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

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.