Pali education in
Thailand and Laos
Justin McDaniel authors the first in-depth
study
By Jon Fernquest 
Recently,
there has been a resurgence
of interest
in the Pali
language
and literary traditions of Southeast Asia.
Pali is the language of the Theravadan lineages of Buddhism found in Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. These lineages ultimately have their origins in Sri Lanka.
Whereas the Thai and Burmese languages are replete with Pali-derived words, Thai and Burmese law and literature were built upon Pali-derived concepts and ideas. This makes Pali of secular importance as well as religious importance.
Pali could be decribed as the "classical language of Buddhist Southeast Asia" functioning in ways similar to the classical languages of Western Civilization: Greek and Latin.
But Pali is also an Indian language and radically different from any Southeast Asian language. This makes Pali a lot different from Greek and Roman which were languages that people actually spoke and used in their everyday life.
Since Pali is so different, special learning technologies have long been used by monks (Bhikkhu) to master the language, master the often difficult meaning of Pali texts, as well as prepare sermons for their lay congregation.
Dr. Justin McDaniel's book describes in great detail how these learning technologies (nissaya, vohara, namasadda) worked. Similar technologies were also used in Burma.
Dr. Justin McDaniel is the not alone in the recent resurgence of Pali scholarship.
Pali scholar Steven Collin's book Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali imaginaire (Cambridge University Press, 1998; paperback edition 2006) includes a masterful analysis of the secular side of Pali literature. [Note: There is one copy at Chiang Mai University library.] (See preview of book at Google Books).
The English legal scholar Andrew Huxley has also authored many academic papers on the Buddhist legal traditions of Thailand, Burma, and Laos (See webpage at SOAS and bibliography).
The best resource for learning Pali on the internet is the Pali Collective founded by Yong Peng of Singapore (See Pali Collective). Nina van Gorkum, a prominent member of this collective, has collaborated with Thai scholars for decades in the difficult and abstruse study of Abhidhamma philosophy. Her books are available at the Siam Society library which has one of the best collections on Buddhism in Southeast Asia (See Siam Society website).
Justin McDaniel also has many pages on the history of Buddhism at his University of California at Riverside website (Read one page). Note that this year he has moved to the University of Pennsylvania to work and teach. (Note also: I personally donated a copy of his PhD dissertation to the Siam Society library. It was not on the shelves yet last time I checked but it should be soon.)
Here is the review of Justin McDaniel's new book by eminent historian of Thailand Chris Baker featured in last week's Bangkok Post:
Book Review
BITS AND PIECES OF TEACHING BUDDHISM
New research on Sukhothai's most intriguing monumentReviewer: CHRIS BAKER
Published 13/07/2009
GATHERING LEAVES AND LIFTING WORDS: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand Justin T. McDaniel Silkworm Books and University of Washington Press, 358 pp, 595 baht ISBN 978-9749511725. [See University of Washington Press and Silkworm Press, Chiang Mai]
Histories of Buddhism in Southeast Asia have imagined a clear break between premodern and modern practices. In the past, they claim, each wat (temple) and abbot was very independent. Teaching depended heavily on moral tales, especially the Jataka stories. The teaching style was predominantly oral. Then, beginning in the mid-19th century, there was a revolution. Printing made available standard editions of texts. Western scholars invented the idea of a "canon" of older and superior texts. The court in Siam and the colonial administrators in Indo-China imposed a "purified" teaching based on this canon, and a more regimented organisation of the monkhood.
Justin McDaniel has studied Buddhist education from past to present. Unlike most scholars, he based himself in the "Lao" periphery of Lanna, Laos, and Isan. He ordained for a time in a small wat beside the Mekong River and this periphery, peering into wat libraries, listening to tramped all aroundsermons and quizzing novices. He concludes that the break between premodern and modern was much less clear than it seems.
He cannot find out very much about premodern teaching in the wats in either Laos or Lanna except for two things. First, paid a lot of attention to collecting and copying manuscripts. Abbots who did this on a large scale became honoured and famous. Often they distributed copies of abbotsmanuscripts over a wide area. Second, the most common form of manuscript found in the wat libraries and used by the monks and abbots are not the classical texts, but nissaya (with also the similar vohara and namasadda). These are literally "supports" or crib-guides for a monk delivering a sermon or homily.
Typically, these would be based around a textual extract, usually a story from the Jatakas or the life of Lord Buddha. Most of the text would be in the vernacular language but with key religious terms in Pali. The guide would include glosses on these Pali concepts, allowing the sermon-giver to "lift" this word for the audience's attention, and spell out its meanings. He might then sidetrack into related Pali terms or even Pali grammar. Or he could shoot off into another story that revolves around the same word. Or he could talk of the present day and draw out some moral lessons. Finally he might circle back to the original story and keep on going.
These nissaya "supports" are not pure texts but "bits and pieces", including text extracts, Pali glosses, grammar rules, analogies, cross-references and mantras for protection from various threats. McDaniel argues that the Pali language and the old texts were greatly valued as the stock of learning, but were not treated as sacrosanct. Rather, the texts had to be translated into the local language and adapted to the needs of the audience before they became good teaching material. With these crib-guides, and a lot of repetition, the sermon-giver could teach some Pali and some ethical values at the same time. As these texts were copied, annotated and passed on, they might grow more and more remote from the original text. There was no standardisation, but infinite local variety.
Then in the late-19th century, Siam took over Isan and Lanna. Impressed by Western scholars of Buddhism, King Rama V took on the idea of a "pure" canon. His half-brother, the prince-patriarch Wachirayan wrote a swathe of standard printed textbooks. Two Buddhist universities were founded. The Sangha Act of 1902 imposed a standard syllabus and exams for Buddhist education. Administrators in French Indo-China had parallel ambitions.
But McDaniel shows that much less changed than usually imagined. Very, very few monks take the exams. None get thrown out for failing. Most wat schools have no canonical texts. McDaniel recounts how he spent a day searching for the key to the library cabinet in one wat only to discover it contained a single standard textbook that had never been opened. The nissaya palm leaf crib-guides have disappeared, but have been replaced by printed forms, which have almost exactly the same function. Some are even printed in the same shape as a palm-leaf manuscript with a stiff cardboard cover to imitate the weight. These printed versions are more standardised but they still contain the "bits and pieces" characteristic of their predecessors. McDaniel saw these in use in Laos, Lanna and Isan, with scarcely a canonical text in sight.
McDaniel asked abbots and novices what was in "the canon". They answered that virtually anything originally in Pali qualified, including Jatakas, commentaries as well as local histories along with the texts supposedly originating from Buddha's own teaching.
Of course there is an elite of monks who take the exams and climb the sangha hierarchy. There are also new modish religious practices such as meditation, and innovative centres such as Dhammakai. But McDaniel stresses that much teaching and practice in the wat goes on as it always has. He also finds this rather comforting. Instead of studying a canon or pristine knowledge, the monkhood has been focused on the needs of its audience for protection, solace and prestige.
Scholars tend to stay in the metropolitan centres and pore over texts. This intimate and engaging study is a brilliant counterweight to that tendency. It confirms the central role of the teacher, and the continuing importance of an oral tradition. McDaniel is a student of Pali and Sanskrit, with a great passion for manuscripts. Only someone so well versed in the texts could put them in their place.
(Source: BITS AND PIECES OF TEACHING BUDDHISM: New research on Sukhothai's most intriguing monument, CHRIS BAKER, 13/07/2009, link)
Pali, Pali language - an ancient Indian language used for the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures collected in the Pāḷi Canon or Tipitaka (See Wikipedia)
resurgence of interest - interest in the subject increased again
literary - having to do with literature (Note: in the Southeast Asian context this also includes law, philosophy, political, and even science texts)
traditions - beliefs and ways of doing things (customs) that have existed for a long time
literary traditions - a set of written texts that have existed for a long time and influenced a culture
a text - any written material
a lineage - the series of people in the past that a person comes from or is descended from, ancestry
Theravadan lineages of Buddhism, Theravada - the oldest surviving school of Buddhism founded in India, for many centuries the main religion of Sri Lanka and most of mainland Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma), it is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism (See Wikipedia)
ultimately - finally, in the end (after a long and complicated series of events)
ultimately have their origins in... - can trace back to..., follow its history back to...
replete with - full of
X derived from Y - X came from Y
secular - not religious, has no connection to religion
classical languages - a language with a large amount of ancient literature, literature that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another language and tradition (See Wikipedia)
civilization - a highly developed culture: "Compared with other cultures, members of a civilization are commonly organized into a diverse division of labor and an intricate social hierarchy" (See Wikipedia)
Western Civilization, Western Culture - in Europe, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, the longstanding heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and technologies sharded in common (See Wikipedia)
radically different - very different, completely different
everyday life - the activities that people do everyday (work, socialize, eat, sleep, shop...)
Bhikkhu - monk
sermons - talks given to the public by monks on a religious or moral subject
lay - people who are not monks, who live outside the monastery
congregation - people who regularly attend religious meetings and hear sermons
nissaya, vohara, namasadda - different ways of translating or explaining Pali texts written on palm manuscripts, these varied from word for word translations (glosses) to interpretations (Read Justin's book for further details)
scholars - experts who study a non-science subject (for example, a legal scholar)
utopias - an imaginary situation in which society is perfect and everyone is happy (See Wikipedia)
legal traditions - laws and ways of thinking about the law that have existed for a very long time
a collective - a group of people who work and cooperate with each other on a project
a prominent member - an important member
collaborated with - worked together on a project
abstruse - difficult to understand
Abhidhamma - Theravadan Buddhist philosophy or "Buddhist psychology," describes the fundamental phenomena (dhamma) which are supposed to constitute human experience (See Wikipedia and also see soon to appear article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
PhD dissertation - the in-depth piece of research, the "contribution to knowledge" for which the PhD degree is awarded
Siam Society - (See website)
eminent - a well-known and respected member of field or profession, known for being good at what they do
bits and pieces - a set of things that are very different and don't go together
Sukhothai - one of the small Tai states that existed from 1249 to 1438, considered as the beginning of the modern Thai state (See Wikipedia)
intriguing - interesting and strange, fascinating
a monument - a thing or place of historical importance (often a statue but can be used for anything important and old)
an intriguing monument - an interesting thing of historical importance
monastery (noun) - the collection of buildings that monks live in
monastic (adjective) - having to do with monks and their lifestyle
a clear break - a change that is clear and easy to see
practices - ways of doing things commonly used
wat - a Thai Buddhist temple (See Wikipedia)
moral - about what is right and wrong, about how people should behave
moral tales - stories that show how people should and shouldn't behave
moral lessons - teachings about what is right and wrong
Jataka - over 500 tales of the previous lives of the Lord Buddha (See Wikipedia and list of Jatakas)
oral - spoken (not written)
predominantly oral - mostly oral
a canon - a collection of books accepted as holy scripture
a colony (noun) - a country controlled by a more powerful country
colonial (adjective)
administer (verb) - manage, make sure rules are followed
administration (noun) - management, the act of managing
administrator (noun) - manager
colonial administrators - government managers during the colonial period (ended after World War II)
imposed a "purified" teaching -
regimented - very strictly controlled
the monkhood - the sangha (see below)
the periphery of Y - the edge of an area or place Y
ordained - made into a monk in a religious ceremony
tramped all around - walked all around
novices - people preparing to become monks (not yet ordained)
break between premodern and modern
modern vs. premodern (in Southeast Asia) - usually refers to the period before extensive contact with the West, before the beginning of the colonial era in Southeast Asia
an abbots - the head monk in charge of other monks in a monastery
paid a lot of attention to -
manuscripts - handwritten versions of books
classical - of recognized authority or excellence because it came from the most highly developed stage of an earlier civilisation and its culture, examples: classical literature, classical architecture, in the West refers to the Greek and Roman eras
classical texts - books, essays, manual, and religious writings authored during the classical era
supports - things that help you
crib sheet, crib-guides - a short and concise set of notes used for quick reference (See Wikipedia)
vernacular language - the language that people speak
glosses - a short explanation of meaning
Pali concepts - Buddhist ideas found in Pali language words (many have found their way into the Thai language)
sidetrack - go off the main road
terms - words and phrases used to describe something
Pali terms - Pali words and phrases used to describe something
draw out, draw out meaning -
analogies - a comparison between two things that shows similarities
cross-references - notes in a book that directs you to another piece of writing
mantras - a group of sacred words that are spoken repeatedly to create spiritual transformation (See Wikipedia)
stock of learning - knowledge, the things that people know
sacrosanct - considered too important to be criticized or changed
annotated - with notes added
standardisation - making all things the same
infinite local variety - in a local area there is a lot of difference, things are not all the same
X impressed by Y - X admires and looks up to Y (Y has something X thinks is special)
King Rama V, Chulalongkorn - one of the greatest kings of Thailand (1868-1910), the fifth monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri (See Wikipedia)
prince-patriarch Wachirayan, Vajirañāṇavarorasa - younger half brother of King Chulalongkorn, during his life as a monk (1879-1921) established the curriculum, texts, and exams for the Sangha that are still used today, the leading intellectual of his generation in Siam (See Wikipedia)
Buddhist universities - universities for monks in Thailand, the two oldest and most famous in Thailand are Mahachulalongkorn and Mahamakut
Mahachulalongkorn or Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University - founded in 1887 to provide higher education to monks, was located near Mahathat near Sanam Luang in Bangkok but moved to a new location near Ayutthaya recently (See Wikipedia)
Mahamakut Buddhist University - founded in 1893 as an educational institute for monks, made a public university and part of the Thai higher education systemin 1997, located near Wat Bowonniwet and Khao San Road in Bangkok (See Wikipedia)
sangha - the community of ordained monks (Bhikkhus) and nuns (Bhikkunis) in Buddhism (See Wikipedia)
sangha hierarchy - the different levels and positions of monks within the sangha
Sangha Act of 1902 - the law that unified the Thai Sangha (See Justin McDaniel's explanation)
imposed - force people to use
syllabus - the list of things studied in a course
an ambition - a difficult goal to achieve
had parallel ambitions - had the same ambitions (in different places)
commentaries - works written by scholar monks that explain the the most important texts of Buddhism, two types: Athakatha (commentaries) and Tika (subcommentaries) (See Wikipedia on Athakatha and Tika and read Bhikkhu Boddhi about their importance)
Bhikkhu - a monk
elite - a small powerful group of people with special privileges and advantages
modish - fashionable, trendy
modish religious practices - fashionable or trendy religious practices
meditation - a practice in which a person controls and concentrates their mind and enters a deep mental state (See Wikipedia on meditation and Buddhist meditation) การปฏิบัติธรรมโดยการเจริญสมาธิ (สมถะ) หรือเจริญสติ (วิปัสสนา)
Dhammakai, Dhammakaya Movement - (See Wikipedia)
pristine - very pure and clean, immaculate
pristine knowledge - very pure knowledge, not mixed with all the complexities of everyday life
solace - something that cheers you up when you are sad
prestige - have high reputation and status, respected by many
metropolitan centres - city centres
pore over texts - read texts in detail
initimate - like a friend (not too formal)
engaging - creates and maintains interest in the reader
an intimate and engaging study - a book that analyzes and describes something in a way that a reader can understand
counterweight to that tendency -
oral tradition - a teaching that is passed from teachers to students orally by word of mouth
passion for Y - has a great love for Y
well versed in Y - has extensive and complete knowledge of Y
put them in their place - assign the right level of importance to
