Review
In this sweeping study full of fresh observations and original thinking, McDaniel continues his radical reinterpretation of Thai religious practice. Challenged to understand rituals, sacred objects, saints, deities, and spirits of bewildering diversity, he sees in a lovelorn ghost and magical monk a way to make sense of what seems senseless. He thereby dispels the familiar categories of Buddhism, Brahmanism, and animism. Does anyone understand Thai religion in all its complexity better than McDaniel?
(Craig J. Reynolds, Australian National University )
Justin Thomas McDaniel celebrates the complexity and situation-specific vitality of Buddhists and their 'repertoires' in his engaging work on contemporary, especially urban, Thailand. His book is a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching, and it is exemplary in its use of Thai, French, and English writings on Thailand and Buddhism.
(Anne Blackburn, Cornell University )
A brilliant and innovative book that not only carves out some important new directions in the study of Theravada Buddhism but also sets a new bar. If my students had time to read only one book on Southeast Asian Buddhism, this is the book I would choose.
(Anne Hansen, University of Wisconsin )
This magnificent, beguiling, and thought-provoking study describes and celebrates the heterogeneity and, as McDaniel puts it, the cacophony of Thai Buddhist experience as expressing the values of security, heritage, graciousness, and abundance. It should be read by every scholar of Buddhist studies and of religious studies more widely. An epoch-making achievement.
(Steve Collins, University of Chicago )
(Craig J. Reynolds, Australian National University )
Justin Thomas McDaniel celebrates the complexity and situation-specific vitality of Buddhists and their 'repertoires' in his engaging work on contemporary, especially urban, Thailand. His book is a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching, and it is exemplary in its use of Thai, French, and English writings on Thailand and Buddhism.
(Anne Blackburn, Cornell University )
A brilliant and innovative book that not only carves out some important new directions in the study of Theravada Buddhism but also sets a new bar. If my students had time to read only one book on Southeast Asian Buddhism, this is the book I would choose.
(Anne Hansen, University of Wisconsin )
This magnificent, beguiling, and thought-provoking study describes and celebrates the heterogeneity and, as McDaniel puts it, the cacophony of Thai Buddhist experience as expressing the values of security, heritage, graciousness, and abundance. It should be read by every scholar of Buddhist studies and of religious studies more widely. An epoch-making achievement.
(Steve Collins, University of Chicago )
Product Description
Stories centering on the lovelorn ghost (Mae Nak) and the magical monk (Somdet To) are central to Thai Buddhism. Historically important and emotionally resonant, these characters appeal to every class of follower. Metaphorically and rhetorically powerful, they invite constant reimagining across time.
Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being "Buddhist" and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies.
Establishing an individual's "religious repertoire" as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations. Listening to popular Thai Buddhist ghost stories, visiting crowded shrines and temples, he finds concepts of attachment, love, wealth, beauty, entertainment, graciousness, security, and nationalism all spring from engagement with the ghost and the monk and are as vital to the making of Thai Buddhism as venerating the Buddha himself.
Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being "Buddhist" and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies.
Establishing an individual's "religious repertoire" as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations. Listening to popular Thai Buddhist ghost stories, visiting crowded shrines and temples, he finds concepts of attachment, love, wealth, beauty, entertainment, graciousness, security, and nationalism all spring from engagement with the ghost and the monk and are as vital to the making of Thai Buddhism as venerating the Buddha himself.
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