Research & Article

This paper outlines the forest monastic tradition in pre-reform Chakri Siam, and the declining status and relative position of forest monks in the hierarchy and structure of the early Chakri Sangha. However, it should be noted that historical information on forest monasticism in Thailand from the beginning of the First until the Fifth Reign is scarce and somewhat patchy at best. We know that from the Fourth Reign onwards, many of the "reformist" and doctrinal aspects of forest-dwelling (embodied in the thirteen special ascetic practices-dhutangas, and  techniques of concentration meditation) transmitted by orthodox pupillary lines sourced in medieval Ceylon became incorporated into the practices of the new Thammayut Khana.1 In a paradigmatic sense this reaffirmation with doctrinal sources ensured on-going normative imagery embedded in conceptions of the primitive arahan ideal; importantly, as Keyes (1987) says, it was also a response to particular historical process during the late nineteenth century.