The Buddha in the Jungle

by Tiyavanich Kamala

Overview

In The Buddha in the Jungle, real-life stories about 19th and early 20th century Buddhist monks in Thailand are ingeniously intermingled with experiences recorded by their Western contemporaries. Stories tell of giant snakes, bandits, boatmen, midwives, and guardian spirits and collectively portray a Buddhist culture in all its imaginative and geographical concreteness. By juxtaposing these eyewitness accounts, Kamala Tiyavanich presents a new and vivid picture of Buddhism as it was lived and of the natural environments in which the Buddha’s teachings were practiced.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295983721
Publisher:	University of Washington Press and Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai
Publication date:	11/28/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kamala Tiyavanich is a Thai Buddhist and the author of Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and IllustrationsForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThai names and Romanization

1. The Palelai Buddha2. A Stork in a Snare3. A Muslim, His Goats, and a Bodhi Tree4. Matsi, the Bodhisat's Wife5. Midnight Visitors6. When in Doubt, Do What Dogs Do7. Dogs, Cats, and Birds8. Paddle Your Own Canoe9. A Dog Can Be a Bodhisat10. Venerable Grandfather Edd11. Two Legs Monastery12. Idol or Guide? 13. Venerable Father Dark Eyes14. Big Buddha, Tough Hunter15. The Boatman and the Bandit Monk16. Tending Water Buffaloes17. Scarecrows and Baby-Sitters18. Abbots and Bandits19. Bandits and the Practice of Gratitude20. An Elephant on a Rampage21. How to Tame Elephants22. A Bodhisat Elephant23. Teaching Precepts to an Elephant24. Lord Buddha and King Cobra25. A Teak Wallah Meets Snakes26. Snakes, Guns, and Guardian Spirits27. Temple Boy and Spitting Cobra28. Kill Insects, Clean Latrines29. The Forest Cemetery at Wat Saket30. Corpses and Carrion Eaters31. The Oldest Midwife32. Dhamma from Grandmothers33. Tigers and Crocodiles34. White-Robed Renunciants35. Tap Tao Cave36. Falling Mindfully37. Meeting the Tiger in Silence38. Sisterhood of the Yellow Robe39. Jesus and the Future Buddha40. The Compassionate Arahant41. Ajan Inkhong, Master Painter42. Medicine Monks43. Backward or Enlightened? 44. The Green Buddha of the Grotto

GlossaryIllustration creditsReferences

What People are Saying About This

John Badgley

This is a wonderful work of scholarship and storytelling. By introducing nearly every tale with comments by one or more western writers, Kamala helps English—reading students of Thailand and Buddhism understand the translated material.

Laurence Khantipalo

Throws an intersting light upon Dharma as it was practiced in Siam, certainly a light that differs in many respects from the state—imposed Buddhism of Bangkok.

Venerable Tiradhammo

A very interesting and engaging account of living Buddhism in the last centuries and a valuable contribution to the increasing knowledge of the many and varied forms of Buddhist practice.

Jack Kornfield

This is one of the most remarkable, honest, and rich accounts of how Theravada Buddhism actually flourished in Thailand. It gives us a new picture of the true breadth and fullness of the tradition in every part of life.

Wes Nisker

Reading The Buddha in the Jungle is a wondrous journey to an exotic land, full of magic chants, wise grandmothers, ghosts, elephants, snakes, and compassionate Buddhist monks. This is a book of history, anthropology, and Buddhist teachings, and it is delightfully easy and fun to read.

Russell Webb

An absorbing and totally different yet highly readable survey of a little—known period of relitious and social history.

Editorial Reviews

Reading The Buddha in the Jungle is a wondrous journey to an exotic land, full of magic chants, wise grandmothers, ghosts, elephants, snakes, and compassionate Buddhist monks. This is a book of history, anthropology, and Buddhist teachings, and it is delightfully easy and fun to read.

Wes Nisker

A delightful read..This is an important and lovely book which is easy and fun to read but carries some important messages. More than any conventional work of history or anthropology, this book conveys a very tangible sense of what the landscape was like, how life was lived, and how the monkhood fit together with nature and with society.

Bangkok Post

An absorbing and totally different yet highly readable survey of a little—known period of relitious and social history.

Russell Webb

This wonderful book, produced with care and beautiful simplicity, deals with the variety of Theravada Buddhism practiced in Thailand. But its appeal is broader. It serves as a useful counterweight to what might be called the Kitsilano school of Buddhism.

The Vancouver Sun

A heart-warming narrative..The Buddha in the Jungle captures the most authentic expression of the Thai Theravada Buddhism in which wisdom, inner repose and freedom of being takes central place for the monks.

dharmalife

These stories of monks in Thailand during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries give a remarkable picture if the lives of monks and the practice of Buddhism in earlier times..[A] fascinating book.

Multicultural Review