Olivier, Guilhem. Moqueries et metamorphoses du’an dieu aztèque:
Tezcatlipoca, le “Seigneur au miroir fumant” (Mockeries and
Metamorphasis of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, the ‘man of the
smoking mirror’). Paris, 1997.
DAVÍD CARRASCO (1987)
Revised Bibliography
THAI RELIGION. Thailand must be counted as one
of the preeminent Buddhist countries in the world. Official
figures place the percentage of Buddhists in a population of
47 million in 1980 as more than 95 percent. If those, mainly
of Chinese and Vietnamese extraction, who follow
Maha ̄ya ̄na and Confucian traditions are excluded from the
census category of Buddhists, wherein they are officially sub-
sumed, still well over 90 percent of the populace of Thailand
can be counted as adherents of Therava ̄da Buddhism. De-
spite the apparent uniformity of religion that such a charac-
terization suggests, there are many facets of Thai religion. As
different sectors of the Thai populace have attempted to find
meaningful ways to confront fundamental problems of dis-
ease and death, threats of social disorder, and experienced or
perceived injustices, they have turned to different types of re-
ligious practice, each with its own distinctive history. Al-
though these different types can be said in some basic sense
to belong to an encompassing tradition of Thai Therava ̄da
Buddhism, they are still sometimes in tension with each
other.
TRADITIONAL THAI RELIGION. In 1292, Ramkhamhaeng
(Ra ̄ma Khamhaeng), the king of the principality of
Sukho ̄thai in what is today north-central Thailand, put up
a stele on which was recorded the first known text in any Tai
language—that is, in any of the languages spoken by the an-
cestors of such modern-day peoples as the Lao, the Yuan
(Northern Thai), and the Siamese (Central Thai). The in-
scription is notable for being the first historical evidence that
Tai-speaking peoples had become adherents of Therava ̄da
Buddhism. Prior to the thirteenth century, Tai-speaking
peoples living in northern mainland Southeast Asia and in
southern China had followed animistic traditions based on
beliefs in a realm of spirits (ph ̄ı) and deities (tha ̄ ̄en) and in
a vital essence (khwan) that made human beings, rice, and
certain animals more than mere physical organisms. Some
Tai-speaking peoples such as the Red Tai, or Tho living in
northern Vietnam and northeastern Laos, remained animis-
tic until at least the middle of the twentieth century. Others,
such as the Siamese, the Yuan of northern Thailand, the Lao
of Laos and northeastern Thailand, the Shan of Burma, and
the Lue of southern China and northwestern Laos, while re-
taining beliefs in spirits and a vital essence, also came to un-
derstand the world in terms of the Buddhism of the Pali tra-
dition.
Initially, Buddhism among the Tai, as among other
peoples in mainland Southeast Asia, appears to have centered
primarily on the cult of relics. The enshrinement of such rel-
ics in stupas and the placement of images and other remind-
ers of the Buddha served to establish the presence of the Bud-
dha in the domains (muang) of the Tai. Having accepted the
Buddha, the Tai were open to the teachings of missionary
monks belonging to what has been termed the “forest mon-
astery” tradition who traveled from domain to domain in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. One of the most impor-
tant consequences of the work of these monks was the estab-
lishment of wats (temple-monasteries) in villages as well as
in court centers. The members of the sangha (Skt., sam:gha),
or order of monks, who lived in these monasteries popular-
ized the Dhamma, the doctrines of Buddhism, by using texts
written in the vernacular rather than in Pali, the canonical
language of the Therava ̄da tradition. Among the most influ-
ential were the Sermon on the Three Worlds, written by a
prince of Sukho ̄thai in the middle of the fourteenth century,
and sermons in the form of suttas, written probably in north-
ern Thailand in the fifteenth century, that tell of the “bless-
ings” (a ̄nisam:sa) acquired through ritual acts.
In the Buddhist worldview adopted by the Tai, all sen-
tient beings—human, animal, demonic, and divine—are un-
derstood to be situated along a continuum of relative suffer-
ing, the place they occupy on the continuum being
determined by the consequences of kamma (Skt., karman;
Thai, kam)—that is, consequences of actions performed in
previous existences. The differences among human beings—
male and female, ruler and peasant, rich and poor, beautiful
and ugly, healthy and sickly—can also be interpreted with
reference to the theory of kamma. Tai continued to believe
in a personal vital essence (khwan), in spirits (ph ̄ı), in gods—
now construed in Hindu-Buddhist terms as devata ̄ (Thai,
th ̄e-wada ̄), as well as in “fate” or cosmic influence—notions
adapted from Indian thought and conceived of as khro
̆?
(from Skt., gr:ha, astrological mansion or the place of a planet
in the zodiac) or chata ̄ (from Skt., ja ̄ta, “born”). These be-
liefs, however, related to proximate, not ultimate, causes of
fortune and misfortune. One’s kamma ultimately deter-
mined whether one could be successful in securing one’s
wandering vital essence, in propitiating spirits, in worshiping
the deities, or in dispelling cosmic influences.A significant change of one’s position along the contin-
uum of suffering could only be accomplished through accu-
mulating merit (puñña; Thai, bun) and not acquiring demer-
it (pa ̄pa; Thai, ba ̄p). To “make merit” (tham bun) as a
layperson one was to offer alms (da ̄na; Thai, tha ̄n) to the
sangha. A male could also make significant merit through be-
coming a member of the sangha and subjecting himself to
the monastic “discipline” (vinaya; Thai, winai). To avoid de-
merit one was to observe a code of morality (s ̄ıla; Thai, s ̄ın)
that ensured that one would transcend ignorance and resist
the temptation to act so as to fulfill one’s lust, greed, or
anger. The consequences of immoral behavior—such as pun-
ishment in hell (naraka; Thai, narok)—as well as of moral
and meritorious action—such as rebirth in heaven (sagga;
Thai, sawan from Skt. svarga) and eventual rebirth on earth9094 THAI RELIGION