sary to give careful attention to regional and national differ-
ences.
In the monastic context the stage was set for the devel-
opments of the modern period by major reforms that were
implemented in each of the three major Therava ̄da regions.
In Sri Lanka the relevant reform took place in the middle
decades of the eighteenth century. Centered in the indepen-
dent kingdom of Kandy and led by the sanghara ̄ja named
Välivita Saranamkara, this movement received royal support.
Believing their ordination lineage to be defective, the reform-
ers invited Thai monks to Sri Lanka to reintroduce an au-
thentic Therava ̄da lineage. Through their efforts a new
Siyam (Thai) nika ̄ya was established.
Later in the eighteenth century King Bodawpaya (r.
1781-1819) succeeded in uniting Burma under his rule and
in establishing a considerable degree of royally regulated dis-
cipline within the Burmese sangha. Through his efforts Bo-
dawpaya officially resolved the long-standing and rancorous
dispute between monastic factions about the proper way of
wearing the monastic robes. Having more or less unified the
sangha, Bodawpaya’s reforms established the basis for the
Thudhamma segment of the Order that has continued to in-
clude the majority of Burmese monks.
In Indochina the corresponding reforms were sponsored
by King Ra ̄ma I, the founder of the Thai kingdom of Bang-
kok. Having claimed the throne after a period of severe dis-
ruption following the destruction of the former Thai capital
of Ayutthaya ̄, the first ruler of the new Cakkr ̄ı dynasty intro-
duced a series of reforms that unified the sangha and
strengthened discipline within its ranks. This more or less
unified fraternity—later called the Mahanika ̄ya—has never
lost its majority position within the Thai sangha. In Cambo-
dia and Laos closely related, although less reformed,
Mahanika ̄ya fraternities were dominant at the beginning of
the modern period and have held that position ever since.
During the nineteenth century there emerged within
the sangha in each area a major competing faction or factions.
In Sri Lanka two competing fraternities appeared on the
scene—the Amarapura nika ̄ya (so called because it received
its new ordination lineage from the branch of the Burmese
sangha that was recognized at the Burmese capital of
Amarapura) and the Ra ̄mañña nika ̄ya (so called because it
received its new ordination lineage from the Mon sangha that
had its center in the Ra ̄mañña country of Lower Burma).
The Amarapura nika ̄ya came into being because ordination
in the Siyam nika ̄ya had quickly become limited to members
of the highest (goyigama) caste. Although the intrusion of
caste distinctions into the Therava ̄da sangha in Sri Lanka was
not a new phenomenon, such discrimination led, in the early
nineteenth century, to the formation of a competing fraterni-
ty. This new fraternity was—and remains today—a rather
loose confederation of several smaller groups from various
other castes that are especially prominent in southwestern Sri
Lanka.
The Ra ̄mañña nika ̄ya was established in 1864 when a
group of monks with a more uncompromising attitude to-
ward any kind of caste distinctions within the sangha and a
more “modernist” approach to all aspects of Buddhist teach-
ing and practice formed their own independent fraternity.
(“Modernist” in this article refers to a skeptical attitude to-
ward traditional beliefs regarding cosmology, the existence
of gods and spirits, and the efficacy of rituals.) Although this
stricter and more modernist Ra ̄mañña nika ̄ya has remained
by far the smallest of the Sinhala fraternities, it has neverthe-
less exerted considerable influence on the Buddhist commu-
nity in Sri Lanka.
During the nineteenth century many of the same factors
and orientations were present in Burma as in Sri Lanka, but
a different kind of political and social context led to a much
greater proliferation of nika ̄ya and similar groups called ga-
ings. In Burma, much more than in Sri Lanka, the nine-
teenth-century British conquest disrupted the fabric of social
life. In response to a disrupted environment, numerous
small, more tightly organized groups formed alongside the
majority Thudhamma monks who continued to accept the
authority of the royally sponsored Thudhamma Council
through the reign of King Mindon Min (d. 1878). These
various groups both complemented one another and com-
peted with each other for purity of monastic observance and
its attendant lay support. Among these groups the Thud-
hamma monks and the Shwegyin fraternity came to play the
most important role. In comparison with the Thudhamma
monks, the Shwegyin group succeeded in maintaining a
more rigorous level of scholarship and discipline. The Sh-
wegyin and the other smaller reformist communities, al-
though less explicitly “modernist” in their orientation than
the Ra ̄mañña fraternity in Sri Lanka, had close affinities
with it.
In western Indochina during the nineteenth century a
single new nika ̄ya, the Thammayut, emerged to complement
and compete with the established Mahanika ̄ya fraternity.
The Thammayut (Dhammayuttika) nika ̄ya was founded in
Thailand in the mid-nineteenth century by the future king
Mongkut (Ra ̄ma IV) during his more than twenty years in
the sangha. Clearly modernist in its orientation, the group
received its ordination lineage from the same Mon tradition
to which modern-oriented reformists in other Therava ̄da
countries also turned. But unlike the Ra ̄mañña fraternity in
Sri Lanka and the Shwegyin fraternity in Burma, the Tham-
mayut fraternity received special support from Thailand’s
unconquered monarchy all through the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. This, plus the closely related fact
that its members were drawn largely from the highest levels
of the Thai elite, enabled it to exert a powerful influence on
the much larger Mahanika ̄ya. The Thammayut’s favored sta-
tus and elite membership also enabled it to play an important
role in drawing provincial traditions into the central Thai
sangha, and in extending central Thai influence into the
sanghas of Cambodia and Laos as well.THERAVA ̄DA 9151