Nearly a year has passed since I published Encounter of Southern and Northern Buddhism: Japanese Buddhists in Modern Thailand, 1888–1945 (Center for Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, 2023, vii+771 p). In this book, I attempted to grasp the total number of Japanese monks who visited Thailand between 1888 and 1945, and then wrote about the careers of more than 20 major monks, their activities in Thailand, and their observations and opinions on Thai Buddhism.

My publication uncovers the extensive travels of Japanese Buddhist scholars to Thailand before 1945, along with their numerous insights into Thai Buddhism. Specifically, I highlight that the research quality on Thai Buddhism by Oda (Ikuta) Tokuno and Yamamoto Kairyu surpasses that of postwar Japanese scholars. The book includes significant essays on Thai Buddhism by these scholars in the original Japanese, making it a crucial resource for anyone looking to study or practice Buddhism in Thailand.

After the publication of this book, I found abundant data on Yoshimaru Tetsutaro, a former temperance activist who died of cholera in Bangkok in 1896 just before he was ordained as a Buddhist monk, and on Shigeta Yūsuke, one of the leading lay Buddhist youths of the 1890s and a Zen practitioner who worked for the Japanese legation in Thailand from 1897–98 and accompanied Kamimura Kanko to Annam temple. However, Shigeta did not explore Thai Buddhism in depth and it can be said that he easily criticized Thai Buddhism based on his preconceived notions of Mahayana superiority.

In this paper, Yoshimaru is treated in Section 1 and Shigeta in Section 2 as an addendum to my book.

Furthermore, in Section 3, I have added supplementary explanations on matters that I was not able to explain in detail in my book, based on materials newly discovered through my research after I wrote the book. Some of these are listed below.

According to Prince Damrong’s account of the history of royal Kongtek rites, King V adopted Mahayana (Annamite) Kongtek rites in addition to Theravada Buddhist rites at the funeral of Queen Sunanta, who drowned on 31 May 1880. The funeral program of Kongtek rites agreed at that time was carried over to subsequent official royal funerals, and the 50-day and 100-day rites performed at that time also spread to Thai civilian funerals.

Although ordained Mahayana monks generally abstain from eating meat, monks of the Annamese sect in Thailand, like the Theravada sect, will eat meat that has been offered as alms. Conversely, the Chinese sect monks are prohibited from consuming meat, hence they abstain from almsgiving. Both the Annamese and Chinese sects have designated the day of the Buddha’s birth as Theravada Vesak (Wisākabūchā) Day, instead of April 8th, as is customary in Japan. Following this day, they commence a three-month rain retreat, beginning two months prior to the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

I presented documents from the Japanese official gazette showing that the real name of the owner of a brothel famously known as Shanghai Grandma was Tsunoda Machi (from the Kanto region), and I found that the first Buddhist association in Thailand (named สมาคมพุทธมามก) was approved as an association on December 16, 1932, with membership consisting of both monks and lay people, and the majority of the founders were socialists from the left wing of the People’s Party. It is assumed that this association ceased to exist with the expulsion of the left wing of the People’s Party by Mano administration in April 1933. 「View PDF for the rest of the abstract」