Abstract
From 1964 to 1965, the Thai Government and sangha together launched a project to send missionary monks among the hill-dwelling non-Thai ethnic minority groups in the North, with the obvious aim of integrating these various groups into a unified national culture and society. The Thammacarik (Wandering Dharma) Project, as it was named, has been criticized as a case of religious alliance with political and administrative purposes. Moreover, the effects of the project, at least in its initial stages, have been questioned. Most of these reports and criticisms were made in the early stages of the project, and there have since been few reports from the scene. Based on observations made in a cluster of Sgaw Karen villages in Chiang Mai Province between 1987 and 1989, this paper provides an account of the project as it was carried out in this area. It examines the cultural reasoning and socioeconomic changes that prompt the acceptance of Buddhist practices in the community, and concludes that it is precisely the ritualistic and allegedly ‘superficial’ tendencies of Buddhism advocated by the project that account for its ready reception by the Karen in this area.
