1 - Introduction: Reconstructing a Journey

Summary

Let me begin on an autobiographical note. When I first went to Thailand in the early sixties on a UNESCO assignment lasting some three years, although I lived half the time in Bangkok, my fieldwork and intellectual interests were focused on certain villages located in the northeastern, northern, and central parts of Thailand. I was conscious then, and even more so later on subsequent visits and especially when I was writing the book Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand, that my view of the Thai world was a projection outward from the village. Such a perspective, though partial, was rewarding, for my intensive close-to-the-ground labors gave me some idea of how religious conceptions and rites were interwoven with village institutional life and some inkling of how the great tradition of Buddhism, in both its doctrinal and cosmological aspects, may be refracted in the microcosm of village life.

I promised myself that some day I would attempt a macroscopic view of religion's connection with society as a whole, especially in society's aspect as a polity. I already knew that the most able and vigorous young monks and novices frequently left the village wat (monastery) to go to the primate city of Bangkok, where they lived and pursued their studies in the greatest monasteries of the land, and had dealings with aristocrats, high officials, and generals. I realized that if I wanted to study how kingship and Buddhism interrelated, how religion and politics informed and interpenetrated each other, I would have to manage a panoramic and telescopic view of the society, from a vantage point located high above the bustling metropolis of Bangkok.