This article attempts to provide as much detail as possible about the background, process, and end of Khruba Srivichai’s second house arrest in Bangkok (November 1935–May 1936), while clearly indicating the sources of the documents. Most of the articles related to Srivichai in The Srikrung Daily News and Krungdeb Varasab Daily News, two Thai-language daily newspapers, used in this study have not been cited in existing studies.
For more than six months, from early November 1935 to mid-May 1936, Khruba Srivichai was recalled to Bangkok, far from Chiang Mai, and placed under house arrest at Wat Benchamabophit by the existing Sangha. During this period, in Northern Thailand (Phayap Region), where Srivichai was no longer in existence, the existing Sangha thoroughly suppressed Srivichai sect’s temples and ordained monks who had broken away from the existing Sangha and tried to follow the “ancient customs” with Srivichai as the head of the sect. The existing Sanga also forced Srivichai in Bangkok to sign a written pledge to abide by the Sangha’s Governing Law and the Sangha’s rules and regulations.
As a result, the Srivichai sect temples in Northern Thailand (937 Buddhist temples existed in Chiang Mai Province in 1935, of which about 90 temples belonged to the Srivichai sect) and their monks were extinguished, and Srivichai was completely bound hand and foot, making it impossible for him to act independently of the existing Sangha after that.
Srivichai and his disciples belonged to the existing Sangha until 1934. It was around April 1935, when the Doi Suthep mountain road, which Srivichai had proposed to construct, was nearing completion, that Srivichai sect became clearly independent from the existing Sangha. The enthusiastic devotion to Srivichai shown by many people in Northern Thailand during the construction of this road must have given the Srivichai sect a great deal of confidence in their ability to break away from the Sangha and become independent.
After the 1932 Constitutional Revolution, the People’s Party, which came to power in 1932, made the spread of primary education one of its major policies and opened private primary schools (Prachaban schools) throughout the country to provide uniform education in standard Thai language. Standard Thai texts were also used in the education of monks, novices and others by the Sangha. This was a cultural invasion and forced Thaification of Northern Thailand, which had its own Lanna Thai script and language by Bangkok. This was unacceptable to the Srivichai people, who valued the “ancient customs” of the Lanna Thai.
The suppression of the Srivichai sect was carried out in cold blood by the existing Sangha’s bureaucratic elite, most notably Somdet Phra Phutthakhosachan (Charoen Yanawaro, 1872–1951), head of the Supreme Sangha Council, and Phrathamkosachan (Plot Kittisophano 1889–1962,the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand from 1960 to 1962), a member of the Supreme Sangha Council and head of the Phayap Regional Sangha. On the other hand, the secular government cooperated to some extent with the Sangha elite’s suppression of the Srivichai sect, but not as forcefully as the Sangha. The Sangha belonged to the Ministry of Education, which could consult with and advise the Sangha but did not have the final authority to command and control it.
Whether the Sangha or the secular authorities, the basis for their suppression of the Srivichai sect is probably the traditional principle that, while freedom of religion is allowed in Thailand, Buddhism, in particular, must be the State Religion with the King as its patron, and therefore the Sangha must be a single entity.
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