The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia.

• Author: Skilling, Peter

The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia is divided into three chapters. The first, "The Popular Tradition: Inclusive Syncretism," describes "ideal action"; a number of rituals, ceremonies, and festivals, such as Kathina, the consecration of a Buddha image, Desana Mahajati, New Year, Visakha Puja, and Loi Kratong; and rites of passage such as ordination, weddings, and funeral rites. Since much of Swearer's field-work over the years has been conducted in northern Thailand, he is able to offer valuable descriptions of the contemporary practice of Buddhism in that area. But since Northern Thai or Lanna Buddhism is different from the other Buddhisms of the region, which are described much more briefly, the chapter might have been more felicitously organized as a presentation of Lanna Buddhism in comparison with other Buddhisms. The Mon - who contributed enormously to the cultures and Buddhisms of both the Burmese and the Thai, and are still a living Buddhist community in both countries - deserve more than the brief mentions they receive.(1)

The second chapter, "Buddhism as Civil Religion: Political Legitimation and National Integration," looks at Buddhism in a political context: both from an ideal and an historical perspective. The most useful part comes at the end: the too brief overview of "Modern Nationalism and Buddhism" (pp. 95-105). The rest of the chapter sits awkwardly, with too much space given over to a retelling of (mainly) Western accounts of the cosmic symbolism of the stupa and kingship, from Mus to Heine-Geldern. One may search traditional texts in vain for "galactic interpretations" (p. 82) and "primordial oceans." The association of stupas with cosmic mountains and with kingship is overstated. Dedicatory inscriptions reveal that the earliest-known monumental Indian stupas and cave-temples were communal projects, sponsored by monastic, kinship, and trade groups, with, it seems, little participation of the ruling elite. Lesser stupas simply enshrined the remains of dead monastics. The primary acknowledged motive in the making of stupas has been, and is, to preserve relics and to make merit, rather than to build cosmic mountains or microcosms.(2) In Southeast Asia, every stupa is specific, with its own legend and life, its own role in the local sacred calendar and its own place on the local sacred map.

For the study of kingship in Southeast Asia we have access to a considerable body of inscriptions, along with chronicles and records...