Abstract
Anne Yvonne Guillou documents the current process of categorization of religious practices in today’s Cambodia. The concept of ‘Buddhism’ (buddhasāsanā) as a national religion gradually appeared during the nineteenth century. This development was violently interrupted by the Pol Pot regime (1975–1979). It has resurfaced with new arrangements since the 1990s, when a concern with the definitions of ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Brahmanism’ emerged in various rituals and particularly in spirit cults. Drawing on intensive and long-term fieldwork in both urban and rural areas, her chapter depicts three emblematic figures of young monks who embody different interpretations of ‘true Buddhism.’ She refers to these three strands as ‘traditionalist,’ ‘reformist,’ and ‘socially engaged’ monks. These strands ultimately imply conflicting perceptions of the relationship between Buddhism and the Khmer society.
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Notes
- 1.
I am indebted to Michel Picard and Jos Platenkamp for their insightful and demanding comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. My thanks also to Cécile Barraud, Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, and Michel Antelme for their comments.
- 2.
Khmers make up around 85% of the population of Cambodia, referred to as a whole as Cambodian citizens.
- 3.
The transliteration of the Khmer words follows the Saveros Lewitz’s system (1969), except when they are commonly written otherwise.
- 4.
- 5.
This is probably a long-lasting French orientalist influence, which viewed the land guardian spirits as reminiscent of old Hindu gods worshipped in Cambodia in the Angkorean era. ‘Many nak ta are materialized by linga or statues of Hindu deities (…),’ writes Eveline Porée-Maspero (1962: 8. My translation). But this sentence looks like an orientalist doxa which is contradicted by another sentence on the same page, based this time on field research: ‘The house of the nak ta is usually a small wooden hut under a tree; it is sometimes empty but it often contains some strangely shaped roots, some ancient sculptures, sometimes only one small piece. This is the “form,” rub, of the spirit’ (fn. 4, 8). Some land guardian spirits, like Grand-Father Neck Red (sic), have been identified as a reminiscence of Shiva, but this is by no means true of the thousands of anak tā, which have been worshipped in Cambodia since the pre-Buddhist time (Theravāda has been broadly introduced in Cambodia around the fourteenth century).
- 6.
Although the cult to various spirits can certainly not been labeled a world religion, its assimilation to a vanishing worship of Hindu deities (see footnote supra) may explain why it is called sāsanā.
- 7.
Also currently spelled in Cambodia in its Sanskrit form dharma.
- 8.
This field work, funded by the Centre Asie du Sud-Est, takes place in a personal research program on the construction of memory in post-genocide rural Cambodia.
- 9.
I am grateful to Michel Antelme who made me aware of these videos.
- 10.
Texts from the Tipitaka, such as the maṅgaladīpanī, samantapāsādikā, and visuddhimagga. The commentaries called Way of the World (Gatilok), written by the scholar monk Suttantaprījā, also became famous. It introduced secularized interpretations of key concepts such as moral discernment and virtuous friendship (Hansen 2007: 162).
- 11.
‘Khmerness’ (bhāb jā khmaer) is not a usual word in Khmer language. It is better translated by the common expression ‘We Khmer’ (khmaer yoeṅ) when one speaks about collective customs, habits, tastes, or even flaws.
- 12.
No research has been carried out until now on the history of the Ministry of Cults and Religious Affairs. Until the beginning of the twentieth century (probably as late as in the 1930s) it was contained within the Ministry of Interior and Cults. This strongly suggests that the administrative organization of Buddhism was modeled on the global administrative scheme (personal information from historians Gabrielle Abbe and Mathieu Guérin).
- 13.
On the Buddhization of cults to land guardian spirits, see Forest (2012).
- 14.
Aṅg Cănd Rājā is the most important and best known of the post-Angkorean kings and a great supporter of Buddhism.
- 15.
King Bālī is loosely associated in the Khmer minds with deities related to the earth, like Preah Thorni (braḥ dharaṇī), the goddess of the earth, and Preah Phum (braḥ bhūmi), a spirit protecting the land in each home, among others. Its cult is performed only during weddings and when moving into a new house. Kruṅ Bālī is also seen as the giant snake that supports the earth in the Khmer mythology (Porée-Maspero 1961). Offerings to Kruṅ Bālī have been integrated only recently in the annual tribute to Khleang Muang for reasons that I cannot develop here.
- 16.
There is one exception: the monks enter the Khleang Muang’s shrine when they communicate with him as a dead person and send him Buddhist merits produced by offerings from the faithful.
- 17.
The Commission des Moeurs et Coutumes du Cambodge commissioned a description of the ceremony in 1948. It is translated from Khmer and reprinted in Forest (1992: 237–241).
- 18.
Thanks to Jos Platenkamp for his valuable help in formulating this analysis.
- 19.
Pseudonyms have been used for each of the three monks that I take as examples in this chapter.
- 20.
The ceremony of offering new robes to monks at the end of the rainy season.
- 21.
All of those contrasting trends in contemporary Cambodian Buddhism belong to the Mahanikaya sect. Although the Dhammayuttika sect is still the sect of the Cambodian royal family, today it holds a weak position and has lost the challenger status it held before the Pol Pot regime. It should be made clear that what is called ‘traditionalism’ here was already transformed during the French Protectorate.
- 22.
Particularly the Aṭṭakatha ṭīka and yojanā.
- 23.
Buth Savong was a monk for many years and afterward remained close to the monastic way of life. He is well respected for his asceticism.
- 24.
Sok Sakun, like Buth Savong, gives importance to relics and relic stupas.
- 25.
Some are on the Dhammapada (Sutta Piṭaka), others on Abhidhamma Piṭaka (including one volume on the Dhamma Saṅgaṇi Book). Other publications have more general topics, like (my translation) The course of life; Life explained [literally: Life translated]; A true life needs the Dharma; Does hell really exist?, among others.
- 26.
Buth Savong requires this basic rule from his monks (Marston 2012). In recent years, it has become less commonly observed by Mahanikaya monks—particularly in towns—where it seems that a dispensation has been given to them for security reasons.
- 27.
Paṅsukūl has another meaning in the non-reformed Mahanikaya ritual. See Bizot (1981).
- 28.
My translation from Khmer.
- 29.
It goes without saying that his father quit the monastic robe and then got married.
- 30.
Taking intoxicating substances is forbidden by the monks’ discipline.
- 31.
Spiro contrasts various types of Theravāda Buddhism, including nibbanic, kammatic, and apotropaic views. The first trend refers to the learning of the dhamma, its revelation of the cause of suffering, and the way of its extinction. The second refers to the adaptation of the nibbanic view in a more mundane way: Buddhism provides the path toward a better future life. The third one refers to the ritualistic approach, where rituals help in changing human’s current lives. Spiro’s framework can be applied easily to the Khmer context.
- 32.
- 33.
Maitreya is often presented by scholars as the only bodhisattva of the Theravāda way.
- 34.
Saṅgam means ‘society.’
- 35.
In fact, as far as figures are available, Vietnamese enterprises have land concessions in Cambodia just like any other foreign enterprises from Southeast Asian countries and elsewhere.
- 36.
Number provided by the abbot. The monastery was full of these internal refugees when I visited it.
- 37.
Analysis in terms of delineation inside the religious field has been inspired by the thoroughly theoretical approach of Brac de la Perrière (2009).
- 38.
This hope is actually rarely explicitly expressed by the believers I have met. They insist instead on the necessity of carrying out positive actions. Meditation practices, although unknown by the average believer, have dramatically increased in recent years.
- 39.
It is difficult to implement, as any attempt to position oneself as neutral is always interpreted by the ruling power as an assertion of opposition.
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Guillou, A.Y. (2017). The (Re)configuration of the Buddhist Field in Post-Communist Cambodia. In: Picard, M. (eds) The Appropriation of Religion in Southeast Asia and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56230-8_3
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