Abstract
Abstract
The main objective of this thesis is to research and explore the field between religion and magic in Thai Theravāda Buddhism. I intend to look into how people create and uphold the distinctions between religion and magic and how they communicate between these two spheres or dimensions. The thesis is based on the results of a study on religious identity and seemingly non-Buddhist religious phenomena among urban Thai Buddhists in the north-eastern city of Khorat. Categories like official and non-official religion in the cultural study of religion are inevitably under questioning in such a discussion. I seek to dispose the myth of Theravāda Buddhism as dichotomized into separate traditions. This is necessary because such a differentiation often leads to an impression of Theravāda Buddhism as being divided into a Great Tradition and a Little Tradition , one proper religious and one folk religious tradition. The totality of Thai religion is best comprehended when all religious and magical ideas and practices are seen in relation to each other. Not until the field between religion and magic is thoroughly explored and the entirety of Thai Buddhism fully appreciated, will it be possible to pinpoint the links between the different aspects of Thai religious life and identity.
Central theoretical concepts throughout the thesis are soteriological and communal religion (Gombrich); nibbanic, kammatic, and apotropaic Buddhism (Spiro); and khuna ( moral goodness ) and decha ( power ) dimensions of social existence (Mulder). The Thai term sàksìt ( holy or sacred ) is also imperative. Sàksìt qualities are communicators between the different spheres and dimensions of religious life and they mediate between all aspects of religious understanding. That someone or something is sàksìt implies both that the Dhamma (the teaching of the Buddha) or other khuna qualities, are immanent in the sàksìt person or object, and that this person or object have magical powers that provide protection and good fortune. This thesis aims to show how symbols of Buddhist soteriology, the Dhamma, are intimately linked and associated with the magical practices of communal religion.
Four phenomena relevant for this thesis were discussed with my informants; the meaning and importance of amulets; tham khwãn ceremonies (the binding of the essence of life ); the reverence of spirit houses; and the reverence of the spirit of the local Khorat heroine, Ya Mo.