Thammayut Nikaya is one of the Buddhist sects, which comprises Thai Buddhist Sangha together with another sect, Maha Nikaya. In spite of the fact that it has relatively few temples, it is very powerfull in Thai Sangha. These two sects live and do religious rituals separately. Thammayut Nikaya has its origin in the Thammayut movement that was a very important religious movement in 19th century Thai Sangha. This paper seeks to study the activity of this Thammayut movement from 1829 to 1836.
In 1829, about 30 monks joined the Thammayut movement and 6 monks removed to Wat Samorai temple to accompany Wachirayana (Later, Rama 4th). However, they did not stay there all the time. Their leader Wachirayana, using Wat Samorai temple as the base of his movement, also still had his
Kuti in Wat Mahathat temple and thus had two addresses until he moved to Wat Bowoniwet temple in 1836. His disciples also lived in wat Samorai as well as in their original temples. This situation was necessitated by the fact that Wat Samorai could not spport so many monks, and moveover, they were avoiding offending the
Vinaya.
At Wat Samorai they accepted
Upasampada (the ordination ceremony of Sangha) of Mon style. In Therevada Buddhism Upasampada has a very important meaning which concerns the holiness of monks and Sangha. Wachirayana was greatly interested in the
Sima, the place for Upasampada, from the time he came to Wat Samorai. There, he and his disciples, inviting Mon monks, were given Upasampada in the Mon style several times. These ceremonies were not an ordination to the Sangha, but a pursuit of improving ceremony by following a more select, correct style. It showed Wachirayana's principle to follow the original Buddhist rules, Vinaya.
Wachirayana and his disciples did
Dhuta, a monk's ascetic practice of wandering as an activity towards outside society. Dhuta is one of the basic practices of Theravada Buddhism, during which monks often have occasion to preach to the peoplel. Wachirayana practiced Dhuta in 1830, 1831, and 1833, when he journeyed to the north provinces for 62 days, which brought about a lot of legends about him. For Wachirayana himself, Dhuta was the most opportune chance to gather new experiences. On the other hand, for the people living in the up countries, it was a rare occasion to see a highly positioned royal family member like Wachirayana, and they must have been greatly impressed by the Bangkok Dynasty. Everytime he planned to practice Dhuta Wachirayana asked RamaIII for an allowance which was granted. For the expansion of power of the Bangkok Dynasty, it was quite effective that a monk from the royal family visited the provinces during Dhuta, and advantageous for the king. By Dhuta, Wachirayana got fame and his brother King RamaIII had effective propaganda and got information about local provinces.
The Thammayut movement expanded outside Sangha and they began preaching to the people in 1829. In the same year, they began to administer Upasampada to the outside people. It can be seen that these activities were influenced in the active way they tried to propagate their beliefs among the people by the Christian missionaries who had began preaching in Bangkok.
At the beginning of the 1830's, politically the situation of Wachirayana was not easy for him. When vice king Mahasakdiphongsep died in 1832, Wachirayana was not promoted at all, although many nobles in the court were promoted.
However, he was appointed by Rama III as the chief monk of Wat Bowoniwet temple in 1836. This appointment, enabled Wachirayana to go back inside the walls of Bangkok as the chief m-nk of a royally supported temple. It also showed the king's support of Wachirayana by treating him as if he had been a president of Sangha or a vice-king. Likewise, we can say that the king accepted Wat Samorai as the base of Wachirayana and his activities by arranging the official parade for Wachirayana from Wat Samorai, and
抄録全体を表示