignored the facts that I’ve set out for their delectation.

If you’re an academic: what indeed does your “discipline” consist of, if you’re not disciplined enough to deal with such simple evidence? If you’re a religious Buddhist, what indeed does your religion consist of if you recoil at such simple passages of your own (most ancient) sacred texts?

These problems are not unique to Buddhist studies, however, the response to this article illustrates just how difficult it is (even amongst speakers of English) to engage in frank discussion of primary sources and their chronology (in this century, and even in the free-wheeling social milieu of New Mandala). If this were an article about Aristotle, being kicked around by scholars of ancient Greek, would we have the same problems? Would people attack me with self-assured opinions about Greek texts they haven’t actually read?