1279–1298). Somewhat earlier, the rise to power of the
Sinhalese monarch Parakkama Bahu I (r. 1153–1186)
in Sri Lanka and the subsequent dominance of the
Mahavihara monastic fraternity led to the missionary
expansion of Sinhalese Theravada into Burma and
Thailand. A 1287 C.E. inscription at Sukhothai records
that Ramkhamhaeng patronized monks of the Lanka
order (lankavamsa), whom he invited from Nakon
Sithammarat, a Thai state located far to the south on
the Gulf of Siam. Thai monks ordained in Burma and
Sri Lanka brought lineages of Sinhala Theravada to
Thailand in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Un-
der Tilokarat (r. 1441–1487) monks of the Mahavihara
reformist tradition at the Red Forest Monastery (Wat
PaDaeng) in Chiang Mai gained a religious and po-
litical prominence that led to a council under royal
sponsorship to regularize monastic teaching and prac-
tice. Nevertheless, although Buddhism in the Thai
states from Nakon Sithammarat in the south to AYUT-
THAYAin central Thailand and Chiang Mai to the north
came more under the sway of Sinhala Theravada, it
lacked the uniformity achieved with the formation of
the modern nation-state around the turn of the twen-
tieth century. Even today, Thai Buddhism is more com-
plex and hybridized than the Pali canon, the normative
commentaries of BUDDHAGHOSA(fifth century C.E.),
the Mahavihara parittaritual handbook, and a national
SAN ̇GHAorganization created by the great Supreme Pa-
triarch (samgharat), Wachirayan (Vajirañanavarorasa,
1860–1921), would lead one to believe.
Syncretism continues to define many Thai religious
practices. Temple festivals begin by invoking the
guardian deities of the four quarters, zenith, and nadir.
Monastic ordinations are often preceded by an elabo-
rate spirit calling (riak khwan) ceremony. Yantric tat-
toos and magical amulets are worn by the devout to
ward off danger. Offerings are made at the shrines of
deities protecting mountain passes, and elaborate al-
tars to the Hindu god Brahma occupy a prominent
place at the entrance to hotels. In Chiang Mai, north-
ern Thais inaugurate the New Year by three sequential
events: appealing to the spirit of a palladial buddha im-
age; invoking the god, INDRA, resident in the city pil-
lar; and sacrificing a buffalo to the spirits who guard
the mountains overlooking the valley. The veneration
of King Rama V (Chulalongkorn, r. 1868–1910), which
originated as a cult of his equestrian statue before the
parliament building in Bangkok, has spread nation-
wide. And, as if to validate Bizot’s theory of tantric
Theravada, Thailand’s fastest-growing new Buddhist
movement, Wat Thammakai, espouses a Yogavacara
form of meditation claimed by the founder to be an
ancient method rediscovered by the late abbot of Wat
Paknam, a royal monastery located on Bangkok’s Chao
Phraya River.San ̇ ̇gha and state
From the time of the Tai kingdoms in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, royal patronage of monks,
monasteries, and monastic lineages has characterized
the relationship between Buddhism and the state.
Based on inscriptional and chronicle evidence, Ishii
Yoneo observes in San ̇gha, State, and Society(1986)
that state Buddhism in the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya
kingdoms included the following elements: Kings con-
ferred ecclesiastical ranks and controlled monastic ap-
pointments; kings appointed secular officials in charge
of crown-san ̇gha relationships; royal patronage in-
cluded donating lands as well as building royal monas-
teries in the capital and provinces; kings ordained as
monks for a limited time as an expression of piety; andTHAILANDA restored statue of the Buddha at Sukhothai, the ancient capital
of Thailand, which contains many temples and monasteries, some
in ruins. © Lindsay Hebberd/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.