The population of Thailand is 54.6 million, the growth rate 1.4%, infant mortality 24 in 1,000 life births, and literacy 88.8%. With 54.6 million citizens, Thailand is less populous than Vietnam (68 million) and the Philippines (62.8 million) and much less populous than Indonesia (182.5 million) but larger than any of its immediate neighbors, Burma (42.5 million), Malaysia (18.3 million), Cambodia (8.2 million) and Laos (4.2 million) [Source: Asiaweek, edition of August 16, 1991].
The population growth rate is among the lowest in the region. Thailand’s 1.4% is the same as in China and lower than in Laos (2.9%), the Philippines (2.3%), Malaysia (2.3%), Vietnam (2.2%), Cambodia (2.2%), Burma (2.1%) and Indonesia (1.8%). The infant mortality rate is lower than in all the above cited countries. Of those countries, only Vietnam has a higher literacy rate (94%).
There are no ethnical conflicts worth mentioning in Thailand. The only low-key internal conflict, in the southernmost provinces of the kingdom, is based on a different religion and not ethnically caused. The southernmost provinces are predominantly Muslim, and the population there has Malay traits and many speak a Malayan dialect aside from Thai. Although the relationship between these southernmost provinces and Bangkok is sometimes not exactly harmonious, there are no serious secessionist or separatist tendencies.
The absence of ethnically based conflicts leads observers to assume that the Thailand is ethnically more coherent than is actually the case. While there is indeed no single large ethnical minority (as for example the Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey), there is a very large number of small ethnic groups with societies less civilized than the mainstream Thai society. Most of these tribal societies are found in the northern part of the country.
Thailand, or rather Siam, also has a long tradition of granting political asylum to groups from neighboring countries who fled their homes because of religious or ethnically motivated persecution. Vietnamese Christians, Mon people from Burma and political dissidents from Cambodia have sought and received shelter in Thailand not just after the Vietnam War but already hundreds of years ago. And last not least, a large number of Chinese has migrated to Thailand from times when the Thais themselves only gained the territory of what today by and large is Thailand. The Chinese, though, rather came for commercial than religious or political reasons. The son of a Chinese father and a Thai mother, Taksin, even was king of Thailand from 1767 to 1782.
Large sections of northern Thailand have been under Burmese rule for many centuries, and this not only resulted in a Burmese-influenced architecture but also in an ethnical mix.
Therefore, what gives the Thai citizenry its strong sense of identity is rather of cultural, linguistic, religious and political than ethnical nature. Though the Thai language is spoken quite differently in the South, the North or the Northeast, the written language is the same. A politically unifying influence of a scale hard to underestimate is exerted by the monarchy, for decades personalized by the extremely popular King Bhumiphol Adulyadej.
Language
Religion
All Buddhist religious ceremonies center at the Wat, a combination of monastery and temple. There are about 32,000 Wats in the country. It is socially expected that every Thai male will become a monk at least once in his life for a period of about 3 months in order to study Buddhism and live the Buddhist way in the monastery. The present King Bhumiphol Adulyadej became a monk in 1956 and took residence at Wat Bovornivet. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, the only son of the King was ordained a monk in 1978.
Buddhism is probably the most tolerant religion of the world, and it can coexist with any other religion (though most other religions aim to be exclusive and cannot accommodate Buddhism at the same time). Accordingly, Thailand has a long history of religious tolerance. Though traditionally he has to be a Buddhist, the King besides being the head of state is the upholder of all religions professed by his people.
As obtaining anything through power or force is completely against the logics of Buddha’s teachings, Buddhism is not only considerably more tolerant than most religions but also less institutionalized. There is nothing like a Buddhist Vatican. Therefore, much of the more earthly matters, from land ownership to the preservation of Buddhist architectural monuments, is handled by the Thai government through the Department of Religious Affairs in the Ministry of Education.
It’s also rather the Thai government that defines religious offenses and prosecutes offenders as Buddhism itself is too gentle to concern itself with such matters. The voluminous "Traveller’s Guide to Thailand", published by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, explains:
"Thai law has a number of special sections concerning religious offenses, and these cover not only Buddhism, the religion of the majority of the people, but also any other faiths represented in the Kingdom. It is, for instance unlawful to commit any act, by any means whatever, to an object of a place of religious worship of any community in a manner likely to insult the religion. Similarly, ‘whoever causes any disturbance at an assembly lawfully engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies’ is subject to punishment, as well as ‘whoever dresses or uses a symbol showing that he is a priest or novice, holyman or clergyman of any religion unlawfully in order to make another person believe he is such person.’ In less legal language, here are a few tips on what to do and what not to do on a visit to a religious place:
- Dress neatly. Don’t go shirtless, or in shorts, hot pants, or other unsuitable attire. If you look at the Thais around you, you’ll see the way they would prefer you to be dressed - which, in fact, is probably not very different from the way you’d dress in a similar place back home.
- It’s all right to wear shoes while walking around the compound of a Buddhist temple, but not inside the chapel where the principal Buddha image is kept. Don’t worry about dirt when you have to take them off; the floors of such places are usually very clean.
- Buddhist priests are forbidden to touch or to be touched by a woman or to accept anything from the hand of one. If a woman has to give anything to a monk or novice, she first hands it to a man, who then presents it. Or in case of a woman who wants to present it with her hand, the monk or novice will spread out a piece of saffron robe or handkerchief in front of him, and the woman will lay down the material on the robe which is being held at one end by the monk or novice.
- All Buddha images, large or small, ruined or not, are regarded as sacred objects. Hence, don’t climb up on one to take a photograph or, generally speaking, do anything that might show a lack of respect."
It’s beyond the scope of this handbook to evaluate Buddhism as a religion or a philosophy. As it deserves it, numerous thick tomes have been written on the topic. Short reviews of the religion and its history naturally tend to be simplistic, and when they appear in guide books written by Westerners, they are often lacking in respect as well. However, as most visitors to Thailand will not find the time to read thick volumes on the country’s religion there certainly is a need for some abbreviated information on Buddhism. Therefore we quote here verbatim an explanation on Buddhism given in the above cited "Traveller’s Guide to Thailand", published by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
While some of the sentences may not sound particularly elegant, they nevertheless transport more than just the factual information on the Kingdom’s religion. As the quoted part was obviously written by a devout Buddhist, it also gives a glimpse on how Thais believe and shows the respect they have for anything related to their religion. The quoted text is not neutral in its language. The language used makes clear that the author is convinced that Theravada Buddhism is the one correct religion, and many statements that would be regarded as a matter of religious opinion in Western culture are made in a matter of fact voice. The Western reader may qualify them according to his or her religious inclinations.
The quoted text not only presumes that the Buddhist teachings are correct beyond doubt but also that, furthermore, Theravada (Hinayana) Buddhism is the orthodox and correct denomination, as distinguished from Mahayana Buddhism. This additionally gives the quoted text a degree of authenticity that could not be achieved by any summary written by a Western, non-Buddhist author (highlighting added by the author of this handbook, otherwise no changes made):
"Buddhism is a natural religion, for it does not violate either mind or body. Its ethics closely approximates the Natural Law. Buddhism is also classified as an atheistic religion, for it does not consist in God and Soul theories which can neither be proved by self-experiment nor by intuition. It concerns only self-evident facts of suffering and can be experienced by every man in himself and the surrounding world.
Buddhism is a teaching of the Buddha who was born a prince of Kapilavathu, at the part of the Himalaya mountains near the border of Nepal in 623 B.C. He married and had a son. Although surrounded by all the Court’s glamour and luxuries, the sight of a decrepit old man, sick man, dead man and mendicant monk, these "four signs" left such a deep impression upon His mind that, at the age of 29, He decided to leave His palace and enter "the homeless life" of a monk to seek the truth and find a way to salvation for all sentient beings. In His search for salvation among the teachers, He surpassed them and found that their doctrines were insufficient, not leading to Awakening, to Extinction and to Enlightenment and Insight. He departed those teachers and turned to practice self-mortification for six years with great zeal and effort. He met five ascetics or Panca Vaggiya who offered their services to Him. Finally, the Buddha realized that the ascetic exercises were not the right way to attain salvation. He had practiced self-mortification to the limit of His endurance and felt very weakened without achieving anything. So, He partook of food, regained strength and began to practice meditation which finally led to His enlightenment under the Holy Bodhi tree near the town of Uruvela, the present Buddha-Gaya when he was only 35 years old.
Through His deep contemplation upon His ownself, the Buddha became cognigant of how men are born and die according to their good and evil will actions, according to their self-created Karma (or the consequence of meritorious and demeritorious deeds.) By the same intuition, He became cognigant of the "Five Aggregates of Existence" or the Panca Khandha that are Rupa (Body), Vedana (Feeling), Sanna (Cognition), Sankhara (Impression) and Vinnana (Consciousness), that man is only an embodiment of these five aggregates, or in other words man is made up of Khandha, none of which belongs to anyone, and the clinging to each or to the whole, will only result in the conception of the new life and the round of existence (Samsara.) This creates the "Delusion of Self", and He discovered the "Four Noble Truths" which lead to the cessation of all sufferings and of rebirth.
Finally, the Lord Buddha out of compassion to all beings, was determined to reveal His Teachings. He proclaimed for the first time the Dhamma in a discourse to the five ascetics. This discourse is universally known as the "Four Noble Truths" and contains the essence of the Buddha’s Doctrines. The Lord Buddha taught His Doctrines for nearly 45 years, walking up and down from town to town and from village to village, in Northern India. At the age of 80, He fell ill and died in Kusinara in the country of the Malas on the Visaka, on the full moon day of the sixth lunar month in the year 543 B.C.
There are lots of historical proof of the Buddha’s real existence, such as the Asoka-Pillar erected in Lumbini park at Kapilavatthu (near Nepal) in remembrance of the Birth of the Lord, by King Asoka (262 - 222 B.C.) and discovered in 1890, contemporary Indian literature, the Pali-Canon Tripitaka, that is the collection of Discipline (Vinaya), of Discourses (Suttanta) and of Philosophical (Abhidhamma), the Sanskrit Canon, the records of two Chinese travellers to India, Fahian (394 - 441 A.D.) and Yuan Thsang (630 - 644 A.D.) and lastly the Buddha’s Doctrine itself, which is based on true facts of actuality, the truth of which can be experienced by Insight by anyone himself with sufficient intelligence and patience.
The Teaching of the Buddha was not written down by Himself. Immediately after his death, the first Council of his disciples took place in 477 B.C. and all his Discourses were fixed and the ground plan was laid for the Pall-Canon. There was a second Council and third Council (377 and 343 B.C.) and the discourses were sorted into different collections called Pitakas, namely the Sutta Pitaka which contains the discourses of the Buddha, the Vinaya Pitaka which contains the rules and regulations of the Holy Brotherhood, and many centuries later the Abhidhamma Pitaka was added which contains expositions of a scholastic nature of the two first Pitakas.
From the "Asoka Pillars" we learn that King Asoka of India sent forth his missionaries to all provinces of the Empire and then to the neighboring Kingdom of Ceylon, Kashmir and Tibet in the North, to Persia, Antioch and Egypt and Greece in the West. King Asoka called a council which was the Third Council, and the Pali-Canon was revised and confined. After his death, Buddhism split into two different schools, namely Hinayana or the Lesser Vehicles and the Mahayana or the Greater Vehicles. Hinayana is the orthodox, based upon the Pali scripture. This school tries to preserve the original doctrines, and nowadays is practiced in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. While, Mahayana is an enlargement and further development of the original doctrine and based on the Sanskrit scripture translated from the Pali Text and modifies some doctrinal principles in order to adapt its teaching to local environment and to interpret Buddhism by laying a stress on some philosophical points of view. This is believed in Tibet, Korea, Japan, Sikhim, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Vietnam.
Buddhism was first introduced into Thailand as Hinayana Buddhism in about 329 B.C., later in about 700 A.D., Mahayana Buddhism came. However, in 1000 A.D. Hinnayana was again re-introduced from Burma. In 1253 A.D., Thai Buddhist Monks went to Ceylon and brought back with them the Pali scripts. They also invited the Ceylonese Monks to Thailand. Ever since then all Kings of Thailand embraced Hinayana Buddhism which then became the National Religion.
Lord Buddha formulated his Doctrine of Misery and Salvation from it in four theses, called the Four Noble Truths. They are:
1) The Noble Truth of Suffering: Rebirth, old age, disease, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair, association with objects we dislike, separation from objects we love, not to obtain what one desires cause suffering. There are also many happy hours and pleasure in a man’s life-time, but according to the law of nature, they are impermanent and these last only for a short time and vanish into nothing. Only sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are left by them behind.
2) The Noble Truth of The Arising of Suffering: The Threefold Cravings lead every being from birth to birth and is accompanied by joy and lust, seeking its gratification here and there, namely: Sensual Craving, Craving for Existence and Craving for Wealth and Power. There is also a sixfold craving, namely, the eye craves for forms, the ear craves for sounds, the nose craves for odors, the tongue craves for taste, the body craves for objects, and the mind craves for nouns, dreams or illusions. These Cravings and ignorance of the law of nature are the condition of origin of individual sufferings.
3) The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Sufferings: The condition of cessation of suffering is the complete fading away and extinction of this three fold craving, forsaking it and giving it up, the liberation and detachment from it. The condition of mind of a person who has been giving up this threefold cravings or this sixfold craving together with ignorance can realize Nibbana (or the Extinction of the Cravings.)
4) The Noble Truth of The Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering: It is the Noble Eightfold Path (or the Middle Path because it avoids the two extremes of sensual pleasure and self-mortification), that leads to the Cessation of Sufferings.
To weed out cravings and ignorance, these two chief evil-doers of individual existence and to overcome rebirth, old age, disease, death, sorrows, lamentation, pain, grief and despair, to make an end of this whole mass of misery and thus to attain Nibbana, Liberation and Salvation one should practice the Noble Eightfold Path (or the Middle Path)
The Noble Eightfold Paths are:
- Right Knowledge,
However, the most simple teaching which the Buddha taught, was to do good, to avoid evil and purify the heart. According to the Buddha, the hearts of ordinary men are not pure. They are filled with greed, ill will and delusion. Greed and hatred are impurities caused by desires which ignorance is the cause of delusion, especially delusion of self. Ignorance, in fact, is the cause of desire itself and thus the primary cause of all suffering and of rebirth. The Lord taught, purifying the heart: 1. by practicing self-control, and self restraint; 2. by meditating upon one’s ownself; and 3. by following the Holy Eightfold Path that leads to the cessation of all sufferings.
Some Practice and Rules:
The Eight Rules of Morality on Buddhist Holy Day, especially for older people, namely, abstention from: 1) Killing any living being, 2) Stealing, 3) Adultery, 4) Lying, 5) Drinking Intoxicating Drinks, 6) Eating after midday, 7) Dancing, Singing, Music, Stage-plays, Garlands, Perfume, Cosmetics, ornament and 8) Using luxurious beds.
In addition to the above, namely, the Eight Rules for Older People, the novices practice Ten Rules for Novices and the monks practice 227 other Rules.
Education
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