Buddhist Warfare
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32. Brian Victoria, Zen at War, 2nd Edition (Boulder, Colo.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 137.
33. Personal communication with a monk in the southernmost provinces, 2007.
34. Personal communication with Phra Eks in the southernmost provinces, 2007.
35. Richard H. Jones, “Theravda Buddhism and Morality,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47.3 (Sept. 1979): 383, 384.
36. Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 99.
37. “Yala Buddhists Flee to Temple Safety,” Bangkok Post, November 9, 2006.
38. Personal communication with refugees at Wat Nirotsangkatham. The number of refugees fluctuated during the month of December. According to the Bangkok Post, by December 24, 2006, there were only 161 people at the monastery. “Buddhist ‘Refugees’ Demand New Home,” Bangkok Post, December 24, 2006.
39. Here, the term secular is used to denote that which is not overtly or publicly recognized as religious.
40. This is comparable to the functions that Islamic mosques, Christian churches, and Jewish temples serve throughout the world.
41. Donald Swearer, Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 40.
42. Personal communication with Nopparat Benjawatthananant, director of the Office of National Buddhism, in Nakhon Pathom, December 25, 2006.
43. Information translated from Thai into English from “Population and Households Census 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000: Southern Provinces,” National Statistical Office (Bangkok: Prime Minister Office, 2003).
44. Personal communication with Wat Kaanai abbot in Khokpo district, Pattani province, August 13, 2004.
45. Personal communication with a refugee at Wat Nirotsangkatham, December 8, 2006.
46. “Update: Extremists Launch Overnight Wave of Violence,” Bangkok Post, February 19, 2007.
47. A rai is the Thai unit of measure for 1,600 square meters.
48. Patrick Jory, “Luang Pho Thuat as a Southern Thai Cultural Hero: Popular Religion in the Integration of Patani,” in Thai South and Malay North: Ethnic Interactions on the Plural Peninsula, ed. Michael J. Montesano and Patrick Jory (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008).
49. Personal communication with a Thai Buddhist store owner at Wat Chang Hai, February 19, 2007.
50. Personal communication with the abbot of Wat Kajorn in Pattani province, August 8, 2004.
51. Personal communication with a policeman in Pattani province, December 13, 2006.
52. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 214.
53. Information on World War II activities is derived from personal communication with Irving Johnson, National University of Singapore, February 27, 2007. Reports on military occupation during the 1970s come from personal communications with monks in Pattani province, September 2006.
54. This information comes from personal communications with commanding officers at the monastery I visited and from Lt. Col. Surathep Nukaeow of Ingkayut Camp, Pattani, December 28, 2006.
55. Human Rights Watch, “Thailand: Government Covers Up Role in ‘Disappearance,’” March 11, 2006.
56. Personal communication with Lt. Col. Surathep Nukaeow of Ingkayut Camp, Pattani, December 28, 2006.
57. Personal communication with an abbot in the southernmost provinces, 2007.
58. Personal communication with an abbot in the southernmost provinces, 2006.
59. Personal communication with police in the southernmost provinces, 2006.
60. Personal communication by telephone with Ahn Mahwich, August 15, 2004.
61. The author would like to thank Irving Johnson for raising this subject.
62. Monasteries were used as military bases during and after World War II in southern Thailand. Personal communication with anthropologist Irving Johnson of the Southeast Asian Programme at the National University of Singapore, February 27, 2007. Kamala Tiyavanich also noted the historical presence of the Thai military in the monasteries during King Vajiravudh’s reign (personal communication at Cornell University, April 22, 2006).
63. Personal communication with a monk in the southernmost provinces, 2006.
64. Personal communication by phone with a high-ranking monk in the southernmost provinces, 2004.
65. Amporn Mardent, “From Adek to Mo’ji: Identities and Social Realities of Southern Thai People” in Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, accessed at http://kyotoreviewsea.org/Amporn.htm on September 30, 2006.
NOTES
1. See Michael Zimmermann, ed., Buddhism and Violence (Kathmandu: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006).
2. On this text, see Emmerick, R. E., trans., The Stra of Golden Light: Being a Translation of the Suvarabsottama stra (London: Luzac and Company, 1992).
3. See, for instance, Charles S. Prebish, Buddhist Monastic Discipline: The Sanskrit Prtimoka stras of the Mahsghikas and Mlasarvstivdinsa (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996), 51.
4. On this question, see, for instance, Carmen Meinert, “Between the Profane and the Sacred? On the Context of the Rite of ‘Liberation’ (sgrol pa),” in Zimmermann, Buddhism and Violence, 99–130; and Jens Schlieter, “Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution,” ibid., 131–158.
5. “Jueguan lun,” in Suzuki Daisetsu Zensh, Vol. 2, ed. D. T. Suzuki (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1980 [1968]).
6. See Brian Victoria, “D. T. Suzuki and Japanese Militarism: Supporter or Opponent?” in Zimmermann, Buddhism and Violence, 106–194.
7. saSra refers to the cycle of rebirths within this world, which is considered a world of suffering.
8. See Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
9. See Etienne Lamotte, “Vajrapi en Inde,” in Mélanges de Sinologie offerts à Monsieur Paul Demiéville (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966), 113–159; and Meir Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007).
10. Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada (New York: Grove Press, 1974).
11. See Paul Demiéville, “Le bouddhisme et la guerre: Post-scriptum à l’Histoire des moines guerriers du Japon de G. Renondeau,” in Mélanges publiés par l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), 347–385; a translated version appears as the first chapter in this volume. In his introduction, Demiéville examines the canonical sources against killing and devotes some space to the prohibition against suicide. In the first part of the essay, Demiéville examines the participation of Chinese Buddhist monks in war. He gives in particular some interesting information on the history of the Shaolin tradition, traced back to the C patriarch Bodhidharma. (For more on this question, see Shahar, Shaolin Monastery.) In the second part, he examines the doctrinal justifications for killing, as found in particular in Mahyna casuistics. Unfortunately, he leaves aside the Tantric or esoteric Buddhist tradition.
12. See James A. Benn, Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007).
13. See Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); Faure, The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity and Gender (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003); Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); and Barbara Ruch, ed., Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies of Michigan, 2002).
14. Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1995); René Girard, Violence and the Sacr
ed, trans. Patrick Gregory (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979).
15. Bataille has argued, for instance, that Buddhism, far from transforming Tibet into a pacific nation, as is too often claimed, actually turned violence inward, in the structures of the “theocratic” state led by the Dalai Lama. See Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Zone, 1991).
16. Maurice Bloch, Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
17. See Rob Linrothe, Ruthless Compassion: Wrathful Deities in Early Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhist Art (Boston: Shambhala, 1999).