Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand / Edition 1

by Tiyavanich Kamala

Overview

During the first half of this century the forest of Thailand were home to wandering ascetic monks. They were Buddhists, but their brand of Buddhism did not copy the practices described in ancient doctrinal text. Combining interviews and biographies with an exhaustive knowledge of archival materials and a wide reading of ephemeral popular literature, kamala Tiyavanich documents the monastic lives of three generations of forest-dwelling ascetics and challenges the stereotype of state-centric Thai Buddhism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824817817
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	03/01/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.16(w) x 9.18(h) x 1.03(d)

Editorial Reviews

The striking lack of scholarly reflection and the gaps in the bibliography, however, should not blind us to the rich historical and anthropological data that Kamala has assembled into a very readable account of the forest monk tradition of Thailand. Kamala's study is a welcome book and will prove to be a valuable resource at the undergraduate teaching level.
— Journal of Buddhist Ethics

Tessa Bartholomeusz