Crisis discourse, response, and structural contradictions in Thai Buddhism, 1990-2003

Is the Thai Buddhist Sangha in crisis? This is a ubiquitous question posed and discussed in social, academic and monastic circles in Thailand over the past decade, a questioning which intensified after the 1997 Asian economic crash that began in Thailand. However, despite the often intense attention paid in these circles to the claimed crisis in the institutional body of Thai Buddhism, what this crisis actually means remains unclear. One of the causes of this confusion is the diffuse use of the notion of 'crisis' (wikrit). This notion has been used to refer to factors as diverse as the impact of globalisation on Buddhism, the escalating levels of commercialised forms of religiosity, the representation of monastic scandals in negative terms in the media, anxieties concerning the role of monks in contemporary society, and the undermining of the traditional male Sangha hierarchy as a result of the increasing efforts by women to enter the monkhood. Equally, what constitutes a crisis is also unclear. At times, the notion is used to emotively incite a sense of alarm and even panic that something disastrous has occurred or might soon happen to Thai Buddhism. This study has three key aims: first, to understand how the idea of a crisis in the Sangha is understood in Thailand and how this is produced; second, to examine the Sangha's response to the perception of crisis; and third, to consider the implications of the Sangha's response and how this response contributes to an understanding of the functions of the Thai Sangha today. The central argument proposed here is that the source and persistence of the perception of an ongoing crisis in Thai Buddhism emerges from contradictions brought about by the secular administrative structures imposed by the Thai state and internalised within the Sangha. While the Sangha's acceptance of the secular bureaucratic structure maintains its hegemonic control over Thai Buddhism, this also creates a continuous source of tension between the Sangha's worldly involvement and its stated non-worldly goals. What is more, the bureaucratic structures that are the source of the perceived crisis have been internalised within the Sangha so much that they form the basis of responses, thus perpetuating the very conditions that I argue are the main source of the claimed crisis. I develop this argument through case studies of recent Sangha administrative reforms, the Sangha's formal relationship to the state since the early 1990s, the policing of the moral standards of the Sangha's members, and shifting gender demarcations within the monastic Order brought about by moves for women's ordination