Northeast Thai-Lao Theravada Buddhism: Peripheral, Central, or Varietal?

Main Article Content

Leedom Lefferts

Abstract

The Thai-Lao population of Northeast Thailand, twenty-two million in a national population of sixty-eight million, live a paradox. While they are the Kingdom’s single, largest ethnic group, they are an unvoiced minority subjected to a documented history of subordination, discrimination, colonization, and prejudice. This paper, following Tsing’s suggestion that religion provides a mechanism by which minorities can express agency, proposes that the Thai-Lao have cultivated a variant of Theravada Buddhism best understood in its own terms. Central to this is the evolution of the Bun Phra Wet, a festival celebrating the penultimate life of the Buddha’s karma. While the Vessantara birth story on which the Phra Wet festival is based is well-known throughout the Buddhist world, no other variant of Theravada Buddhist expounds on it as do the Thai-Lao, celebrating the agency of citizens to certify the legitimacy of the ruler.

Article Details

Section
Articles
Author Biography

Leedom Lefferts, University of Vienna, Austria

Philipp Bruckmayr is in the Institute for Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. His email address is philipp.bruckmayr@univie.ac.at.