Rama I in 1782. The then King warned the Thai subjects not to pay much attention to
spirits and magical things while ignoring the Buddhist teaching (Kitiarsa 1999 : 94).
In the globalization period (1769–1950), Siam (former name of Thailand)
entered modernity. The power of Ayutthaya shifted to Dhonburi and later to
Bangkok. King Rama I ofRattanakosin(the starting of the Chakri Dynasty with
Bangkok as the capital city) era ordered all monks to have an ID. Bad monks were
defrocked. Christian missionaries came in the late 1820s and that made
Monk-Prince Mongkut reform the Sangha by establishing the Thammayut move-
ment in the reign of King Rama III (Ishii 1986 : 65 andhttp://guru.google.co.th/
guru/thread?tid=59242e591b555f35. Accessed September 23rd, 2014). The
Thammayut Nikaya is distinctively different from the Lankawong or Maha Nikaya
(mainstream Lankawong Theravadin monks) in emphasizing stricter vinaya (dis-
ciplines) and focusing on meditation (http://guru.google.co.th/guru/thread?tid=
59242e591b555f35. Accessed September 23rd, 2014).
King Rama IV, also known as King Mongkut (reigned from 1824–1868),
reformed Buddhism in terms of the interpretation of Dhamma (the truth or nature of
the world as described by the Lord Buddha) by editing ancient Buddhist texts and
propagating a reformed version to suit the modernization era based on Science
(Visalo 2003 :8–11). Meditation practices and metaphysical miracles were eradi-
cated from the Buddhist studies curricula for monks. Heaven and hell were
explained as a state of mind, rather than as the world out there after death. The
worldviews of the people had changed to greater secularism and the image of
Buddha and Kingship was reduced from divinity to a more human form (Visalo
2003 :18–30).
During the reign of King Rama V, also known as King Chulalongkorn (1873–
1910), Thailand entered the modernization period. Out of fear of colonization by
Great Britain and France, King Chulalongkorn initiatedfiscal, education, commu-
nication, and transportation reforms with Bangkok as the center (Charoensin-o-larn
1988 : 139 and Sivaraksa 2001 :33–34). Although Winks ( 1976 ) suggests that the
concept“informal empire” can be used for such a reform, Holm ( 1997 : 124)
explains that the informal form of imperialism imposed on Thailand revolved
mostly around the control of railway construction from Bangkok, and the degree of
involvement was limited to the cooperation of the royal family and the upper
aristocracy. A formal form of imperialism was imposed on Siam when it signed the
“Bowring Treaty”with the British in 1851. It aimed to reduce import duties and
taxation and allowed British subjects to reside in Siam and enjoy rights of
extraterritoriality from the Siamese courts (Wyatt 1984 : 184). Siam also signed
Bowring-like treaties with the USA, France, and a score of other states (Wyatt
1984 : 184). Charoensin-o-larn ( 1988 ): 139 calls the way King Rama V transformed
the traditional decentralized sakdina (Thai feudal) states into a highly centralized
and unified state under absolutism as“internal colonization.”I would rather call the
way Kings Rama V, VI, and VII rearranged the structure of the country to meet
Western standards in the globalization period as ahybridization of the Thai polit-
ical-economy.
1.2 Thai Buddhism in the Phases of Globalization 5