in ethical behavior and avoid dissipation instead of
engaging in elaborate ritual practices. We also en-
counter it more than two millennia later when, intent
on modernizing their country, southeast Asian kings
such as Mongkut (r. 1851–1868) and Chulalongkorn
(1868–1910) sought to curtail ritual expenditures, la-
beling them as wasteful and superstitious. That a Thai
king such as Mongkut sought to reform the SAN ̇GHA
in the process of centralizing power and modernizing
his country is typical of attempts at modernization.
Equally typical—whether in Thailand, in Myanmar
(Burma), or in Reformation Europe—is the fact that
reformers have usually shown an extreme unease to-
ward ritual and consider themselves as having re-
turned to the original, textually-based teachings of
their religion. Indeed in Thailand, the monks around
Mongkut (himself an ex-monk) called themselves the
Thammayut (Dhammayuttika, “those adhering to
doctrine”). Connected to these twin processes of cen-
tralization of power and curtailing of ritual activities
is the delimitation of a religious realm, analogous to
that found in the West since the eighteenth century.
Once again, we find examples of this delimitation in
Southeast Asia, partly as the result of the desire to em-
ulate the degree of development demonstrated by colo-
nial powers, and ultimately to counteract the colonial
powers’ activities.
The emphasis on intentionality is found in the ac-
knowledgment, present since the earliest day of Bud-
dhism, that in order for an action to be considered
blameworthy, one has to be aware of what one is do-
ing. This distinguishes Buddhism radically from the ar-
chaic approach found in the Hindu world, according
to which one incurs guilt regardless of one’s intentions.
What is peculiar to Buddhism is the coexistence of an
emphasis on intentionality and a radical rejection of a
reified self. Indeed, what distinguishes Buddhism from
all other religious systems is a processual understand-
ing of reality combined with the rejection of reifica-
tion, an understanding and a rejection that find their
culmination in the concept of anatman (no-self).But rejection of the notion of self does not entail
lack of concern for subjectivity. The reverse is in factMODERNITY ANDBUDDHISM
Young monks take a computer class at Ban-Thaton Temple in northern Thailand in 1995. © Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images. Repro-
duced by permission.