Sorry, but Sombat did not “join the bandwagon”. He was the leader of the first organized anti-coup group back in 2006 – the “Anti-19th September Coup Group” (the first known public protest was led by Giles Ungpakorn in the first days after the coup at Siam Paragon, and then one more small meeting at Chula in front of the Political Science Bldg.). Part of that group were several students, also Chotisak, the student that refused to stand up, and others that are now involved more on academic levels.
After Dr. Weng, Khru Prateep and the PTV leaders came more into the foreground, he founded the anti referendum group “Just Say No”, which chose the color Red as the first group.
I have at the time also accompanied all those groups, and have many photos of that era – also with Sombat on small stages at Thammasat and Sanam Luang as leader of the “Anti-19th September Coup Group”.
His group – the “Just Say No” group – was the first group that used red as a identification color in the present conflict, and from then onwards more and more protesters began wearing Red.
Other groups of that era are the “Noc Pilap Khao” – now mostly forgotten, or the “Saturday Group against Dictatorship”, now dissolved after their leader Suchart Nakbangsai had to escape because of lese majeste charges in 2008 (recently arrested and imprisoned for 3 years). The members of the Saturday Group are though still very active.
Nick, in fact: “Red” began way before Sombat joined the bandwagon. The red shirts used yellow at the beginning of their protests but changed to red in 2007. Red is a universal colour of resistance; heat, energy, blood, passion, sacrifice; it is a primary colour and one to be noticed. It is the colour of revolution. The ritual Brahmanic act of pouring donated blood on the front steps of Parliament on 16 March expressed these sentiments; of loss, remorse and sacrifice. But importantly red colour was first worn on 5 August 2007 to express disapproval of the military’s draft Constitution of Thailand. It symbolised “red light”; to “stop” and not accept the conditions of the referendum established under the junta.
It is in the end only a depiction of, for and by the Teacher’s followers.
Knowledge of Pali is hardly necessary. Mine is absolutely rudimentary I’m not ashamed to add. Perhaps the debate over whether Jesus had dark skin or white is more important?
I don’t care if I can’t read the Pali canon even if I admire those who can. I am sure the author has made a good contribution here as well as something dubious and superficial IMH non-scholarly O.
I am neither into religion or religiosity but I know how to live my life as a Buddhist. I don’t as a rule bother to give any comment a thumbs down but I do give the thumbs up.
Is semantics similar in meaning to splitting hairs? But I would love to read more about religious hypocrisy and double standards seen in all faiths.
“It is also worth considering whether Buddhist traditions cannot simultaneously maintain a balance of two inconsistent viewpoints – the notion that the Buddha must have been bald because of Canonical descriptions and Vinaya rules and the notion that the Buddha has hairs on his head for various metaphorical, symbolic, or other religious reasons.”
I meant to add ‘hagiographical’ to the latter viewpoint. It seems to me that the whole issue of hagiography and its relationship to a purely historical notion of the Buddha lies at the heart of this debate.
There are still, in my opinion, fundamental problems with your use of the words fallacy and heresy. Firstly, if the terms are to be used at all (and one wonders whether indigenous related terms might not have very different connotations to the English, particularly in respect of the word ‘heresy’), they should be used by Buddhist traditions interpreting their own religion and not by academic scholars. It is not for an academic to judge what constitutes a heresy; this is for Buddhist traditions to decide and for scholars then to comment on. To posit that the words fallacy and heresy can be used objectively or academically in the manner you are suggesting is, in my view, disingenuous.
One reason for this is that Buddhist traditions will pick and choose what they themselves consider to be a ‘fallacy’ or ‘heresy’ and will not necessarily view every contradiction between the canon and later literature as falling within the categories you espouse. For example, most of the reform moments in Buddhist history have related to the Vinaya, whereas Buddhist traditions have in general been noticeably unwilling to view doctrinal matters as ‘heresies’, although there are of course examples of this and more recent ‘Protestant Buddhist’ movements have placed a greater emphasis on the primacy of the Canon and on doctrinal inconsistencies between the Canon and later commentarial literature.
Whether an issue constitutes a heresy or fallacy depends therefore not only on the nature of the issue being raised but also on the time and the place of the Buddhist tradition making the relevant interpretation.
Where does the Buddha’s hair fit into all of this? It is not clear. Although the baldness of the Buddha is of course related to the Vinaya (because monks have to be bald according to the rules), it is the Buddha we are talking about, not an ordinary monk.
It is also worth considering whether Buddhist traditions cannot simultaneously maintain a balance of two inconsistent viewpoints – the notion that the Buddha must have been bald because of Canonical descriptions and Vinaya rules and the notion that the Buddha has hairs on his head for various metaphorical, symbolic, or other religious reasons. If so, how useful is it to use the words fallacy and heresy in this context? Is it not salient that no Buddhist tradition has been particularly bothered by the purported fallacy/heresy that you raise?
It may be the case that you can find a modern Buddhist tradition that will want to strip out non-bald Buddhas from its iconography and therefore we may end up with murals or statues of bald Buddhas. This would not be surprising given the outlook of certain Canon-orientated modern Buddhist movements. However, even if this were the case, it seems unlikely that Buddhist traditions at the time of the Nid─Бna-kath─Б or the centuries after the composition of the Nid─Бna-kath─Б would have been willing to take a similar approach or to use the words heresy or fallacy in the way that you are positing, particularly for this issue. Again, how are we supposed to take account of these different approaches and what, then, is the role of the academic in discussing such supposed fallacies or heresies?
Just a little clarification here. “Stephen.” (me) and “Steve” (some other guy) are not the same person (note the period/full stop that I always put at the end of my name to avoid just such a confusion in an blogging world populated by a few too many Stephens/Stevens/Steves/Stefans etc). So, I think that Eisel Mazard’s reply (#14) above was meant to be directed towards “Steve” rather than “Stephen”.
I have only posted one comment above (#6). The phrase “this post aside” that I used was not meant as a criticism (I actually found Eisel Mazard’s post here fascinating). Rather, I was just trying to suggest that regardless of people’s views of Eisel Mazard’s post here, his Pali resource website is a real gem for students of Pali language (though admittedly my own efforts to make use of it have been so far rather poor).
Even though the offshore processing department had experienced on Rohingya issue, new arrivals for the year 2009 and 2010 were kept pending for so call security clearences which can’t be achieved by legitimate way in transit country.
Currently, UNHCR card holder Rohingya asylumseeker in NIDC, Meribyrnong, Vaelawood, are spending now in 13 to 17 months. Delaying in detention of genuine refugees is ironic in both RSA and Security Assesssment. Otherwise, ASIO department suspects over vulnerable people.
It is also question that if the major process can be done with the respect of timely process, why not the rest minor is? This showed, only Rohingya Burmeses are treated separately and their detention is being an examplary.
Human rights quarters must involve strongly in this chapter.
Cordially,
To be fair to my critics, I would note that Stephen’s first posting praises the article in general, objecting only in specific, and in his second message he clarifies that he objects to two words only: “heresy” and “fallacy”.
I am here following the dictionary denotation of heresy as “belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine”. Now what defines orthodox religious doctrine in Theravada Buddhism? It is, in fact, the corpus of ancient texts called the Pali canon, and it is this same canon that I have been quoting as defining “orthodox” in contrast to later developments that digress from that standard; I am certainly not inventing anything new in calling things that contradict the canon heretical. This is a standard endogenous to Theravada Buddhism, and it provides many remarkable features of the written history of each of the Theravada cultures of Asia. For an example that crossed my desk recently, E. Guthrie (2004) wrote up the case of certain embellishments to the biography of the Buddha being “expunged” from Burmese temples, when they were found to merely appear in relatively late Pali texts (such as the Pa.thamasambodhi, perhaps 16th c.) but to be absent from the (more ancient) canon itself; the same episodes, however, were not expunged in Cambodia, and so antics ensue (for Guthrie’s thesis to now examine). Any of the standard histories of Buddhism in Burma (e.g., Niharranjan Ray) contain numerous examples of this pattern of monks and royal authorities consulting the canon and then asserting canonical orthodoxy against later accretions, sometimes on matters trivial and sometimes on matters more profound; the shaving of eyebrows, the wearing of robes on one shoulder vs. two, etc., seem to loom large in the history of Burmese orthodoxy (as do hair and tooth-relics, I might add). The same pattern is less prominent in the histories of Sri Lanka I’ve seen, but cf. the discussion of caste and other counter-canonical tendencies in Gombrich’s Precept and Practice, a book that remains much more useful than criticisms of it). Let us glance back to the context wherein I used the word “heresy”: In retrospect, we seem to have a very casually adopted heresy: the notion that the Buddha had hair (after becoming a monk) seems to have become a normal assumption among many Buddhists in the 5th century –despite the fact that it was blatantly contradicted by the most ancient (and most sacred) of Buddhist texts.
It is certainly apt for me to call something that contradicts the canonical text a heresy (sensu stricto) in the Theravada tradition. If someone would like to write an article offering a justification from some other tradition (from pre-Islamic Jakarta to pre-Meiji Japan) they are welcome to do so; however, it is far outside the remit of this article. Conversely, anyone reading a treatment of the later materials on the Buddha’s hair (from Thailand, Taiwan, Tibet, or elsewhere) would naturally tend to wonder, “Yes, but what do the most ancient extant sources actually say on this matter?”
Chronology is merciless: it is quite possible to explain early materials without appeal to later ones, but it is impossible to treat subsequent developments without inquiring into whatever came before. Obviously, it is of some interest to Christians that Jesus was only depicted as a blonde with long hair at a relatively late date, in places relatively remote from the Philistinos; however, the color and length of the hair of Jesus has no doctrinal importance to Christians, whereas the Buddha shaving his own head is of real importance to Buddhism. The cultural attitudes surrounding the Buddha (in contemporaneous India) promulgating the shaven head upon the monks who follow is certainly deserving of examination, such as this article has provided. Doubtless, other articles discuss the attitudes toward hair and baldness in 10th century China, 20th century Burma, etc., and those are legitimate subjects for other articles; but those articles cannot tell us anything about the purpose of the rule when it was first enjoined, whereas this one can.
Thus the inevitable tendency to take an interest in “origins”; it does nothing to invalidate the anthropology of contemporary Buddhism, but, on the contrary, provides useful material to support it.
The word “fallacy” appears in my article precisely once: it is in the first sentence, and the entire bulk of the essay that follows substantiates the claim. My dictionary informs me that a fallacy is, “a mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument”. It also tells me that the original sense of Ignoramus was in the first person plural: “literally, ‘we do not know'”.
Stephen does not provide any citation for the articles he considers to be of “the same ilk” as my own; I would appreciate it if other scholars were responding to my essay by providing citations of (genuinely) related works. However, it seems that Stephen merely means to insinuate that my work lacks originality, or that it is derivative of some unstated source. That is not the case: as has been said above, I was motivated to write this essay to provide readers with access to the evidence on this matter, that has been largely unmentioned (or undisclosed) in almost every source I’ve seen. By contrast, the art history of later periods of Buddhist statuary has been exhaustively published upon, and employs many more scholars than Theravada textual studies.
Indeed, the color code of the “Red Shirts” was a fluid development that began with Sombat’s “Just Say No” group in the coup era. And yes, during the Prem compound clashes the protesters were asked to wear royal yellow (to show that they protested against General Prem and not against the Royal institution).
During the clashes at Makhawan red began the to turn into the identification color – red pieces of cloth to wrap around the arms were given out to identify friends and foe. By the time the UDD protesters were not yet known as, or called themselves, Red Shirts.
The first time Red was clearly visible as the predominant color was their first mass event at Thunderdome in Muang Thong Thani on October 11th, 2008, when the group began to organize themselves better after the disastrous Makhawan clashes initiated by them, which led to the death of one of their protesters, and dozens of injured.
As far as i can remember, at first media labeled them “Red Shirts” as opposed to the “Yellow Shirts” of the PAD, a designation that was soon taken over by the UDD protesters themselves, as it also signified the wider network outside the UDD with similar aims. Not all protest groups that grew out of anti-coup movement were part of the UDD, such as the independent 24th of June group.
Today it is even more important to differentiate between the UDD (as led Thida Thawornset), and the wider Red Shirt movement (which includes Daeng Siam, the 24th of June group, Sombat’s group, and several other groups that partly work in the underground independently). There are of course overlaps between the different groups, especially under ordinary protesters that often attend rallies of all groups, but organizational structures are quite separate.
History aside, we Thais should respect and love our neighbors. Only then can we live in peace together. Any attitude of superiority would lead only to enmity, and we should ask ourselves: Are we really superior in every way? A sincere sense of equality should be the order nof the day.
That’s rather a big assumption, isn’t it, that I or other readers know no Pali or other classical Buddhist language? In fact I do, though you would of course not believe me. In fact, it’s because I see so many articles of this ilk that I made my comment.
More to the point, what any reader, whether a Pali scholar or not, can appreciate about this article is the inappropriate use of words like fallacy and heresy. This is what the author does not properly engage in when he talks about later developments and he needs to engage in it because it forms the whole crux of his article. If it were an article just about early texts, then fine. But it is not. It is an article which asserts a value judgment in favour of earlier texts which is unwarranted and certainly unexplained.
A mere reference to hairy Buddhas in later texts, the first mention of such a description, and referrals to relevant secondary literature are therefore in my view inadequate. If you are going to launch into ‘truth’ and meaning, then you need to show some appreciation for the purported meaning of a hairy Buddha in later texts, unless your view is that the mere assertion that earlier is better is somehow valid and that we can therefore just ignore the meaning and role of hairs on the Buddha’s cranium for centuries of Buddhist culture.
There is a tongue-in-cheek joke going around. It goes like this in Malay: Semua agama menggalakkan kita menggosok-gosok kepala anak yatim (All religions encourage us to stroke the heads of orphans). For those who don’t speak Malay, anak yatim (orphans) where anak means child. If you are the son of John, you could be called anak John. If you get the drift…
It just never ceases to amaze me how powerful Malaysia’s elites are. Just like in the Indian (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi) movies. The bad guys are really bad. Waiting for a hero now – but doubt there is one in sight.
I think nothing short of a mass revolt is needed but I don’t think Malaysians have the tenacity of the Thais, the Indonesians or the people of Philippines.
Malaysians are just a sorry bunch of whiners, in my humble opinion. Albeit for good reasons. That’s another story.
Brian, while there are undoubtedly interesting mutual influences and interactions between Buddhist art and Buddhist texts, it is important also to appreciate their distinctiveness. There is no reason to think that sculptors or those donating sculptures necessarily had any strong textual knowledge, and it is important to consider that Buddhist art existed in local areas as local traditions, influenced too by art at non-Buddhist monuments.
As for texts, Pali texts would not have been used in the areas you are talking about, although no doubt the gandharan canonical versions may well also have described the Buddha as bald. Important too is that the date of gandharan sculptures is a few centuries after the Buddha lived and later than probably even the latest strand of the Canon. By that time there existed a whole load of texts which may have stated very different things to the canonical texts.
Perhaps I should have been more detailed with the sentence you quoted, but I thought that the context of my post as a whole makes it quite clear that:
(a) there were indeed people in the UDD camp wearing red-color shirts prior to the funeral, notably the group around Sombat, who is actually credited with using this particular color “first”. It’s in the context of campaign to reject the coup-initiated constitution. Because of this, there were people making T-shirts in red, and selling them at UDD rallies, and some who took part did buy them, and wore them. You will notice that people who wore red shirt in the pictures from the link you provide, there were slogan on their chest referring to the referendum. (Of course, there were red-color shirt without any slogan on it too.)
(b) but the adoption of “Red” as “identity” was, I argue, in large part a response to what UDD rally participants perceived/understood to be the intervention by the monarchy in support of the PAD, which the crash on 7 October (during which the Queen donated money to help PAD activists injured) and the funeral on 13 October apparently provided evidence for such perception / understanding.
Hence, there was, as I said, no “Red Shirt” as a movement that we know it now, before the October events.
Now, look at these screen shots. http://upic.me/show/19902409
I made them from a video clip of LIVE broadcast of the crash on the night of 2 September 2008 (notice the time around half past one, a.m.). I have the whole clip. All the screen shots are from the UDD side, they show that the UDD activists who marched towards the PAD that night wore lots of colors, including yellow. Yes, there were people wearing red too (as I explain above), and still more had red scarfs on them because they were distributed for reason to distinguish the UDD side from the PAD. You will notice (the bottom shot) that even the speakers of the UDD who led the march towards the PAD wore white, black and of course red.
Then read these two reports (in Thai) of a call by UDD (Jatuporn) for 3 day rally at Sanam Luang between 12-14 October 2008. The call was issued on 10 October (before the funeral). Notice that there was no mention at all of any “red” color.. http://www.ryt9.com/s/iq02/448983 http://thaienews.blogspot.com/2008/10/3_11.html
By the time of these two rallies (especially the second one), the impact of the queen giving money to help injured PAD activists and, of course, her presiding over the funeral, had begun to sink in. From then on, what “Red” signaled was, I argue, “we are no longer wearing/using Yellow as our color.”
Even during the UDD’s 12 October rally at Sanam Luaung (mentioned above) some of the speakers on stage still did not consistently wear red (as they’d do now). See the picture here. Notice the three speakers on the left. They wore white. the man standing behind the lady was actually Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, one of the red shirt leaders still free today.
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Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
“Jim Taylor”:
Sorry, but Sombat did not “join the bandwagon”. He was the leader of the first organized anti-coup group back in 2006 – the “Anti-19th September Coup Group” (the first known public protest was led by Giles Ungpakorn in the first days after the coup at Siam Paragon, and then one more small meeting at Chula in front of the Political Science Bldg.). Part of that group were several students, also Chotisak, the student that refused to stand up, and others that are now involved more on academic levels.
After Dr. Weng, Khru Prateep and the PTV leaders came more into the foreground, he founded the anti referendum group “Just Say No”, which chose the color Red as the first group.
I have at the time also accompanied all those groups, and have many photos of that era – also with Sombat on small stages at Thammasat and Sanam Luang as leader of the “Anti-19th September Coup Group”.
His group – the “Just Say No” group – was the first group that used red as a identification color in the present conflict, and from then onwards more and more protesters began wearing Red.
Other groups of that era are the “Noc Pilap Khao” – now mostly forgotten, or the “Saturday Group against Dictatorship”, now dissolved after their leader Suchart Nakbangsai had to escape because of lese majeste charges in 2008 (recently arrested and imprisoned for 3 years). The members of the Saturday Group are though still very active.
Kim and Thaksin in translation
I think you’d find a lot of parallel parallels if you looked just a little bit harder.
I’ve been waiting for a Not the Nation headline “Thailand looks to North Korea for lessons in xxxxx planning”.
Sorry, too scared to actually say it.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
Nick, in fact: “Red” began way before Sombat joined the bandwagon. The red shirts used yellow at the beginning of their protests but changed to red in 2007. Red is a universal colour of resistance; heat, energy, blood, passion, sacrifice; it is a primary colour and one to be noticed. It is the colour of revolution. The ritual Brahmanic act of pouring donated blood on the front steps of Parliament on 16 March expressed these sentiments; of loss, remorse and sacrifice. But importantly red colour was first worn on 5 August 2007 to express disapproval of the military’s draft Constitution of Thailand. It symbolised “red light”; to “stop” and not accept the conditions of the referendum established under the junta.
Kim and Thaksin in translation
I’ve always thought that the Kim family’s “juche” philosophy for North Korea and Bhumibhol’s “sufficiency economy” for Thailand bore some parallels.
The Buddha was bald
It is in the end only a depiction of, for and by the Teacher’s followers.
Knowledge of Pali is hardly necessary. Mine is absolutely rudimentary I’m not ashamed to add. Perhaps the debate over whether Jesus had dark skin or white is more important?
I don’t care if I can’t read the Pali canon even if I admire those who can. I am sure the author has made a good contribution here as well as something dubious and superficial IMH non-scholarly O.
I am neither into religion or religiosity but I know how to live my life as a Buddhist. I don’t as a rule bother to give any comment a thumbs down but I do give the thumbs up.
Is semantics similar in meaning to splitting hairs? But I would love to read more about religious hypocrisy and double standards seen in all faiths.
The Buddha was bald
P.S.
“It is also worth considering whether Buddhist traditions cannot simultaneously maintain a balance of two inconsistent viewpoints – the notion that the Buddha must have been bald because of Canonical descriptions and Vinaya rules and the notion that the Buddha has hairs on his head for various metaphorical, symbolic, or other religious reasons.”
I meant to add ‘hagiographical’ to the latter viewpoint. It seems to me that the whole issue of hagiography and its relationship to a purely historical notion of the Buddha lies at the heart of this debate.
The Buddha was bald
Thank you for the reply.
There are still, in my opinion, fundamental problems with your use of the words fallacy and heresy. Firstly, if the terms are to be used at all (and one wonders whether indigenous related terms might not have very different connotations to the English, particularly in respect of the word ‘heresy’), they should be used by Buddhist traditions interpreting their own religion and not by academic scholars. It is not for an academic to judge what constitutes a heresy; this is for Buddhist traditions to decide and for scholars then to comment on. To posit that the words fallacy and heresy can be used objectively or academically in the manner you are suggesting is, in my view, disingenuous.
One reason for this is that Buddhist traditions will pick and choose what they themselves consider to be a ‘fallacy’ or ‘heresy’ and will not necessarily view every contradiction between the canon and later literature as falling within the categories you espouse. For example, most of the reform moments in Buddhist history have related to the Vinaya, whereas Buddhist traditions have in general been noticeably unwilling to view doctrinal matters as ‘heresies’, although there are of course examples of this and more recent ‘Protestant Buddhist’ movements have placed a greater emphasis on the primacy of the Canon and on doctrinal inconsistencies between the Canon and later commentarial literature.
Whether an issue constitutes a heresy or fallacy depends therefore not only on the nature of the issue being raised but also on the time and the place of the Buddhist tradition making the relevant interpretation.
Where does the Buddha’s hair fit into all of this? It is not clear. Although the baldness of the Buddha is of course related to the Vinaya (because monks have to be bald according to the rules), it is the Buddha we are talking about, not an ordinary monk.
It is also worth considering whether Buddhist traditions cannot simultaneously maintain a balance of two inconsistent viewpoints – the notion that the Buddha must have been bald because of Canonical descriptions and Vinaya rules and the notion that the Buddha has hairs on his head for various metaphorical, symbolic, or other religious reasons. If so, how useful is it to use the words fallacy and heresy in this context? Is it not salient that no Buddhist tradition has been particularly bothered by the purported fallacy/heresy that you raise?
It may be the case that you can find a modern Buddhist tradition that will want to strip out non-bald Buddhas from its iconography and therefore we may end up with murals or statues of bald Buddhas. This would not be surprising given the outlook of certain Canon-orientated modern Buddhist movements. However, even if this were the case, it seems unlikely that Buddhist traditions at the time of the Nid─Бna-kath─Б or the centuries after the composition of the Nid─Бna-kath─Б would have been willing to take a similar approach or to use the words heresy or fallacy in the way that you are positing, particularly for this issue. Again, how are we supposed to take account of these different approaches and what, then, is the role of the academic in discussing such supposed fallacies or heresies?
The Buddha was bald
Just a little clarification here. “Stephen.” (me) and “Steve” (some other guy) are not the same person (note the period/full stop that I always put at the end of my name to avoid just such a confusion in an blogging world populated by a few too many Stephens/Stevens/Steves/Stefans etc). So, I think that Eisel Mazard’s reply (#14) above was meant to be directed towards “Steve” rather than “Stephen”.
I have only posted one comment above (#6). The phrase “this post aside” that I used was not meant as a criticism (I actually found Eisel Mazard’s post here fascinating). Rather, I was just trying to suggest that regardless of people’s views of Eisel Mazard’s post here, his Pali resource website is a real gem for students of Pali language (though admittedly my own efforts to make use of it have been so far rather poor).
ASEAN Divides
[…] piece originally appeared here, on New […]
Farrelly on Burma in Inside Story
Nich
Your great commentary aside, how about the fate of Myanmar citizenry?
Without the cause célèbre of
1) Vilifying SPDC
2) Defending Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
The level of interest in Myanmar’s future purely for the most vulnerable one’s sake evoke no interest among the New Mandala subscribers!
Is that the proof that most New Mandala subscribers are a reflection of how the west view Myanmar.
Rohingya on Nauru…
Even though the offshore processing department had experienced on Rohingya issue, new arrivals for the year 2009 and 2010 were kept pending for so call security clearences which can’t be achieved by legitimate way in transit country.
Currently, UNHCR card holder Rohingya asylumseeker in NIDC, Meribyrnong, Vaelawood, are spending now in 13 to 17 months. Delaying in detention of genuine refugees is ironic in both RSA and Security Assesssment. Otherwise, ASIO department suspects over vulnerable people.
It is also question that if the major process can be done with the respect of timely process, why not the rest minor is? This showed, only Rohingya Burmeses are treated separately and their detention is being an examplary.
Human rights quarters must involve strongly in this chapter.
Cordially,
ASEAN Divides
[…] piece originally appeared here, on New Mandala. Print this post […]
The Buddha was bald
To be fair to my critics, I would note that Stephen’s first posting praises the article in general, objecting only in specific, and in his second message he clarifies that he objects to two words only: “heresy” and “fallacy”.
I am here following the dictionary denotation of heresy as “belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine”. Now what defines orthodox religious doctrine in Theravada Buddhism? It is, in fact, the corpus of ancient texts called the Pali canon, and it is this same canon that I have been quoting as defining “orthodox” in contrast to later developments that digress from that standard; I am certainly not inventing anything new in calling things that contradict the canon heretical. This is a standard endogenous to Theravada Buddhism, and it provides many remarkable features of the written history of each of the Theravada cultures of Asia. For an example that crossed my desk recently, E. Guthrie (2004) wrote up the case of certain embellishments to the biography of the Buddha being “expunged” from Burmese temples, when they were found to merely appear in relatively late Pali texts (such as the Pa.thamasambodhi, perhaps 16th c.) but to be absent from the (more ancient) canon itself; the same episodes, however, were not expunged in Cambodia, and so antics ensue (for Guthrie’s thesis to now examine). Any of the standard histories of Buddhism in Burma (e.g., Niharranjan Ray) contain numerous examples of this pattern of monks and royal authorities consulting the canon and then asserting canonical orthodoxy against later accretions, sometimes on matters trivial and sometimes on matters more profound; the shaving of eyebrows, the wearing of robes on one shoulder vs. two, etc., seem to loom large in the history of Burmese orthodoxy (as do hair and tooth-relics, I might add). The same pattern is less prominent in the histories of Sri Lanka I’ve seen, but cf. the discussion of caste and other counter-canonical tendencies in Gombrich’s Precept and Practice, a book that remains much more useful than criticisms of it). Let us glance back to the context wherein I used the word “heresy”:
In retrospect, we seem to have a very casually adopted heresy: the notion that the Buddha had hair (after becoming a monk) seems to have become a normal assumption among many Buddhists in the 5th century –despite the fact that it was blatantly contradicted by the most ancient (and most sacred) of Buddhist texts.It is certainly apt for me to call something that contradicts the canonical text a heresy (sensu stricto) in the Theravada tradition. If someone would like to write an article offering a justification from some other tradition (from pre-Islamic Jakarta to pre-Meiji Japan) they are welcome to do so; however, it is far outside the remit of this article. Conversely, anyone reading a treatment of the later materials on the Buddha’s hair (from Thailand, Taiwan, Tibet, or elsewhere) would naturally tend to wonder, “Yes, but what do the most ancient extant sources actually say on this matter?”
Chronology is merciless: it is quite possible to explain early materials without appeal to later ones, but it is impossible to treat subsequent developments without inquiring into whatever came before. Obviously, it is of some interest to Christians that Jesus was only depicted as a blonde with long hair at a relatively late date, in places relatively remote from the Philistinos; however, the color and length of the hair of Jesus has no doctrinal importance to Christians, whereas the Buddha shaving his own head is of real importance to Buddhism. The cultural attitudes surrounding the Buddha (in contemporaneous India) promulgating the shaven head upon the monks who follow is certainly deserving of examination, such as this article has provided. Doubtless, other articles discuss the attitudes toward hair and baldness in 10th century China, 20th century Burma, etc., and those are legitimate subjects for other articles; but those articles cannot tell us anything about the purpose of the rule when it was first enjoined, whereas this one can.
Thus the inevitable tendency to take an interest in “origins”; it does nothing to invalidate the anthropology of contemporary Buddhism, but, on the contrary, provides useful material to support it.
The word “fallacy” appears in my article precisely once: it is in the first sentence, and the entire bulk of the essay that follows substantiates the claim. My dictionary informs me that a fallacy is, “a mistaken belief, esp. one based on unsound argument”. It also tells me that the original sense of Ignoramus was in the first person plural: “literally, ‘we do not know'”.
Stephen does not provide any citation for the articles he considers to be of “the same ilk” as my own; I would appreciate it if other scholars were responding to my essay by providing citations of (genuinely) related works. However, it seems that Stephen merely means to insinuate that my work lacks originality, or that it is derivative of some unstated source. That is not the case: as has been said above, I was motivated to write this essay to provide readers with access to the evidence on this matter, that has been largely unmentioned (or undisclosed) in almost every source I’ve seen. By contrast, the art history of later periods of Buddhist statuary has been exhaustively published upon, and employs many more scholars than Theravada textual studies.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
“Somsak Jeamteerasakul”
Indeed, the color code of the “Red Shirts” was a fluid development that began with Sombat’s “Just Say No” group in the coup era. And yes, during the Prem compound clashes the protesters were asked to wear royal yellow (to show that they protested against General Prem and not against the Royal institution).
During the clashes at Makhawan red began the to turn into the identification color – red pieces of cloth to wrap around the arms were given out to identify friends and foe. By the time the UDD protesters were not yet known as, or called themselves, Red Shirts.
The first time Red was clearly visible as the predominant color was their first mass event at Thunderdome in Muang Thong Thani on October 11th, 2008, when the group began to organize themselves better after the disastrous Makhawan clashes initiated by them, which led to the death of one of their protesters, and dozens of injured.
As far as i can remember, at first media labeled them “Red Shirts” as opposed to the “Yellow Shirts” of the PAD, a designation that was soon taken over by the UDD protesters themselves, as it also signified the wider network outside the UDD with similar aims. Not all protest groups that grew out of anti-coup movement were part of the UDD, such as the independent 24th of June group.
Today it is even more important to differentiate between the UDD (as led Thida Thawornset), and the wider Red Shirt movement (which includes Daeng Siam, the 24th of June group, Sombat’s group, and several other groups that partly work in the underground independently). There are of course overlaps between the different groups, especially under ordinary protesters that often attend rallies of all groups, but organizational structures are quite separate.
Cambodia is not a province of Thailand
History aside, we Thais should respect and love our neighbors. Only then can we live in peace together. Any attitude of superiority would lead only to enmity, and we should ask ourselves: Are we really superior in every way? A sincere sense of equality should be the order nof the day.
The Buddha was bald
Ignoramus,
That’s rather a big assumption, isn’t it, that I or other readers know no Pali or other classical Buddhist language? In fact I do, though you would of course not believe me. In fact, it’s because I see so many articles of this ilk that I made my comment.
More to the point, what any reader, whether a Pali scholar or not, can appreciate about this article is the inappropriate use of words like fallacy and heresy. This is what the author does not properly engage in when he talks about later developments and he needs to engage in it because it forms the whole crux of his article. If it were an article just about early texts, then fine. But it is not. It is an article which asserts a value judgment in favour of earlier texts which is unwarranted and certainly unexplained.
A mere reference to hairy Buddhas in later texts, the first mention of such a description, and referrals to relevant secondary literature are therefore in my view inadequate. If you are going to launch into ‘truth’ and meaning, then you need to show some appreciation for the purported meaning of a hairy Buddha in later texts, unless your view is that the mere assertion that earlier is better is somehow valid and that we can therefore just ignore the meaning and role of hairs on the Buddha’s cranium for centuries of Buddhist culture.
UMNO Minister rapes Indonesian maid?
There is a tongue-in-cheek joke going around. It goes like this in Malay: Semua agama menggalakkan kita menggosok-gosok kepala anak yatim (All religions encourage us to stroke the heads of orphans). For those who don’t speak Malay, anak yatim (orphans) where anak means child. If you are the son of John, you could be called anak John. If you get the drift…
UMNO Minister rapes Indonesian maid?
It just never ceases to amaze me how powerful Malaysia’s elites are. Just like in the Indian (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi) movies. The bad guys are really bad. Waiting for a hero now – but doubt there is one in sight.
I think nothing short of a mass revolt is needed but I don’t think Malaysians have the tenacity of the Thais, the Indonesians or the people of Philippines.
Malaysians are just a sorry bunch of whiners, in my humble opinion. Albeit for good reasons. That’s another story.
The Buddha was bald
Brian, while there are undoubtedly interesting mutual influences and interactions between Buddhist art and Buddhist texts, it is important also to appreciate their distinctiveness. There is no reason to think that sculptors or those donating sculptures necessarily had any strong textual knowledge, and it is important to consider that Buddhist art existed in local areas as local traditions, influenced too by art at non-Buddhist monuments.
As for texts, Pali texts would not have been used in the areas you are talking about, although no doubt the gandharan canonical versions may well also have described the Buddha as bald. Important too is that the date of gandharan sculptures is a few centuries after the Buddha lived and later than probably even the latest strand of the Canon. By that time there existed a whole load of texts which may have stated very different things to the canonical texts.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
James #19, also khun tukkae #21
Perhaps I should have been more detailed with the sentence you quoted, but I thought that the context of my post as a whole makes it quite clear that:
(a) there were indeed people in the UDD camp wearing red-color shirts prior to the funeral, notably the group around Sombat, who is actually credited with using this particular color “first”. It’s in the context of campaign to reject the coup-initiated constitution. Because of this, there were people making T-shirts in red, and selling them at UDD rallies, and some who took part did buy them, and wore them. You will notice that people who wore red shirt in the pictures from the link you provide, there were slogan on their chest referring to the referendum. (Of course, there were red-color shirt without any slogan on it too.)
(b) but the adoption of “Red” as “identity” was, I argue, in large part a response to what UDD rally participants perceived/understood to be the intervention by the monarchy in support of the PAD, which the crash on 7 October (during which the Queen donated money to help PAD activists injured) and the funeral on 13 October apparently provided evidence for such perception / understanding.
Hence, there was, as I said, no “Red Shirt” as a movement that we know it now, before the October events.
Now, look at these screen shots.
http://upic.me/show/19902409
I made them from a video clip of LIVE broadcast of the crash on the night of 2 September 2008 (notice the time around half past one, a.m.). I have the whole clip. All the screen shots are from the UDD side, they show that the UDD activists who marched towards the PAD that night wore lots of colors, including yellow. Yes, there were people wearing red too (as I explain above), and still more had red scarfs on them because they were distributed for reason to distinguish the UDD side from the PAD. You will notice (the bottom shot) that even the speakers of the UDD who led the march towards the PAD wore white, black and of course red.
Then read these two reports (in Thai) of a call by UDD (Jatuporn) for 3 day rally at Sanam Luang between 12-14 October 2008. The call was issued on 10 October (before the funeral). Notice that there was no mention at all of any “red” color..
http://www.ryt9.com/s/iq02/448983
http://thaienews.blogspot.com/2008/10/3_11.html
This is all the more remarkable because on 11 October 2008 there was indeed a first “all-red” rally hosted by the Truth Today program – they called it “mobile Truth Today” – at which all who took part wore red.
http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?newsid=1223735878
This was followed by a second “mobile Truth Today” on 1 November 2008. Again, all were in “red”.
http://www.bloggang.com/mainblog.php?id=thai3dviz&month=05-11-2008&group=2&gblog=1
By the time of these two rallies (especially the second one), the impact of the queen giving money to help injured PAD activists and, of course, her presiding over the funeral, had begun to sink in. From then on, what “Red” signaled was, I argue, “we are no longer wearing/using Yellow as our color.”
Even during the UDD’s 12 October rally at Sanam Luaung (mentioned above) some of the speakers on stage still did not consistently wear red (as they’d do now). See the picture here. Notice the three speakers on the left. They wore white. the man standing behind the lady was actually Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, one of the red shirt leaders still free today.
http://upic.me/show/19904476