T
THAILAND
With a land area of approximately 513,000 square kilometers, Thailand is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia. It is home to some 65 million people, roughly 20 percent of whom live within the confines of Greater Metropolitan Bangkok, the country’s capital city and principal urban center. Until 1939, it was known to the world as Siam, a traditional kingdom with a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Well into the twentieth century, the subjects of the realm were divisible into more than 70 ethno-linguistic groupings. Top-down nation-building policies sought to fuse this aggregation into a composite, a “Thai race” (chat thai) that shared a single overarching national culture. The name change from Siam to Thailand was a reflection of this process.
Religion figured prominently in the Thai nation-building effort. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the kingdom’s rulers undertook to reform and reorganize the Buddhist monastic order or sangha, establishing in 1902 a centralized administrative apparatus that subsequently worked to standardize local religious practices and buttress the authority of the throne. From the 1920s onward, monastic education was expanded and utilized for secular ends. Temple schools staffed by monk-instructors were an early vector for public education, which from the outset stressed the importance of (Theravada) Buddhism in Thai national life. This agenda, aggressively pursued through compulsory schooling and state-run media over the better part of a century, played a critical role in shaping contemporary Thai self-perception: at present, some 94 percent of all people in the kingdom identify themselves as Buddhist.
The near-establishment of Buddhism as the national religion of Thailand, an idea openly touted as recently as 2007 when the country’s constitution was undergoing one of its periodic revisions, has effectively marginalized the country’s other religious groupings, Muslims being the most notable among them. Constituting around 5 percent of the total population, Muslims can be found living throughout the kingdom, the result of centuries of trade-related migration. Most, but not all, are Sunni. Their numbers are particularly concentrated in the southern region, an area that was once a part of the Malay sultanate of Patani. A center of Islamic learning in its prime, Patani fell under the sway of adjacent powers and its former territories were eventually parsed in two by an expanding imperial Great Britain and a contracting imperial Siam. As a result of this history and the region’s proximity to a broader Malay world, it was not readily subsumed into an evolving Buddhist “Thai-land” and the resistance of Malay-speaking Muslims to the Buddhist-backed nationalism of the center continues to constitute one of the more obvious rifts in the modern Thai polity.
Representations and Realities
It would be wrong to conclude from the above that religion in Thailand can best be understood in terms of two discrete communities of belief, one Theravada Buddhist and the other Sunni Muslim. Syncretism is a word often used in the literature on Thai religious practice, and for good reason. Irrespective of their formal religious affiliations, the Thai people inhabit a remarkably complex and convoluted spiritual terrain, a landscape reworked over the centuries through the intermingling of migrants from South, East, and Central Asia together with the more recent émigrés of Europe and North America. The resulting accretion of disparate beliefs is everywhere manifest in the layered religious practices of daily life. Animism is widespread: offerings are regularly made to the protective spirits (jao thi) of trees, rivers, and local municipalities. Spirit houses (san phra phoom) can also be found in most homes and workplaces, often appearing alongside ancestor shrines that make use of Confucian and Daoist iconography. They frequently incorporate Hindu icons as well, however. Indeed, the spirit houses of public markets are usually dedicated to Shiva, and it is not uncommon to find linga worshipped at the stalls of individual merchants. In recent years, the mercantile classes have also turned to Ganesh worship, transforming the deity into a patron of commercial endeavor in general and restaurants in particular. At the same time, they have cultivated a number of other spiritual patrons, worshipping the portraits and statues of various political figures, living and dead. King Chulalongkorn, who reigned from 1868 to 1910, now sits at the center of a civic religious cult: a protector of taxi drivers and small-scale entrepreneurs, his picture draws votive offerings, his statue in downtown Bangkok is the site of weekly religious ceremonies, and he is one of several former rulers to be periodically channeled by local spirit mediums.
Religious eclecticism is everywhere part of Thai public life. Brahmans officiate at state ceremonies presided over by members of the royal family. Major Thai national holidays, such as songkhran and loi kratong, are based upon and patterned after South Asian religious festivals. Construction firms propitiate local spirits and consult with Chinese geomancers before starting work. Important endeavors are seldom entered into without first consulting a fortune teller to determine an auspicious date. Fate is a perennial concern that also dictates the choice of names, colors, and numbers. It lies at the heart of the country’s flourishing amulet trade as well. While images of the Buddha and likenesses of well-known local monks are some of its staple components, Hindu gods and Daoist deities figure prominently in the mix. The more valuable are produced under the auspices of individual holy men, whose merit and spiritual power are thought to be conveyed to the amulet, affording its possessor with special protection. Once conducted in flea markets and on temple grounds, the trade in talismans and sacred merchandise is now the stuff of exhibition halls in up-end shopping centers.
The Limits of Buddhist Orthodoxy
Syncretism and religious eclecticism also extend to local Buddhist practices. Buddhism is not an exclusive belief system, and after more than a century of state intervention and reform, the religion provides an umbrella for an exceptionally wide range of texts, authorities, organizational groupings, and activities. In the past, fault lines within the sangha ran between diverging regional orders. There was also a broad cleavage between town-dwelling (gamavasi) and forest-dwelling (arannavasi) monks. The former tended to rely upon text-based traditions, and the latter placed greater emphasis upon meditation. Ironically, a further division arose as a result of the efforts of Crown Prince Mongkut to purify local Buddhist practices through the establishment of a royally backed reform sect in the 1830s. His dhammayuttika nikaya or thammayut sect quickly evolved into a prestigious and comparatively influential organization. Thammayut-ordained monks played a central role in the crown’s efforts to construct a kingdom-wide sangha organization in the early twentieth century, and they subsequently dominated both monastic administration and education. They nonetheless remained a statistical minority, and as a result, monks ordained outside of thammayut came to be collectively known as the maha nikaya or Greater Order—something of a misnomer in that the “order” was all along (and has remained) a collection of “orders” with diverging teachings and practices.
The relative number of monks in the thammayut and maha nikaya camps serves to indicate the limits of state-imposed orthodoxy: the former constitute less than 10 percent of the total. They command a dominant position in the Supreme Sangha Council, which in theory oversees and delimits the boundaries of acceptable Buddhist practice in Thailand, but the Council has traditionally taken an exceptionally non-confrontational approach to sangha management, leaving most of the kingdom’s 280,000 or so monks to follow their own practices. Oversight comes instead from the country’s 37,000 temple abbots (jao awat) acting in conjunction with locally constituted temple lay committees.
Decentralized administration and localized funding arrangements have seemingly combined to further undermine Thai Buddhist orthodoxy. Although a number of temples derive revenue from extensive land holdings and temple market facilities, many others have far less in the way of resources. Each year, the country’s temples receive an estimated 100–120 billion baht in donations, but here again the money is exceptionally unevenly distributed. The lion’s share goes to the bigger, better-known temple facilities, which are usually overseen by equally well-known abbot-monks, individuals with regional or national standing. Acting in conjunction with temple lay committees, abbots are free to utilize donation income in any way they see fit and often enhance the standing of their respective institutions through both constant improvement of temple infrastructure and overt promotional efforts. This usually involves the promotion of both the temple and its leading monks. The better-known monks of the realm are famous for many things besides religious insight. Some are prolific writers, and some television personalities appreciated for their wit and wisdom. Others are reputed masters of the supernatural, individuals believed capable of healing sickness, absolving sin, removing curses, and breaking spells. Monks from the forest tradition have on occasion emerged as ecological champions. They have also become meditation retreat organizers bent on improving the concentration and academic records of middle-class schoolchildren. In short, for some number of years now, the discourse of social engagement has pulled the sangha in many directions, creating a street value for the public personas of monks whose celebrity standing and income potential is increasingly determined by market forces.
Phra Phothirak, a songwriter and media figure turned religious reformer, is a case in point. Ordained as a thammayut monk, he left the order in the mid-1970s to establish his own fundamentalist movement, Santi Asoke. The reform agenda it pursued was sufficiently radical that the Supreme Sangha Council eventually commanded Phothirak and his followers to leave maha nikaya as well. The movement flourished nonetheless, pulling a growing number of middle-class followers into a networked religious community. In addition to expanding economic interests run by Santi Asoke followers, the community has its own educational facilities, and in recent decades, it has emerged as a conservative force in politics, picking up influential patrons and followers in the process.
Another example is afforded by the Dhammakaya Movement, one of the fastest-growing Buddhist sects in Thailand. Founded as a meditation school by Phra Mongkolthepmuni in the early twentieth century, the Dhammakaya Movement became increasingly popular in the early 1970s under the charismatic leadership of Phra Thepyanmahamuni (Luang Po Thammachaijo, formerly Chaiyabun Sitthitphon). Working through university Buddhist clubs, the movement became increasingly adept at publicity management, organizing periodic “mental discipline” training sessions, publicizing student testimonials, and orchestrating mass ordinations. Donations and membership have continued to grow up to the present, and the movement reputedly now has millions of followers in Thailand and branch organizations in some 18 countries overseas.
Matthew Copeland
See also: Buddhism; Confucianism; Daoism (Taoism); Dhammakaya; Ethnicity; Fundamentalism; Hinduism; Islam; Koyama, Kosuke; Nationalism; Santi Asoke; Secularism; Sivaraksa, Sulak; Spirit Mediumship; Study of Religion; Syncretism; Uplanders.
Further Reading
Heikkilä-Horn, M.-L. Santi Asoke Buddhism and Thai State Response. Turku, Finland: Åbo Akademi University Press, 1996.
Kitiarsa, Pattana. Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013.
Mackenzie, Rory. New Buddhist Movements in Thailand: Towards an Understanding of Wat Phra Dhammakāya and Santi Asoke. Oxon: Routledge, 2007.
Tambiah, Stanley. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Taylor, J. L. “Buddhist Revitalization, Modernization, and Social Change in Contemporary Thailand.” Sojourn 8, no. 1 (1993): 62–91.
THAIPUSAM
Thaipusam is the annual celebration of the Hindu deity Lord Murugan, second son of the great deities Lord Siva and Parvati. It is celebrated in southern India at Palani, and in other parts of the world where there is a significant Tamil community. In Southeast Asia, Thaipusam is celebrated in Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Indonesia, and Singapore; however, the most spectacular and grandest celebrations can be witnessed in Malaysia. Here, it is famously celebrated at Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur and is also growing rapidly in other cities, particularly Penang and Ipoh. It draws hundreds of thousands of Indians from all over the country and even from overseas. In Penang it has also been attracting growing numbers of Malaysian Chinese participants.
The population of Malaysia today is around 30 million, of whom some 67 percent are Malays, some 25 percent Chinese, 7 percent Indian, and the remainder aboriginals. The independence declaration of 1957 included certain privileges, later enhanced in the New Economic Policy, for the original inhabitants of the peninsula, who came to be known as bumiputras—literally, “sons of the soil.” One of the prerequisites for claiming bumiputra identity is profession of the Islamic faith, whereas no stipulations are made regarding religion for claiming Chinese or Indian ethnicity. Malays are forbidden by law from participating in non-Islamic religious activities. Broadly, Malays control political power, while the Chinese are popularly identified with economic dominance. A fervent Islamization program in Malaysia in recent decades has made the Muslim/Malay community boundary increasingly impermeable to non-Malays.
Today, the population of the island of Penang consists of some 41 percent Malays, 43 percent Chinese, and 10 percent Indian. Despite the small size of the Indian community in Penang and the many religious alternatives in Malaysia for the Chinese, Thaipusam is a major event in Penang’s main city of Georgetown, and it has become increasingly popular among the Chinese. Many Chinese also attend Hindu temples throughout the year, and although the Chinese do not tend to become “Hinduized,” they are welcomed by the Indians, who incorporate them while making no effort to convert them. This attitude mitigates against the politicization of religion and the etching of religious boundaries onto the sociocultural landscape.
Thaipusam originates from Palani, in Tamil Nadu. There are several legends about the origins of Thaipusam. One holds that Palani is the site at which the great deities Siva and Parvati promised the fruit of Siva’s approval to the one of their two sons, Ganapati and Murugan, who could travel around the cosmos first. The plump, elephant-headed Ganapati simply walked around his parents, declaring them to be the cosmos and thus won the fruit. Murugan, who rode around the globe on a peacock, returned to find that he had lost and was so angry that he retreated to a hill in Palani to become an ascetic. Thaipusam celebrates his ability to destroy the demons of misfortune and malevolence with the lance of wisdom that he received from his mother. The celebrations take place in the Tamil harvest month of Thai, for three days around the full moon.
The Murugan cult follows the Hindu devotional tradition (bhakti), which stresses emotion rather than knowledge or status. Bhakti also opens a path to salvation for Hindus that does not require them to renounce the world—renunciation becomes internalized and transformed into disinterestedness. Bhakti also dissolves the Hindu religious/caste hierarchy, which elevates Brahmins, and it makes salvation accessible to anyone. The self-mastery required to worship Murugan is temporary, life-affirming, and often ecstatic.
The most characteristic event associated with Thaipusam is kavadi (burden) carrying, in which devotees carry a burden to the temple in fulfilment of a vow. The classic kavadi consists of an arch-shaped frame, often decorated with peacock feathers to represent Murugan. Kavadi bearers are often glitteringly decorated, many have their cheeks or tongue pierced with a lance, or hooks inserted on their backs and chests, and they may dance in a kind of frenetic intoxication as they approach the deity.
The festival lasts for three days, beginning in the early hours of the first day with a street procession in which an image of Murugan is transported from his normal housing in the city center out to a peripheral temple. In Kuala Lumpur, this is the spectacular cave temple at Batu Caves, but in Penang it is the Waterfall Junction temple, which is owned by a Chettiar subcaste, the Nattukottai Chettiars.
In Penang, on the first day, the procession image of Lord Murugan is dressed and removed from his housing at the Nattukottai Chettiar storeroom in the city center. It is mounted on a tall, silver chariot pulled by two decorated bullocks. A group of Chettiar men carrying wooden kavadis dance before it on its long, hot journey. All along the procession route, the streets are lined with piles of coconuts that people smash before the chariot arrives. The smashing of one or two coconuts is standard in Hindu worship; but in Penang, under Chinese influence, coconut smashing has taken on unique proportions. Many Chinese claim that offering many coconuts will bring prosperity. The Indian organizers make no attempt to limit them, and some Indians have begun copying the Chinese. The streets end up clogged with smashed coconuts that require dumper trucks to clear them so that the chariot can progress.
A priest and several assistants ride with the chariot, blessing the offerings of fruit, flowers, and incense from the crowds. Hundreds of devotees follow on foot the eight kilometers (five miles) to the Chettiar temple at Waterfall Junction, where the image remains for the duration of the festival before returning on the final night. For Chettiars, events then focus on this temple, but the stream of devotees who make their offerings and fulfill their vows the day after continues beyond this temple up to the hilltop Bala Thandayuthapani (another name for Murugan) temple. The hilltop temple was founded by Tamil laborers and is managed by the Hindu Endowment Board, comprising Hindus from various Indian communities. At the hilltop temple, devotees pour milk over the deity and have any spears and hooks removed.
Most devotees make vows to Murugan in a contractual arrangement, promising to make an offering at Thaipusam if the god grants their wish. The boons sought may be health, prosperity, or progeny, or less tangible benefits such as help to abstain from crime or strength to face raising a handicapped child. This harmonizes well with Chinese understandings of their own deities as providing humans with access to divine powers (shen).
Devotees are supposed to prepare for anything from one week to 48 days before fulfilling a vow at Thaipusam. They should eat no meat, abstain from sexual intercourse, limit social interaction, keep their thoughts pure, sleep on the floor, and abstain from cutting their hair or shaving. On the day of vow fulfilment, the devotee should fast and, before approaching the deity, take a ritual bath and dress in saffron clothing. A troupe of musicians may be employed to support the devotee, particularly if they are carrying out a great deal of body piercing and an experienced ritual officiant, usually a male Indian veteran kavadi bearer, will insert the skewers and hooks.
The atmosphere is charged as devotees prepare themselves for their kavadis. Particularly when piercing is involved, Indian as well as Chinese supporters and Indian officiants gather around the devotee and prepare prayer items such as limes, coconuts, and incense. The devotee prays, and when they are ready, the officiant begins chanting mantras close to their face and blowing incense into their nostrils while others stand close by ready to support them as the skewers are put in place.
This is the one time of the year at which Hindu women may take to the streets in all their finery, and when Indians of all castes, classes, and genders gather alongside Chinese in the carnivalesque atmosphere to enjoy picnics or just watch the spectacle. Some groups of young men take their own drums and dance through the temple area alongside the kavadi bearers, exploiting the permissive atmosphere for an all-night party. People come for innumerable reasons, including not only the personal and salvific but also for communion with others and simply to have fun. It is a regular manifestation and celebration of a growing non-Malay, interethnic social body.
Indians express pride in the fact their religion offers anyone, regardless of ethnic background, a channel to the divine without requiring them to forego their own culture. Many Penang Chinese welcome the offer, patronizing the festival not only with their participation but also with substantial contributions of money and food to the organizing committees. The political significance of this non-Malay solidarity is acknowledged by the annual attendance of the chief minister of Penang. Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, a Chinese member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and an outspoken critic of the Malay-dominated government, regularly attends Thaipusam. In his 2012 Thaipusam speech, he pointed out that many non-Hindus carry the kavadi in fulfilment of their vows and that this is in the spirit of harmony and mutual respect essential in any peaceful multicultural and multireligious society. He then added that the DAP wanted to wish everyone a happy Thaipusam and to remind them that the festival’s message of wisdom and of good conquering evil would reinforce their commitment to fight endemic corruption and crony capitalism.
Instead of focusing on the institutional or ideological features of religion, which reify groups for political and socioeconomic interests, Thaipusam emphasizes the heterodox and operationally plural qualities of faith. The faith of the individual and their access to nonrational sources of power signal resistance to the world order propagated by Malaysia’s bureaucracy. In the Malaysian media, Thaipusam is presented simply as a colorful tourist attraction that illustrates Malaysia’s ethnic plurality. This tends to gloss over the political resonance of its liberalism and insistence on humankind’s spiritual unity. It is a momentary rebuttal of the government’s essentialization of difference and thus provides a subtle yet critical commentary on the way modernity has evolved in Malaysia and beyond.
Alexandra Kent
See also: Contextualization: Dharma/Dhamma; Ethnicity; Hinduism; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Localization of Hinduism in Indonesia; Malaysia; Oka, Gedong Bagus; Pilgrimage; Popular Religion; Religion and Society; Ritual Dynamics; Sathya Sai Baba Movement; Tourism; Water Festivals.
Further Reading
Clothey, Fred W. The Many Faces of Murugan: The History and Meaning of a South Indian God. The Hague: Mouton, 1978.
Kent, Alexandra. “Transcendence and Tolerance: Cultural Diversity in the Tamil Celebration of Taipūcam in Penang, Malaysia.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 8, no. 1–3 (2004): 81–105.
Lee, Raymond L.M. “Taipūcam in Malaysia: Ecstasy and Identity in a Tamil Hindu Festival.” Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s., 23, no. 2 (1989): 317–37.
Ward, Colleen. “Thaipusam in Malaysia: Psychoanthropological Analysis of Ritual Trance, Ceremonial Possession and Self-mortification Practices.” Ethos 12, no. 4 (1984): 307–34.
Wilford, Andrew. “Weapons of the Meek: Ecstatic Ritualism and Strategic Ecumenism among Tamil Hindus in Malaysia.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 9 (2002): 247–80.
THIEN BUDDHISM
Thien is the Vietnamese name for the most well-known Zen school of Buddhism, the Chinese Ch’an-zong, popularly known as Chan. The Chinese character Ch’an derives from the Sanskrit dhyāna. The traditional account is that in 580 CE, an Indian monk named Vinitaruci (Vietnamese: Tì-ni-Đa-lu’-chi) traveled to Vietnam after completing his studies with Jianzhi Sengcan, the third patriarch of Chinese Zen. This is the first appearance of Thien Buddhism. After an initial period of obscurity, the Vinitaruci School became one of the most influential Buddhist groups in Vietnam by the tenth century, particularly under the patriarch Vạn-Hạnh. Other early Vietnamese Zen schools included Vô Ngôn Thông, which was associated with the teaching of Măzŭ Dàoyī, an influential abbot of the Chinese Ch’an School, and the Th
o Đu’ò’ng, which incorporated Nianfo, a chanting technique that involves the repetition of the name of Amitabha Buddha, or the “Buddha of Infinite Wisdom” in order to achieve “mindfulness of the Buddha” (Snkt. buddhanusmriti). Following a number of permutations, which evinced a deep influence from Confucian and Daoist philosophy, a more domesticated school, named Liễu Quán, was founded in the eighteenth century and has since been the predominant branch of Vietnamese Zen.
As there is considerable interaction between Zen Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism in Vietnam, it may be useful before proceeding any further to attempt all-too-brief characterizations of each of these traditions. Zen is the focus of meditation to attain enlightenment. This is a practice of sitting in stillness, focusing on single-mindedness, and investigating Zen, which can be approximately translated as “absorption” or “meditative state.”
Pure Land Buddhism is the focus of reciting Amitabha Buddha’s name. The recitation of Buddha’s—actually bodhisattva’s—name can cause one to enter Samadhi, a Sanskrit term referring to a state of mindfulness and clear comprehension achieved through concentrative awareness of the rise and fall of feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.
Because it employs the single-minded focus that is aimed for in Zen meditation, the Pure Land school’s main desired goal from recitation of Amitabha Buddha is liberation from the saha (Sanskrit: to endure) world. This endurance refers to a life filled with suffering that stems from greed, anger, foolishness, and other earthly desires. The “Land of Eternally Tranquil Light” connotes the Buddha’s land. The Buddha’s enlightened wisdom is often compared to light. Together, the phrases imply that the mundane world in which we live is, itself, the Buddha land.
Buddhists in Vietnam practice differing traditions without any problem or sense of contradiction. Few Vietnamese Buddhists would identify themselves with a particular kind of Buddhism, as a Christian might identify him or herself by a denomination, for example. Although Vietnamese Buddhism does not have a strong centralized structure, the practice is similar throughout the country at almost any temple.
Gaining merit is the most common and essential practice in Vietnamese Buddhism with a belief that liberation takes place with the help of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Buddhist monks commonly chant sutras, reciting Buddhas’ names. The Lotus Sutra and Amitabha Sutra are the most commonly used sutras. Most sutras and texts have come to Vietnam from China and have been translated into Sino-Vietnamese (Han-Viet) rather than the vernacular, making them largely incomprehensible to most practitioners.
Three services are regularly engaged in—at dawn, noon, and dusk. They include sutras, mainly devotional; reciting dharanis, generally understood as a mnemonic device which encapsulates the meaning of a section or chapter of a sutra. Dharaṇis are also considered to protect the one who chants them from malign influences and calamities. Recitation of the Buddha’s name and circumambulation (walking meditation) are also part of these services. Laypeople at times join the services at the temple and some devout Buddhists practice the services at home. Special services, such as Sam Nguyen/Sam Hoi (confession/repentance) take place on the full moon and new moon each month. Chanting the name of the Buddha is one way of repenting and purifying bad karma.
The overall doctrinal position of Vietnamese Buddhism is the inclusive system of Tiantai, with the higher metaphysics informed by the Huayan tradition, that makes extensive use of paradox in argument and literary imagery. Paradox originates in the tension between conventional truth and absolute truth. However, the orientation of Vietnamese Buddhism is syncretic without making such distinctions. Therefore, the modern practice of Vietnamese Buddhism can be very eclectic, including elements from Zen, Pure Land, and Tiantai traditions as well as popular practices from Esoteric Buddhism.
We will not consider here the misconceptions presented in most English-language materials regarding the variety of doctrines and practices in traditional Vietnamese Buddhism, the distinctness of these schools, and the strong inclination for syncretism found in Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhism. While much has been said about the incompatibility of different schools and their difficulty in successfully communicating with each other and combining their doctrines, none of these theories reflects the realities in Vietnam (or China), past or present. The followers have little problem adopting diverse teachings and practices at the same time.
The methods of Pure Land Buddhism are perhaps the most widespread within Vietnam. It is common for practitioners to recite sutras, chants, and dharanis looking to gain protection through a Dharma-Protector, an emanation of a Buddha or a bodhisattva whose main functions are to avert the inner and outer obstacles that prevent practitioners from gaining spiritual realization, and to arrange all the necessary conditions for their practice. It is a devotional practice where those practicing put their faith in Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Wisdom (Đà Phật). Followers believe they will gain rebirth in the Pure Land by chanting Amitabha’s name. The Pure Land is where one can more easily gain enlightenment, since suffering does not exist.
Some scholars argue that the importance and prevalence of Thien in Vietnam has been overstated and that Thien has played more of an elite rhetorical role than a role of common practice. The Thiền Uy
n Tập Anh, or “Outstanding Figures in the Vietnamese Zen Community,” has been the dominant text used to legitimize the Zen Buddhist lineage and history within Vietnam. However, there is credible critical opinion that the text has, in fact, been used to create a history of Zen Buddhism that is “fraught with discontinuity.” Current-day Thien Buddhist practices are not reflective of a Zen past in that modern-day Vietnamese common practices are more focused on ritual and devotion characteristic of the Pure Land School (Chinese, Ching T’u)—probably the oldest and least philosophical of Mahayana Buddhism—than the Zen focus on meditation and the direct experience of Reality through a maturation of an inner experience. Nonetheless, we are seeing an increased attention being paid to Zen today. Two figures who have been responsible for this increased interest in Thien are Thich Nhat Hanh, who resides in France, and Thich Thanh Tu, who lives in Da Lat, a Vietnamese provincial capital.
David C. Scott
See also: Buddhism; Confucianism; Daoism (Taoism); Dharma/Dhamma; Hanh, Thich Nhat; Shamanism: Syncretism; Vietnam.
Further Reading
Jones, Charles B. “Transitions in the Practice and Defense of Pure Land Buddhism.” In Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptions of an Ancient Tradition, edited by Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Karuna Dharma. “The Reconciliation of Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.” http://www.urbandharma.org/ibmc (accessed May 14, 2014).
Nguyen, Cuong Tu. Zen in Medieval Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.
Suzuki, D. T. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press, 1964.
Swearer, Donald K. “Buddhism in Southeast Asia.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 2: 385–99.
TIMOR LESTE (EAST TIMOR)
Timor Leste lies in the Lesser Sunda islands. It occupies the eastern half of Timor Island, along with the Oecussi (Ambeno) region on the northwest portion of the island, and the islands of Pulau Atauro and Pulau Jaco. It has a total land area of 14,874 square kilometers. It is surrounded in the west, north, and east by the Indonesian archipelago. To the southeast lies Australia. Dili is the country’s biggest city and its capital. A July 2012 estimate places the population of the country at 1,143,667. The land is predominantly mountainous, with a tropical climate; hot and humid, with distinct rainy and dry seasons. Only 8.2 percent of the land is arable. The inhabitants of Timor Leste are comprised mostly of Malayo-Polynesian and Papuan ancestry, with a small Chinese minority. Tetum is the official language, along with Portuguese. Bahasa Indonesian and English are also used. There are also an estimated 16 indigenous languages. An overwhelming majority of the population is Roman Catholic—98 percent; Protestants comprise 1 percent, while Muslims account for less than 1 percent (Central Intelligence Agency).
Portuguese and Dutch traders made contact with inhabitants of Timor Leste in the sixteenth century. There was occasional contact with Roman Catholic missionaries until Portugal colonized it in 1672 and controlled the island until 1974, with a brief Japanese occupation during World War II. Portugal relinquished control of its colony in 1975, resulting in a civil war. Independence was declared on November 28, 1975. However, Indonesia invaded a month later. During the Indonesian occupation, Indonesian migrants increased the number of the Muslim population. At the same time, a significant number of the Indonesian security forces are Protestant and facilitated the establishment of Protestant churches in the country (Hefner 2000; U.S. Department of State 2007).
The resignation of Indonesian president Suharto resulted in the United Nations sponsoring an agreement between Indonesia and Portugal that allowed for a UN-supervised popular referendum in August 1999, the results of which showed an overwhelming vote for independence. Indonesian-backed East Timor militia started a violent campaign, however, necessitating the intervention of an Australian-led peacekeeping force. The force assumed administrative control of Timor Leste until independence was formalized on May 20, 2002, with Xanana Gusmao as the country’s first president.
The new country’s constitution promulgated in 2002 guarantees freedom of religion and worship. Although there is no state religion, Roman Catholicism remains the dominant group. According to a report by the U.S. State Departent, the pervasive influence of the Catholic Church can sometimes affect the decisions of government officials. Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta was repeatedly quoted as saying that it is important for the government to consult with the Roman Catholic Church on important national issues. Despite this, Protestants and Muslims have also held high positions in the executive and legislative branches of government and also in the military. Though some Muslims and non-Catholics report harassment, there are no religious prisoners or detainees in Timor Leste, nor are there incidents of forced religious conversion, according to the International Religious Freedom Report.
George Amurao
See also: Belo, Carlos Filipe Ximenes; Christianity; Colonialism; Ethnicity; Freedom of Religion; Indonesia; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Islam; Melanesian Religion; Minorities; Missionary Movements; Religious Conversions; Religious Discrimination and Intolerance.
Further Reading
Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html (accessed October 25, 2014).
“East Timor Profile.” BBC News Asia Pacific, June 26, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14919009 (accessed May 14, 2014)
Hefner, Robert W. “Religious Ironies in East Timor.” Religion in the News 3, no. 1 (Spring 2000). http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/rinvol3no1/east_timor.htm (accessed May 14, 2014).
U.S. Department of State. “Timor Leste: International Religious Freedom Report 2007,” http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2007/90135.htm (accessed May 14, 2014)
TOURISM
Tourism in recent years has developed into one of Southeast Asia’s largest industries and a major engine for economic growth. Globally, tourism is a $3 billion a day business that all countries at all levels can potentially benefit from. The Asian region will soon be the fastest-growing market in terms of inbound and outbound tourism, with arrivals projected to increase significantly by 330 million in two decades—from 204 million arrivals in 2010 to 535 million arrivals in 2030. The region is home to the highest and the second-highest mountain peaks of the world, with Mount Everest and K2. Most of the world’s quality water resources are in the region, with river systems originating from the Himalayas. Some of the world’s best ocean resources, beaches, and mangrove areas are located in the region. Its biodiversity is unmatched by any other region of the earth. This region is home to historical marvels. The heritage and culture of the region dates back thousands of years. The region is home to almost all of the world’s religions. The cuisine of the region is exquisite. People are friendly and warm. Southeast Asia has all the ingredients to delight their visitor. All these factors combined make the region a viable and attractive tourism region.
The Questions
While the growth of tourism as an industry has been phenomenal, from a religious and social perspective, several questions linger. Can a tourist sector unconditioned by social checks bring benefit to host communities? Who benefits from tourism? What are the negative impacts? Can these be reversed? Is tourism smokeless, or is the pollution camouflaged in all the fun and distraction that tourism provides? Must not the spaces of the original inhabitants of lands where tourism remains “sacred” to the extent that they have been under their safe stewardship for all times? How can human, social, and cultural rights be protected? In short, the question is, is a renewed tourism possible?
Modern-day tourism in Southeast Asia is the story of distorted lifestyles. Dispassionately viewed, tourism is often about abused hospitality by travelers and about unscrupulous people/profiteers whose only goal is to make profits. It has too often been about disregard and exploitation of vulnerable women, young girls, and boys forced into prostitution because the alternative may simply be poverty or hunger. It is the unconscionable invasion and plunder of nature reserves, protected areas, wildlife habitats, rain forests, and bird sanctuaries.
Tourism in Southeast Asia is also much too frequently the story of people deceived by drugs, gambling, consumerism, unrestrained and ruthless competition, and the eventual sense of powerlessness of the victims. It is the venal displacement of farmers, fisher folk, and indigenous persons only to make way for the arrival of a tourist enterprise, which could take the form of a five-star hotel, a golf course, or a new amusement park. And unnoticed, it is the arena where the overworked, underpaid worker creates packages of bliss for the affluent holiday maker.
The Case of Southeast Asia
The development of Southeast Asian tourism clearly illustrates how all-pervasive the commodification of tourism can be. It is not uncommon for countries to advertise their destinations with slogans such as “paradise,” “God’s own country,” and such. When, for example, Thailand advertised the “Visit Thailand Year” in the 1980s, just when tourism was going into economic liberalization mode, it was a shameless extravaganza of commercialism that depicted everything up for sale—from spotless white beaches to luscious jungles, from colorful cultural events to beautiful Thai women. In the past, most people would spend their free hours playing with their children, going on family picnics, or visiting their relatives and friends. Most people would enjoy some hobbies that would deeply satisfy them. Some would go for walks in the countryside, climb hills, swim in rivers and seas, and go fishing. Leisure would thus bring people close to nature, build healthy bonds within the family and with the community, deepen one’s knowledge of humanity and the world, and manifest one’s human creativity and feelings.
Child Trafficking
The trafficking of children in Southeast Asia is linked to a range of factors and vulnerabilities. A child’s vulnerability to trafficking is influenced by individual, familial, and socioeconomic factors. Importantly, trafficked children are children who are already vulnerable. Demand for cheap labor, young brides, sex with children, and adoption drives the trafficking of children. The demand for sex with children and/or young brides is largely attributed to the value placed on virginity among East Asian cultures, demand from child sex offenders who often come from outside the region—usually from Western nations—the undersupply of girls and women available for marriage, and the myth that sex with young children or virgins can cure HIV.
Reported forms of child trafficking in the region include child prostitution or the production of child pornography, forced marriage, and adoption. The growing use of social networking sites, chat rooms, e-mail, and voiceover Internet protocols has had an impact on trafficking in the region, with cases of Thai women and girls trafficked to Japan from initial contact over the Internet and reports in Vietnam of students and other adolescents being trafficked after Internet chatting.
Water is a critical resource for human survival and dignity. Yet, in popular holiday destinations, local inhabitants have had to compete with the tourism sector over the access, allocation and use of water for their personal and domestic daily needs as the tourism industry exerts an enormous strain on water supplies. The local people also have had to fight against the tourism industry, which pollutes much of the water on which the industry is dependent.
Continuing contamination, depletion, and unequal distribution of water not only poses a direct threat to people’s right to health and life, but it also exacerbates existing poverty and has been a source of conflict and societal instability. Priority in the allocation of water must be given to the right to water for personal and domestic use and for preventing starvation and disease.
As every tourist, especially in Southeast Asia, consumes between 300 and 850 liters of water per day, tourism development has become virtually synonymous with water depletion, scarcity, and shortages. In all tourism areas, tourism has contributed to a severe lack of drinking water. Due to the water shortage caused by tourism, the coastal communities are forced to produce drinking water out of seawater or to import expensive drinking water from elsewhere. Consequently, traditional economic activities, such as agriculture, are marginalized by the lack of water”
Moreover, extensive landscaping, water parks, swimming pools, and golf courses are typical tourist facilities that require water during the dry season. On average, a golf course needs between 10,000 and 15,000 cubic meters of water per hectare a year. The surface of a golf course lies between 50 and 150 hectares, which means that the annual consumption of a golf course is around 1 million cubic meters per year, or the equivalent of the water consumption of a city of 12,000 inhabitants.
Displacement and Pilgrimage
Tourism has been a major source of the displacement of people in Southeast Asia. People are evicted from their homes either by governments or developers. In other cases, they are forced to move due to environmental disasters or economic reasons. Frequently tourism causes dramatic price rises, and local people can no longer afford rents and are forced to migrate. In the worst cases, eviction includes people having a gun put to their heads to force them to surrender their lands.
Pilgrimage is an important form of tourism in the region. A traveler is on a pilgrimage of sorts. A pilgrimage, by definition, is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. This is a traditional notion that confines travel or pilgrimage to religious sites or destination. But the distinction between the secular and sacred is often an artificial one. For, after all, everything in our world is integral to God’s creation, be it culture, nature, seas, hills and mountains, rivers, water bodies, and culture. How then, can tourism begin to acquire the traits of a pilgrimage?
A pilgrim goes off in search of God and in the pursuit of truth. God’s truth cannot be found outside the ambit of justice and true community. In a world torn asunder by economic divisions, a traveler can choose to search for people-to-people encounters, as part of which is that each discovers the other, understands each other, shares with each other what they can and have. This pilgrim pathway can lead to mutuality, solidarity, and to the real discovery of human community.
A relationship would evolve in such an encounter. That relationship could then set in motion a trail—one that leads to the cessation of abuses of the previous ways of exploitation rooted in greed. It could symbolize the abandonment of the search for profit alone and, instead, instil stewardship values of God’s world of people, the mountains, seas, islands, the air, the birds, and the trees—indeed, all of God’s precious creation. For a pilgrim is not a mere tourist.
Three distinguishing features between a hedonistic tourist and pilgrim are pertinent:
- The pilgrim treads sensitively on the Holy Ground and spaces they enter—the tourist tends to trample over this sacred space.
- The pilgrim respects the host, accepts their ways, and even tries to learn from them while offering to share her or his own ways. The tourist often sees the ways of the host as a good commodity best reserved for display at the “evening show.”
- The pilgrim is humble and patient, waiting for it to be time to do things, for the host to be ready, too. The tourist can be in a hurry, hasty, even arrogant.
Toward Responsible Tourism
Tourism in the Southeast Asian context has the potential to stimulate and facilitate dialogue among civilizations, cultures, and faiths. The complex relationship between the development of tourism and the dialogue between faiths and cultures finds its basis in the fact that tourism shares with religions and civilizations values such as tolerance and respect of diversity as well as rediscovery of oneself and of the others. In this sense, Asian tourism can create a niche market where the role of religious tourism can be an effective development tool and a facilitator of peace. There is the need to develop a dynamic relationship between religious and cultural heritage values in order to serve the interests of residents, tourists, and the religious community. For this, it is vital to maintain the authenticity and the core feature of religious sites and cultural routes and the assertion of heritage and ancient traditions aimed at bringing visitors closer to the values and spirituality of the host community.
At the Second Vatican Council, the following pertinent observation was made: “Shorter working hours are becoming the general rule everywhere and provide greater prospects for [a] large number of people. This leisure time must be properly employed to refresh the spirit and improve the health of mind and body by means of travel to broaden and enrich people’s minds by learning from others.”
Rest constitutes one important reason why people try to have free time, and it is also the most common reason for engaging in tourism. Rest can be easily construed as a time for doing nothing. In fact, rest consists principally in regaining the full personal equilibrium that normal living conditions tend to destroy. Therefore, just stopping all activity is not enough; certain conditions must also be created in order to regain one’s equilibrium. Tourism can facilitate these conditions because it offers avenues that makes new experiences possible.
The tourism we must seek out is different. If this were the ideal world, we would seek to match tourism and societal forces in a way that they serve the common good rather than serve the directives of the market. To take this argument one step further, one would argue that tourism must cease to be viewed as a mere industry. We should, rather, begin to view it as a social force.
Ranjan Solomon
See also: Globalization; Indonesia; Interreligious Relations and Dialogue; Pilgrimage; Popular Religion; Religion and Society; Secularism; Sexuality; Thailand; Thaipusam; Vietnam; Women.
Further Reading
D’Mello, Caesar, ed. Transforming Re-Forming Tourism: Perspectives on Justice and Humanity in Tourism. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism (ECOT), 2008.
Jones, Andrew, and Michael Phillips, eds. Disappearing Destinations: Climate Change and Future Challenges for Coastal Tourism. Oxfordshire, UK: CABI, 2011
Picard, Michel. Bali: Cultural Tourism and Touristic Culture. Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1996.
Snodgrass, Adrian. The Symbolism of the Stupa. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1985.
Suresh K. T., Liyakath Syed, and Roy Saroop, eds. Indigenous Peoples, Wildlife, and Ecotourism. Bangalore: Equations, 2002.