This book is an original study of the histories of Buddhist monastic education in Laos and Northern Thailand, covering the periods from the sixteenth century to the present. Justin McDaniel argues that individual Buddhist agents including laywomen, laymen, novices (samanen), nuns (maechi) and their interpretative communities make the complex histories of Buddhist monastic education in Laos and Northern Thailand. Over the centuries, they have actively cited, memorised, read, taught and altered Buddhist texts to fit their needs and changing circumstances. Studying the histories of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia through initiations and legacies of 'big men', such as kings, aristocrats or European colonists, is far from adequate. Along this line of argument, he seems to reject the fashionable notion of discontinuity or dis-juncture between the past and the present due to the rise of the secular nation-state and the onslaught of modernisation and globalisation.
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