Research & Article

The Lahu peoples of the Yunnan-northern Southeast Asia borderlands are remarkable for the immediate importance they attach to their high-god, G’ui√sha, some communities building and staffing (with part-time priests) village temples for the worship of this creator-divinity. This paper argues that the Lahu Nyi temples and temple worship in north Thailand have antecedents in a Maha¯ya¯na Buddhist movement that swept through the Lahu and Wa areas of southwestern Yunnan, beginning circa the mid-eighteenth century. It argues also for Therava¯da Buddhist influences emanating from Tai societies in Burma and north Thailand.