I personally don’t like champagnes but it looks to me that the Red Shirts are defeating themselves silly by sticking to their silly leaders . But certainly not silly to continue to root for Beloved Leader( now a citizen at Montenegro) if only because He is the cause and He funds the cause.
Does the financially savvy Chris Beale still thinks the emerging Asian markets’ are too bubbly and about to burst?
Why don’t you chaps read the damn book first before attacking the blurb? – Marc Askew #4 above.
When I first saw the blurb and table of contents of this “damn book”, my thought was the same as Patrick’s comment #1. I almost posted similar comment myself. Marc Askew’s retort above didn’t actually convince me; if the monarchy’s legitimacy crisis issue has been treated as it should be, why wouldn’t it have at least been mentioned in the blurb or more importantly any of the articles’ titles? But wait for the book I did.
A few days before new year day, I finally got hold of the book, and after reading the first 2 chapters, some 80 pages in all, both by Marc Askew himself (Introdution: Contested Legitimacy in Thailand and “Confrontation and Crisis in Thailand, 2008-2010”), I got angry. With a very partial exception of one-half sentence, not one single sentence, let alone a paragraph or section, in these 2 chapters, discusses the monarchy or its legitimacy crisis. Virtually all the appearence of the word “monarchy” in them (some 15 times) is just in the context of policy statement, or claim, or accusation, e.g. “for the protection of the monarchy” (p.4), “for alledgedly insulting the monarchy” (p.17), “to stop damaging the monarchy” (p.50), etc., etc. These are of course not about the monarchy itself, its role and activities, let alone it’s crisis. The one-half sentence that is a partial exception to this omission reads (p 14): “There are reasons for a generalized concern about the future of the royal succession…” This hardly means much.
One instance that particularly angers me is this. In the chapter “Confrontation and Crisis in Thailand, 2008-2010” which is supposed to be a chronological account of what happened during these past 2 years, there is no mention at all of Queen Sirikit’s presiding over the funeral of a PAD activist on October 13, 2008! (“Queen Sirikit” or “Sirikit” is not even in the Index). Now let me say this, and I really mean it: Any academic, especially a “farang”, who claims to be writing about “Crisis in Thailand” in the year 2008, but who fails even to mention this event, should consider changing his/her career.
As I argue in an article, the very emergence of the “Red” color shirts, was largely tied up with – a direct consequence of – this funeral and the associate events (e.g. the Queen gave money to help injured PAD activists, just hours after the clash on 7 October). What this color signaled was : we were not wearing “yellow”, the King’s color, which up to that point most of the now Red-shirts were still wearing at rallies. (See my article here, in Thai: http://www.prachatai.com/journal/2010/08/30680 )
[It’s true that prior to the October funeral, a group of activists, around Sombat Bun-ngam-anong (of the now famous Red Sunday fame) had used the red-color shirts during campaign against the coup-initiated Constitution. But it is one thing for a small group of activists to adopt the color, but another thing altogether for tens of thousands of people to do so. Besides, Sombat himself – not many people remember this now – briefly at the end of November that year, when the use of force to remove the PAD from the airport and government house looked a real possibility, had adopted White-color shirt and called on Thai to do so, to signal attempt to find peaceful solution to the confrontation. In other word, Red was not even his own “identity” yet.]
Since Askew fails to mention the Queen’s funeral appearence and of course its consequence in the emergence of the Red color at pro-PPP rallies, he therefore got it wrong on p. 37 when he wrote of a clash in early September “leaving one middle-aged red shirt supporter dead”. There was no “red shirt” at the time!! (as I said, most of the pro-Thaksin supporters still wore yellow shirts or scraf). This “minor” point illustrates his failure to understand a larger issue: the cultural and historical meaning of this “red” shirt movement and, which is the virtually the same thing, the crisis of legitmacy of the monarchy itself.
I’ve always maintained that there’re no good reasons for academics of Thai political and social history, not to discuss the monarchy, not of the more remote past, and most definitely of the current 5 year-old crisis. For what is this crisis, if not, at its core, the gigantic contest between two power blocs, one centered on the elective institutions (parliament, political parties, politicians), the other on the non-elective ones, with the monarchy itself at the latter’s peak? Any book or article by academics which is purported to deal with the current crisis, but avoids discussing this very issue, is not only ‘surreal’, ridiculous and embarassing; it’s actually quite shameful.
I eagerly await you reading the book and then tell New Mandala patrons in which way the authors defend the “wealth and power” of the “military/royal rulers of Thailand,” or where in their articles they have refrained from challenging their “basis of legitimacy” where the internal logic actually made this necessary.
Claiming the SPDC greed after starting sanction is akin to equating and justifying present punishing the whole of Myanmar citizenry as punishing the Junta!
“Let us take as an example the largest Western investment in Burma, which is a direct partnership between Chevron of the US, Total of France and the Burmese military junta. This consortium pipes Burmese natural gas to Thailand where it is used for electricity generation. The International Monetary Fund has found that the Burmese generals book less than 1% of the revenues from this project into the national budget. By using the old, “official” exchange rate of 6 Burmese kyat to the dollar, rather than the “real” exchange rate of about 1000 to the dollar, the generals make more than 99% of the revenues from the biggest foreign investment in the country simply disappear, likely into private bank accounts in Singapore and elsewhere.”
b/f Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called for sanctions there was a significant segments of Burmese business community that have active businesses that benefit Burmese Society as ‘a whole’ accordingly.
Their involvement with the junta was limited to keeping the devils well fed so that businesses will be left to conduct commerce accordingly.
Sanction and unending empty vilification intended to constraint the JUNTA unfortunately turn any remaining opportunity in favor of the Junta and their absolute cronies. Initially for survival that now has turned into present defiance that allow only themselves to monopolize
any opportunity.
The citizenry of Myanmar stand to benefit from 2 important businesses that the present dictators can not therefore choose not to monopolize.
Education and Heath Care.
There are enough examples of this woefully needed 2 aspects here in New Mandala.
There’s much here that makes sense, though it’s hard to be very optimistic about the political opportunities the new dissident parliamentarians will have, given published rules restricting their speech, the vague outlines of what the new bodies will actually do, and the isolation of the parliament itself in Nay Pyi Daw.
But the implication suggested herein that somehow Western business participation is any kind of panacea for Burma’s ills should have been discussed in the context of existing Western business involvement.
Let us take as an example the largest Western investment in Burma, which is a direct partnership between Chevron of the US, Total of France and the Burmese military junta. This consortium pipes Burmese natural gas to Thailand where it is used for electricity generation. The International Monetary Fund has found that the Burmese generals book less than 1% of the revenues from this project into the national budget. By using the old, “official” exchange rate of 6 Burmese kyat to the dollar, rather than the “real” exchange rate of about 1000 to the dollar, the generals make more than 99% of the revenues from the biggest foreign investment in the country simply disappear, likely into private bank accounts in Singapore and elsewhere.
Chevron and Total have both refused to reveal to their shareholders or the Burmese public the exact amounts that they have paid Burma’s generals, but the amount is estimated to be about $5 billion.
So the net result of the largest Western “engagement” in Burma is as follows: A Burmese natural resource is sold abroad, with the revenues shared between multinational oil companies and Burma’s despotic generals, while the 50 million Burmese derive virtually no benefit. The people do however see the guns and the enhanced political power derived by their oppressors from these deals.
Given this reality, it seems the argument would have to be that new Western investments would have to take place in a manner quite different from existing investments. This would require some genuine reforms from the generals (is anyone holding their breath waiting for these?). Failing these reforms, more Western investment would most likely have the same effects as the existing ones: Vast income for the generals, little but crumbs for the people. That’s what you want?
"Even though the author’s real agenda seems pretty questionable..." Moe Aung
The article explains its own agenda very clearly: I have sought to counterpose primary source texts to (widespread) misconceptions about what those primary source texts are supposed to say. "The Buddha certainly needed to be depicted..." Moe Aung
Perhaps this is the agenda that you should be questioning. Wouldn’t it be remarkable if you could find a single quotation from the Pali canon suggesting that “the Buddha needed to be depicted” at all? Indeed, if “the Buddha needed to be depicted”, perhaps he would have set down rules and regulations for his depiction, hm? "As if many of us only care about the hair relics, miracles and so forth." Moe Aung
And what was the actual statement in the article that you were responding to? Let’s just see: “…this very dubious hair [that is depicted on statuary as being on the Buddha’s head, etc.] (along with the worship of “hair relics”, and so on) is now more widely known than any philosophical discourse the Buddha ever recited…”
To claim that statues are more widely known than philosophical discourses is not controversial; to claim that the image of the Buddha is more widely known, and more often worshiped, than the content of ancient texts cannot be controversial. I do not pretend that Buddhists are philosophers (nor philologists) simply because they are Buddhists; I live with the social reality of Theravada Buddhism as it actually exists, and I write about it with a congruent sense of realism, both at present and in historical retrospect. There are indeed “many of us” for whom the worship of relics is much more important than philosophy; I accept that, and I think that the anthropology of such public cults is a worthwhile and important area of study unto itself (it simply isn’t the subject of this article). By contrast, it seems to me that many Anglicized Asians are not quite at peace with the contrast between such public cults, and the sanitized image of Buddhism (as an intellectual pastime) that is presented to Europeans and tourists as a commodity. That, too, would be a subject for a separate article.
The worship of tooth-relics and hair-relics are widely attested phenomena, both past and present; by contrast, there is astoundingly little evidence that anyone has taken any interest in the primary source texts that I’ve attempted to disclose in this article (past or present, I daresay).
My “real agenda” (as you say) is to create an opportunity for people who cannot dedicate years of their lives to learning an ancient, dead language (scil., Pali) to have access to salient information from those primary source texts; I would hope that at least a few readers will reconsider their own assumptions about the history of the religion, accordingly. In these replies, instead, I see a cross-section of excuses offered to disregard such facts, in the rare event that a scholar discloses them.
"This is making an implicit distinction between culture and religion..."Chip
Not implicit, the distinction is explicit. "...I would just be careful to avoid essentializing religion..."Chip
The article presents an explicit contrast between (1) texts of different historical periods, and (2) between texts and non-textual aspects of the religion (such as statuary). If your opinion is that all texts are equally valid, or that the historical evidence of an ancient text is equivalent to a stone-carving from 1000 years later, you are free to write your own article supporting that opinion. I would instead say that there is indeed an essential difference between these types of evidence, and to disregard it would be regrettable. The chronology, geography and language of your sources is ineluctably important, and disclosing these distinctions (honestly and fully) to your readers is also important, when you offer historical judgments, opinions and analysis. That doesn’t mean that I’m an essentialist; if you don’t believe me, look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialization
Many of these comments reflect limited reading comprehension of the article above… in some cases, this simply may reflect that the readers are commenting before they’ve finished reading.
“Steve” (not to be confused with “Stephen”) complains of an exclusively “originist agenda” showing no interest in later developments. Well, the opening sections of the essay explicitly state that they discuss the earliest origins of this issue in the most ancient primary source texts. However, if you continue reading, you would find that there is a very cogent discussion of the subsequent historical developments in ┬з6, with references to articles by other authors for further reading.
The reason why Mazard doesn’t discuss the later developments at length is explicit in that section of the article itself: there have already been some good articles published on the later historical developments, and he suggests one of them for further reading if you want to know more about that. If there has already been a lot published about it (and there has), why would he re-hash material that has already been published on the later periods of the development of the iconography? If the guy’s unique contribution is that he can read Pali, why would he try to fake being an expert on Afghan or Japanese statuary? Besides that, how long do you expect the article to be? If you think that an article dealing only with origins is “bad”, does that mean that any article dealing with any one period (without elaborating on all others) is “bad” too?
In contrast to the admittedly-prolix literature on later statuary, the guy is claiming that the most ancient primary sources seem to remain unknown. I don’t know if that’s true because I haven’t done a review of the literature myself, but, at least, he proves the point by showing that the most ancient sources are not discussed in the few sources he surveys in ┬з6, and the primary-source material he quotes is not sufficiently well-known in his opinion… and that’s not a surprising opinion, because he can read Pali and you can’t… and the vast majority of people who worship tooth-relics and hair-relics can’t either.
These comments, so far, illustrate exactly why articles like this need to focus on the most ancient origins, and on disclosing the precise writ of the most ancient primary-source texts: because people like you are so eager to ignore and dismiss them, and because almost nobody can (and even fewer actually do) conduct comparative reading of this kind. I know I can’t.
In reply to Moe Aung, do you really think the guy’s comments on the real world of modern Buddhist cults are so “scurrilous and groundless”? Take a look at the map of the guy’s life in the last ten years, and tell me if you think there isn’t anything “evidence based” in there, even if he’s saying it with a wink and a smirk:
Do you think the guy isn’t entitled to have an opinion? Do you think the guy isn’t entitled to have a sense of humor about it?
There’s a stark inequality at play here: anyone can post their opinion on the internet, but almost nobody can read Pali primary source texts. Could it be that the stated hostility toward scholarly interest in “earliest origins” reflects the total inability of the readers to examine such origins themselves?
Take a look at that illustration in the middle of the article: if that was a quote from Tibetan, and if this were published in an online journal of Tibetan studies, there would be at least a half-dozen people reading it would could respond to the primary source text. Instead, the quote is Cambodian, and most of the comments show a limited understanding of the English, and zero appreciation of the Pali.
Dear Mr Mazard,
The Gautama Buddha lived up to the old age of 80 years and He would certainly be bald at the old age. Besides, the depiction of Gautama Buddha with a stump of hair on the head is maintained in sculptures and paintings to let the followers know what He did for Dukkaracaria to become a Buddha. But his replicas and pictures are not living portraits and His statue was not made until 3rd or 4th Century AD long after His Mahaparinibbana. Besides we Buddhists do not worship His statues and pictures but just as the focus of attention to the real Buddha and His Dhamma. Different physiques and styles if Him can be seen in various Buddhist countries from Gandhara (Now Afghanistan) in the West to Japan in the East. He resembles a Greek or Westerner in the Gandhara statues, more like an Indian in Asokan Buddha statues, but He looks like a Japanese in Japan. Thank for your effort, but His hair is not a problem for the Buddhists. All Buddhist monks including the Buddha must have a shaven head!
Many thanks for a Buddhist Studies article on this forum, which makes for a pleasant change. Some interesting points made. However, the article suffers from an originist agenda which seems to value exclusively a putative historical Buddha over the manner in the Buddha has been treated and portrayed by Buddhist cultures in the last 2,000 or so years. Words such as ‘fallacy’ and ‘heresy’ are used glibly and without analysis. Certainly it is interesting to note that canonical texts depict the Buddha as bald. But equally as interesting would be to analyse the meaning and evolution of the Buddha’s curled locks and peaked cranium in Buddhist traditions and the reason why such images arose – none of which seem to engage the writer at all, who appears content merely to state that the Buddha was at one time described as bald and that his later depiction is somehow ‘wrong’.
I used the adjective “traditional” referring to the role I now perceive for the Institute
not really having a sense of its actual or self-proclaimed role(s) historically, I wonder if perhaps the Institute or at least its role might be pseudo-traditional or to have changed through its history
Are you suggesting that Marc Askew as the editor, and the authors, including myself, corrupted their academic ethics and professionalism in contributing to KPI’s yearbook?
Thanks a lot Nick for the photos.
And Happy New Year to you.
For those interested to see more photos of this New Year party/rally in front of prison, go here (photos plus short description in Thai): http://www.internetfreedom.us/thread-7720.html
I’d like to point out that the content of speeches by several speakers during this rally by Surachai’s group (“Daen Sayam” [red siam]) as well as during the one the previous two days, organized by the same group, at a temple in Nonthaburi, had been very, very strong, though still necessarily coughed in implicit language, on the issue of the monarchy. It was during these rallies that I learned new term to rival the one about the ‘ATM card, already well known, and popular among the Reds.
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I personally don’t like champagnes but it looks to me that the Red Shirts are defeating themselves silly by sticking to their silly leaders . But certainly not silly to continue to root for Beloved Leader( now a citizen at Montenegro) if only because He is the cause and He funds the cause.
Does the financially savvy Chris Beale still thinks the emerging Asian markets’ are too bubbly and about to burst?
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
Why don’t you chaps read the damn book first before attacking the blurb? – Marc Askew #4 above.
When I first saw the blurb and table of contents of this “damn book”, my thought was the same as Patrick’s comment #1. I almost posted similar comment myself. Marc Askew’s retort above didn’t actually convince me; if the monarchy’s legitimacy crisis issue has been treated as it should be, why wouldn’t it have at least been mentioned in the blurb or more importantly any of the articles’ titles? But wait for the book I did.
A few days before new year day, I finally got hold of the book, and after reading the first 2 chapters, some 80 pages in all, both by Marc Askew himself (Introdution: Contested Legitimacy in Thailand and “Confrontation and Crisis in Thailand, 2008-2010”), I got angry. With a very partial exception of one-half sentence, not one single sentence, let alone a paragraph or section, in these 2 chapters, discusses the monarchy or its legitimacy crisis. Virtually all the appearence of the word “monarchy” in them (some 15 times) is just in the context of policy statement, or claim, or accusation, e.g. “for the protection of the monarchy” (p.4), “for alledgedly insulting the monarchy” (p.17), “to stop damaging the monarchy” (p.50), etc., etc. These are of course not about the monarchy itself, its role and activities, let alone it’s crisis. The one-half sentence that is a partial exception to this omission reads (p 14): “There are reasons for a generalized concern about the future of the royal succession…” This hardly means much.
One instance that particularly angers me is this. In the chapter “Confrontation and Crisis in Thailand, 2008-2010” which is supposed to be a chronological account of what happened during these past 2 years, there is no mention at all of Queen Sirikit’s presiding over the funeral of a PAD activist on October 13, 2008! (“Queen Sirikit” or “Sirikit” is not even in the Index). Now let me say this, and I really mean it: Any academic, especially a “farang”, who claims to be writing about “Crisis in Thailand” in the year 2008, but who fails even to mention this event, should consider changing his/her career.
As I argue in an article, the very emergence of the “Red” color shirts, was largely tied up with – a direct consequence of – this funeral and the associate events (e.g. the Queen gave money to help injured PAD activists, just hours after the clash on 7 October). What this color signaled was : we were not wearing “yellow”, the King’s color, which up to that point most of the now Red-shirts were still wearing at rallies. (See my article here, in Thai: http://www.prachatai.com/journal/2010/08/30680 )
[It’s true that prior to the October funeral, a group of activists, around Sombat Bun-ngam-anong (of the now famous Red Sunday fame) had used the red-color shirts during campaign against the coup-initiated Constitution. But it is one thing for a small group of activists to adopt the color, but another thing altogether for tens of thousands of people to do so. Besides, Sombat himself – not many people remember this now – briefly at the end of November that year, when the use of force to remove the PAD from the airport and government house looked a real possibility, had adopted White-color shirt and called on Thai to do so, to signal attempt to find peaceful solution to the confrontation. In other word, Red was not even his own “identity” yet.]
Since Askew fails to mention the Queen’s funeral appearence and of course its consequence in the emergence of the Red color at pro-PPP rallies, he therefore got it wrong on p. 37 when he wrote of a clash in early September “leaving one middle-aged red shirt supporter dead”. There was no “red shirt” at the time!! (as I said, most of the pro-Thaksin supporters still wore yellow shirts or scraf). This “minor” point illustrates his failure to understand a larger issue: the cultural and historical meaning of this “red” shirt movement and, which is the virtually the same thing, the crisis of legitmacy of the monarchy itself.
I’ve always maintained that there’re no good reasons for academics of Thai political and social history, not to discuss the monarchy, not of the more remote past, and most definitely of the current 5 year-old crisis. For what is this crisis, if not, at its core, the gigantic contest between two power blocs, one centered on the elective institutions (parliament, political parties, politicians), the other on the non-elective ones, with the monarchy itself at the latter’s peak? Any book or article by academics which is purported to deal with the current crisis, but avoids discussing this very issue, is not only ‘surreal’, ridiculous and embarassing; it’s actually quite shameful.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
David:
I eagerly await you reading the book and then tell New Mandala patrons in which way the authors defend the “wealth and power” of the “military/royal rulers of Thailand,” or where in their articles they have refrained from challenging their “basis of legitimacy” where the internal logic actually made this necessary.
Farrelly on Burma in Inside Story
Claiming the SPDC greed after starting sanction is akin to equating and justifying present punishing the whole of Myanmar citizenry as punishing the Junta!
“Let us take as an example the largest Western investment in Burma, which is a direct partnership between Chevron of the US, Total of France and the Burmese military junta. This consortium pipes Burmese natural gas to Thailand where it is used for electricity generation. The International Monetary Fund has found that the Burmese generals book less than 1% of the revenues from this project into the national budget. By using the old, “official” exchange rate of 6 Burmese kyat to the dollar, rather than the “real” exchange rate of about 1000 to the dollar, the generals make more than 99% of the revenues from the biggest foreign investment in the country simply disappear, likely into private bank accounts in Singapore and elsewhere.”
b/f Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called for sanctions there was a significant segments of Burmese business community that have active businesses that benefit Burmese Society as ‘a whole’ accordingly.
Their involvement with the junta was limited to keeping the devils well fed so that businesses will be left to conduct commerce accordingly.
Sanction and unending empty vilification intended to constraint the JUNTA unfortunately turn any remaining opportunity in favor of the Junta and their absolute cronies. Initially for survival that now has turned into present defiance that allow only themselves to monopolize
any opportunity.
The citizenry of Myanmar stand to benefit from 2 important businesses that the present dictators can not therefore choose not to monopolize.
Education and Heath Care.
There are enough examples of this woefully needed 2 aspects here in New Mandala.
The Buddha was bald
[…] [link] […]
Farrelly on Burma in Inside Story
There’s much here that makes sense, though it’s hard to be very optimistic about the political opportunities the new dissident parliamentarians will have, given published rules restricting their speech, the vague outlines of what the new bodies will actually do, and the isolation of the parliament itself in Nay Pyi Daw.
But the implication suggested herein that somehow Western business participation is any kind of panacea for Burma’s ills should have been discussed in the context of existing Western business involvement.
Let us take as an example the largest Western investment in Burma, which is a direct partnership between Chevron of the US, Total of France and the Burmese military junta. This consortium pipes Burmese natural gas to Thailand where it is used for electricity generation. The International Monetary Fund has found that the Burmese generals book less than 1% of the revenues from this project into the national budget. By using the old, “official” exchange rate of 6 Burmese kyat to the dollar, rather than the “real” exchange rate of about 1000 to the dollar, the generals make more than 99% of the revenues from the biggest foreign investment in the country simply disappear, likely into private bank accounts in Singapore and elsewhere.
Chevron and Total have both refused to reveal to their shareholders or the Burmese public the exact amounts that they have paid Burma’s generals, but the amount is estimated to be about $5 billion.
So the net result of the largest Western “engagement” in Burma is as follows: A Burmese natural resource is sold abroad, with the revenues shared between multinational oil companies and Burma’s despotic generals, while the 50 million Burmese derive virtually no benefit. The people do however see the guns and the enhanced political power derived by their oppressors from these deals.
Given this reality, it seems the argument would have to be that new Western investments would have to take place in a manner quite different from existing investments. This would require some genuine reforms from the generals (is anyone holding their breath waiting for these?). Failing these reforms, more Western investment would most likely have the same effects as the existing ones: Vast income for the generals, little but crumbs for the people. That’s what you want?
The Buddha was bald
"Even though the author’s real agenda seems pretty questionable..." Moe AungThe article explains its own agenda very clearly: I have sought to counterpose primary source texts to (widespread) misconceptions about what those primary source texts are supposed to say.
"The Buddha certainly needed to be depicted..." Moe AungPerhaps this is the agenda that you should be questioning. Wouldn’t it be remarkable if you could find a single quotation from the Pali canon suggesting that “the Buddha needed to be depicted” at all? Indeed, if “the Buddha needed to be depicted”, perhaps he would have set down rules and regulations for his depiction, hm?
"As if many of us only care about the hair relics, miracles and so forth." Moe AungAnd what was the actual statement in the article that you were responding to? Let’s just see:
“…this very dubious hair [that is depicted on statuary as being on the Buddha’s head, etc.] (along with the worship of “hair relics”, and so on) is now more widely known than any philosophical discourse the Buddha ever recited…”
To claim that statues are more widely known than philosophical discourses is not controversial; to claim that the image of the Buddha is more widely known, and more often worshiped, than the content of ancient texts cannot be controversial. I do not pretend that Buddhists are philosophers (nor philologists) simply because they are Buddhists; I live with the social reality of Theravada Buddhism as it actually exists, and I write about it with a congruent sense of realism, both at present and in historical retrospect. There are indeed “many of us” for whom the worship of relics is much more important than philosophy; I accept that, and I think that the anthropology of such public cults is a worthwhile and important area of study unto itself (it simply isn’t the subject of this article). By contrast, it seems to me that many Anglicized Asians are not quite at peace with the contrast between such public cults, and the sanitized image of Buddhism (as an intellectual pastime) that is presented to Europeans and tourists as a commodity. That, too, would be a subject for a separate article.
The worship of tooth-relics and hair-relics are widely attested phenomena, both past and present; by contrast, there is astoundingly little evidence that anyone has taken any interest in the primary source texts that I’ve attempted to disclose in this article (past or present, I daresay).
My “real agenda” (as you say) is to create an opportunity for people who cannot dedicate years of their lives to learning an ancient, dead language (scil., Pali) to have access to salient information from those primary source texts; I would hope that at least a few readers will reconsider their own assumptions about the history of the religion, accordingly. In these replies, instead, I see a cross-section of excuses offered to disregard such facts, in the rare event that a scholar discloses them.
The Buddha was bald
"This is making an implicit distinction between culture and religion..."ChipNot implicit, the distinction is explicit.
"...I would just be careful to avoid essentializing religion..."ChipThe article presents an explicit contrast between (1) texts of different historical periods, and (2) between texts and non-textual aspects of the religion (such as statuary). If your opinion is that all texts are equally valid, or that the historical evidence of an ancient text is equivalent to a stone-carving from 1000 years later, you are free to write your own article supporting that opinion. I would instead say that there is indeed an essential difference between these types of evidence, and to disregard it would be regrettable. The chronology, geography and language of your sources is ineluctably important, and disclosing these distinctions (honestly and fully) to your readers is also important, when you offer historical judgments, opinions and analysis. That doesn’t mean that I’m an essentialist; if you don’t believe me, look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialization
A Red Shirt New Year party
#3 Happy new Year to all of you here and from the depths of my heart I wish all the Thais DEMOCRACY!!
Nice sentiments. Now all we have to deal with is the complete sellouts like Surachai.
The Buddha was bald
“This post aside”, Stephen?
You can see a list of Mazard’s other publications here:
http://profiles.tigweb.org/EM0
And, for a larger view of that same photo of the guy looking like he could beat me down in a fist-fight, please refer to:
http://pali.pratyeka.org/Mazard.jpg
Many of these comments reflect limited reading comprehension of the article above… in some cases, this simply may reflect that the readers are commenting before they’ve finished reading.
“Steve” (not to be confused with “Stephen”) complains of an exclusively “originist agenda” showing no interest in later developments. Well, the opening sections of the essay explicitly state that they discuss the earliest origins of this issue in the most ancient primary source texts. However, if you continue reading, you would find that there is a very cogent discussion of the subsequent historical developments in ┬з6, with references to articles by other authors for further reading.
The reason why Mazard doesn’t discuss the later developments at length is explicit in that section of the article itself: there have already been some good articles published on the later historical developments, and he suggests one of them for further reading if you want to know more about that. If there has already been a lot published about it (and there has), why would he re-hash material that has already been published on the later periods of the development of the iconography? If the guy’s unique contribution is that he can read Pali, why would he try to fake being an expert on Afghan or Japanese statuary? Besides that, how long do you expect the article to be? If you think that an article dealing only with origins is “bad”, does that mean that any article dealing with any one period (without elaborating on all others) is “bad” too?
In contrast to the admittedly-prolix literature on later statuary, the guy is claiming that the most ancient primary sources seem to remain unknown. I don’t know if that’s true because I haven’t done a review of the literature myself, but, at least, he proves the point by showing that the most ancient sources are not discussed in the few sources he surveys in ┬з6, and the primary-source material he quotes is not sufficiently well-known in his opinion… and that’s not a surprising opinion, because he can read Pali and you can’t… and the vast majority of people who worship tooth-relics and hair-relics can’t either.
These comments, so far, illustrate exactly why articles like this need to focus on the most ancient origins, and on disclosing the precise writ of the most ancient primary-source texts: because people like you are so eager to ignore and dismiss them, and because almost nobody can (and even fewer actually do) conduct comparative reading of this kind. I know I can’t.
In reply to Moe Aung, do you really think the guy’s comments on the real world of modern Buddhist cults are so “scurrilous and groundless”? Take a look at the map of the guy’s life in the last ten years, and tell me if you think there isn’t anything “evidence based” in there, even if he’s saying it with a wink and a smirk:
http://www.pali.pratyeka.org/#Mazard
Do you think the guy isn’t entitled to have an opinion? Do you think the guy isn’t entitled to have a sense of humor about it?
There’s a stark inequality at play here: anyone can post their opinion on the internet, but almost nobody can read Pali primary source texts. Could it be that the stated hostility toward scholarly interest in “earliest origins” reflects the total inability of the readers to examine such origins themselves?
Take a look at that illustration in the middle of the article: if that was a quote from Tibetan, and if this were published in an online journal of Tibetan studies, there would be at least a half-dozen people reading it would could respond to the primary source text. Instead, the quote is Cambodian, and most of the comments show a limited understanding of the English, and zero appreciation of the Pali.
The Buddha was bald
This post aside, Eisel Mazard has done a great service for English speaking/reading students of Pali language with his Pali Pratyeka website.
A Red Shirt New Year party
Thanks for the photos Nick. Happy new Year to all of you here and from the depths of my heart I wish all the Thais DEMOCRACY!!
The Buddha was bald
Dear Mr Mazard,
The Gautama Buddha lived up to the old age of 80 years and He would certainly be bald at the old age. Besides, the depiction of Gautama Buddha with a stump of hair on the head is maintained in sculptures and paintings to let the followers know what He did for Dukkaracaria to become a Buddha. But his replicas and pictures are not living portraits and His statue was not made until 3rd or 4th Century AD long after His Mahaparinibbana. Besides we Buddhists do not worship His statues and pictures but just as the focus of attention to the real Buddha and His Dhamma. Different physiques and styles if Him can be seen in various Buddhist countries from Gandhara (Now Afghanistan) in the West to Japan in the East. He resembles a Greek or Westerner in the Gandhara statues, more like an Indian in Asokan Buddha statues, but He looks like a Japanese in Japan. Thank for your effort, but His hair is not a problem for the Buddhists. All Buddhist monks including the Buddha must have a shaven head!
The Buddha was bald
Many thanks for a Buddhist Studies article on this forum, which makes for a pleasant change. Some interesting points made. However, the article suffers from an originist agenda which seems to value exclusively a putative historical Buddha over the manner in the Buddha has been treated and portrayed by Buddhist cultures in the last 2,000 or so years. Words such as ‘fallacy’ and ‘heresy’ are used glibly and without analysis. Certainly it is interesting to note that canonical texts depict the Buddha as bald. But equally as interesting would be to analyse the meaning and evolution of the Buddha’s curled locks and peaked cranium in Buddhist traditions and the reason why such images arose – none of which seem to engage the writer at all, who appears content merely to state that the Buddha was at one time described as bald and that his later depiction is somehow ‘wrong’.
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
just to broaden my comment slightly…
I used the adjective “traditional” referring to the role I now perceive for the Institute
not really having a sense of its actual or self-proclaimed role(s) historically, I wonder if perhaps the Institute or at least its role might be pseudo-traditional or to have changed through its history
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
Michael #12
mmm interesting… I am assuming that for the Institute to be involved either:
the military/royal rulers of Thailand expect the material to not challenge any of the bases and legitimacy of their wealth and power
or they assume the material will only be accessed by an audience that will not be an influential threat to their wealth and power
am I wrong about the Institute being one of the traditional intellectual supports for Thai military/royal supremacy over the people?
A Red Shirt New Year party
Who paid for the fireworks?
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
David Brown:
Are you suggesting that Marc Askew as the editor, and the authors, including myself, corrupted their academic ethics and professionalism in contributing to KPI’s yearbook?
Legitimacy crisis in Thailand
seeing ref to King Prajadhipok’s Institute makes me wonder about the objective worth of the contents….
Marc please note: $35 is my reason for being concerned about the contents of the blurb
A Red Shirt New Year party
Thanks a lot Nick for the photos.
And Happy New Year to you.
For those interested to see more photos of this New Year party/rally in front of prison, go here (photos plus short description in Thai):
http://www.internetfreedom.us/thread-7720.html
I’d like to point out that the content of speeches by several speakers during this rally by Surachai’s group (“Daen Sayam” [red siam]) as well as during the one the previous two days, organized by the same group, at a temple in Nonthaburi, had been very, very strong, though still necessarily coughed in implicit language, on the issue of the monarchy. It was during these rallies that I learned new term to rival the one about the ‘ATM card, already well known, and popular among the Reds.