The Inadequacy Both of the Tradional and of the Modern Thai Leadership; And the Monks' Invaluable Social Role Under the Modernization Without Development

It should be noted that there is a great difference as regards the social background of the monks in the traditional Thai society in the past and that of the monks in the modern times. In the past the monkhood was recruited from men of all classes of the society and from all parts of the country regardless of their status. As members of the monkhood, the monks formed an independent society exercising spiritual and intellectual influences on the secular society. Roughly speaking, they played the roles of the intellectuals. But in the modern times, since the monks were retired from educational responsibility on the adoption of the modern system of public education and since the traditional system of education was retained only in the monasteries, the monkhood has been recruited from the underprivileged, nearly entirely from the peasants’ children. To distinguish them from those trained in the newly adopted modern system of education, the monks of modern times may be called the traditional intellectuals. But, with an undeveloped educational system, they have, lost the position of the intellectuals and fallen to the class of the common uninformed people or even the uneducated. In contrast to these outdated intellectuals recruited from the villagers are modern intellectuals who get educated through the modern educational system. These modern intellectuals are now represented by university students who are mostly (about 75-80 percent) recruited from the privileged classes in towns and cities, the children of government officials and merchants. It is thus only natural that much of the part that was played by the monks in the past has been taken up by these modern intellectuals who have come to play it for the Thai society of today. However, as these modern intellectuals have been, to a large extent, alienated from the Thai culture through the modern Western system of education, they cannot well accommodate themselves to the traditional rural communities which form the major part of about 75-80 percent of the Thai society. They, therefore, usually confine their services to the minor modernized urban sector of the society, leaving the major rural sector under the awkward uninformed leadership of the monks.

As noted earlier, most of the students in the modern secular system of education are recruited from the privileged classes. Sons of the poor peasants in remote areas find their resort in the monasteries where they study as monks and novices. Thus, in spite of the loss of intellectual leadership, the monkhood still plays an important educational role for the modern society. Amidst the unequal opportunities in education, the monkhood provides a channel through which the less-privileged people who get no access to the modern educational system of the state may continue their intellectual pursuits.

SOME EFFORTS TO FILL THE GAP AND TO RESTORE THE MONKS’ WORTHY ROLES
In the meantime, however, strict traditionalism on the part of the Sangha and the Thai society as a whole has both directly and indirectly caused reactions, conflicts and new developments in private sectors. A number of Elders, in an effort to respond to the long-felt but ignored need to produce Buddhist monks equipped with modern knowledge relevant to the contemporary world, revived the plan for Buddhist higher education. Then Mahamakut and Mahachula came back to life as the two Buddhist universities of Thailand in 2489/1946 and 2490/1947 respectively. Some lay intellectuals found interest in Buddhist thought through their independent study or casual reading of writings on Buddhism by Western scholars. Some of them have helped in the attempt to connect Buddhist thought and culture with modern scientific, intellectual and social developments. A number of monks, undoubtedly few, through their independent study, gained insight into a new meaning of the Buddha-Dharma through their own interpretation. They give Buddhism a new appeal, a vitality that has made it accessible to the intellectuals and university students. They have helped to reduce the widening gap between the monkhood and the modern intellectuals, and have paved the way for the regaining of the monks’ spiritual leadership. Among these monks the best known is Bhikkhu Buddhadasa of Chaiya in South Thailand, who is claimed to be the most outstanding Buddhist thinker in the country and also a figure in international Buddhism.

In his own country Buddhadasa has even been pictured as a revolutionary or a non-conformist because of his attacks on popular superstitious beliefs and practices and the performance of particular ceremonies. His primary concern, in the words of a Western scholar, “is not to expound traditional teachings but to revitalize the tradition in such a manner that it becomes a vehicle rather than a block to the realization of Truth, or Buddha-Dhamma.” He puts into the tradition a new life and a new light, summoning those around him “to a reexamination of their religion and themselves.”1 However, it should be noted that Buddhadasa is well known only to the intelligentsia, among whom his voice echoes strongly, while, at the popular level, he is little understood or listened to, and it is Bhikkhu Pannananda, a little younger senior intimate of his, that comes to fill the gap.

Another important development in Thai Buddhism is monks’ involvement in community development. Some monks have been concerned about the problems of the relevancy of Buddhism to the contemporary changing society. To these monks, and to a number of lay Buddhists, the monks’ loss of leadership in the modern Westernized sector of Thai society, usually represented by the urbanized communities, has affected the stability of the religion and partly accounted for the misdirected development of the society. In the modern Westernized society monks play no role of real importance or unquestionable value, and the society has reached the current stage of development without their claim to help or guidance. Modern Thailand is, however, often branded with modernization without development or with misguided development. The lack of the monks’ share in the process of development must have been a factor in this undesirable result. It may be too late for the monks to take up their responsibility in such an extremely secularized society and it will be difficult even to regain their status, though many monks are now much concerned about this task. In rural areas, on the con-trary, monastic leadership is still strong and the rural people still recognize their responsibility to the Buddhist institutions. Modernization has, however, started to run its course there and the monks, with their traditional roles of leadership, are far from prepared to apply the effectiveness of their leadership to the problems of modernization, that is, to help the rural people towards proper adjustment in the process of development. The rural monks are recruited from among the rural people, more specifically the villagers, with a very disadvantaged educational background and with experiences limited to village situations. Lacking knowledge of the modern society, its problems and the gap to fill, they themselves are subject to a misdirected development. They are just as the monks in the modernized sector once were and still mostly are. There is a fear that the story will repeat itself.

Such being the case, the monks and lay Buddhists who have been awakened to the problems direct their attention to the rural society. With the purpose of awakening rural monastic leaders to the same problems and helping them to adapt their leadership to the modern process of development, monastic social programmes for social welfare and rural uplift have been established by the Buddhist Universities and other monastic institutions. Courses in the practical aspects of community development have been included along with training for the propagation of Buddhism. Some of these programmes have been criticized for secularization and some even for politicization. Apart from programmes for rural monks, the two Buddhist Universities annually send a number of their graduates to take teaching positions and participate in local development programmes and other social, educational and Buddhist activities. It is hoped that through these programmes monks will be made effective in realizing the Buddhist ideal of ‘going for the welfare and happiness of the many’ by helping and guiding the people through a process of right and real development, and their place of leadership will also be maintained.

In fact, these Buddhists are concerned not only about the maintenance of the monks' status in the changing traditional society, but also about the restoration of the monks to their proper place as leaders in modern society. The Buddhist Sunday school movement begun by Mahachula Buddhist University in 2501/1958 represents an attempt to revive Buddhist education for the younger generation and to achieve welfare and happiness both for the modernized society and for the society under the process of modernization.

In the last decade, there has been, in many parts of the country, especially in the central region, where the secular government education has been made accessible to the villagers, a sharp decrease in the number of boys entering the monasteries to study in the monastic traditional system of education. There are now, therefore, very few novices or none at all in most of the monasteries in the more developed areas of the country. Simultaneously, on the other hand, students and pupils in the secular government and private schools have been criticized of being alienated from their religious and cultural tradition and lacking adequate moral training. As a response to this situation, many monasteries and organizations throughout the country have resorted to the new practice of temporary summer group-ordination or temporary hot-season group-admission to novicehood (or monkhood), now in vogue, providing the youths with religious, cultural and moral training for a short period of time, mostly for one month, during their annual long vacation. Although this practice cannot be an answer to the problem of the shortage of monastic man power in the long run, it is hoped that it will be a help in the solution of the urgent problems of juvenile delinquency and cultural alienation.
In spite of all these efforts, however, the Buddhist reformers must always bear in mind one thing: in order for Buddhism to be really relevant to the rapidly changing world in the long run they must discover which demands of such a world should be the prime concern of Buddhism, the demands that no other realm of human endeavour can treat, and be prepared to apply the Buddhist answers towards the satisfaction of these demands.