The lovelorn ghost and the magical monk: Practicing Buddhism in modern Thailand

摘要

Justin McDaniel, already a winner of the prestigious Harry Bender Prize for Best First Book in Southeast Asian Studies (see Gathering leaves and lifting words; Histories of monastic education in Laos and Thailand, University of Washington Press, 2008), has now produced a second very different kind of book that clearly solidifies his position at the forefront of Thai and Lao Buddhist studies. This new book includes seven distinct but well-integrated components. The first is McDaniel's story of his own personal ethnographic practice and discovery (a story which he describes as one of surprising experiences leading to 'unexpected consequences'). The second component is his focus on aspects of the history and character of 'modern Thai Buddhism' that have been largely either ignored or disparaged by Western-trained scholars. He makes a convincing case that these aspects of Thai Buddhist life have been and remain 'mainstream' phenomena that involve rich and poor, urbanites and villagers, the highly educated and the less educated, monks and the laity.