BUDDHISM IN SRI LANKA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 149the Sangha contains a number of rules that are not in line with the Pali Canon,
including one allowing the chanting of magical formulae for the sake of oth-
ers, a practice the canon specifically forbids (Strong EB, sec. 6.5.3). Rama rv;
during his 20-plus years as a monk, was an avid student of astrology, an activ-
ity also forbidden by the canon. Pali dharaQ.i:s and visualization chants, evi-
dently written by Pali scholars to compete with Sanskrit Tantric dharaQ.iS in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are still widely memorized and chanted
throughout Theravadin countries today, a sign that the reformers were not
above taking on the methods of their competitors in an effort to win converts.
As for their success, there is ample evidence that the reforms existed as lit-
tle more than a veneer on top of the syncretic mix of popular beliefs that had
been established before the eleventh century. For example, European travelers
to Ayudhaya in the seventeenth century left behind reports disclosing that the
old Cambodian notion of god-king dominated the court, and that Tantric vi-
sualization exercises dominated the practice of meditation in the monasteries.
Modern-day anthropologists have discovered Tantric and animistic practices
not only in the rural areas of Theravadin countries but also in the moderniz-
ing cities.
These findings, however, should not be allowed to obscure the fact that
this consistent pattern of Theravadin reforms for nine centuries succeeded in
keeping the traditions of Pali scholarship alive and in establishing Theravadin
beliefs as the orthodoxy in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and other areas in
their sphere of influence. Theravada thus remained the standard to which other
elements in the syncretic mix of Southeast Asia Buddhism had to either bend
or pay lip service, or else go underground (sometimes literally-see Strong
EB, sec. 6.6). This Theravadin standard created a sense of cultural unity and
continuity in these~countries that outlasted the rise and fall of many political
dynasties and may in part explain why Buddhists in these kingdoms were the
only ones in the Indianized states of the region able to resist the Islamic influ-
ences emanating from India through most of this period (unlike Buddhists in
Malaysia and Indonesia, who did not join the Theravada connection).
Thus it is difficult to disagree with the kings who felt that, in fostering
what they viewed as Theravadin orthodoxy within their borders, they were
furthering both the religion and the stability of their societies, and quite sim-
ply keeping Buddhism-whether pure or impure-alive.
7.4 THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Given that the survival of this Theravada-dominated syncretism depended to a
large extent on royal patronage, it should come as no surprise that the colonial
period (sixteenth century through to the twentieth century) had an enormous
impact on the status ofBuddhism in this region. Even in Thailand, the only
country in the region that did not become a European colony, the political