A few weeks ago, as part of my songkran sortie in northern Thailand, I visited one of the more remote villages in Chiang Mai province to look at a local agricultural project. While I was there I heard that a new temple had been established nearby by some monks keen to spread the work about sufficiency economy and environmental protection. Of course, given my interest in sufficiency philosophy, I was keen to visit and jumped at my host’s invitation.
At first the drive to the temple was routine. A slightly meandering road, making its way up a small river valley with lovely views of paddy fields on the valley floor. But things changed when we arrived at the elaborately constructed temple gate. Turning off the road we commenced an improbably steep climb, winding up, up, up, up a narrow concrete road that had been cut into the side of the hill. After a few kilometres, and a climb of several hundred metres, we arrived at a car park. From there it was another few hundred metres up a rough set of concrete steps.
As I climbed the steps I imagined a modest, rustic little temple barely visible within the forest that dominated the landscape.
I was wrong.
As I reached the top of the steps I was shocked by the construction site that lay before me. An elaborate hill-top chedi was completely surrounded by a Buddhist architectural folly: a huge concrete pavilion, with an elaborately tiered roof supported by massive concrete pillars (painted brown to give an impression of timber).
According to one of the villagers who travelled with me the budget was a cool 50 million baht! (That’s equivalent to a Thaksin-style village credit fund for every village in the district. But, of course, this isn’t populist spending - its not popular and it doesn’t really help anybody!)
Apparently, one of the monks was from a well-connected family in Bangkok and had been able to use his “hi-so” network in business, the bureaucracy and the army to mobilise donations and technical assistance.
And this was done in the interests of sufficiency economy! The hill-top concrete wonder advertised itself on prominently displayed banners as a centre for training in sufficiency economy! A larger-than-life poster of the king swung gently in the breeze beside the chedi.
I’ve got nothing against the occasional act of conspicuous merit making. And I have no doubt that this extravagant construction has generated some employment and other commercial opportunity for local villagers (and, I suspect, for some lowly-paid Shan labourers who can be found on most construction sites in this part of the world).
But this sort of pseudo-religious folly - with its budgetary indulgence and completely unnecessary environmental impacts - should be a thing of the past. Thailand has more than enough hill-top places of worship. Those seeking to conspicuously display their merit and royal virtue may want to consider appropriate and sustainable ways of engaging with local livelihoods.
And urban commentators sometimes wonder why rural folk don’t take sufficiency economy seriously!
7 responses so far ↓
1 Nick // May 8, 2008 at 3:49 pm
You should check out the Dhammakaya temple near rangsit. I was brought there by a friend who just said that we were going to visit the temple where her family goes. I was expecting some standard Thai temple but when we drove into it i was shocked. Main central dome building that looks like some kind of football stadium sized alien space craft with the dome made from 40 tonnes of gold !!!! The main building is not finished yet so they all go into a temporary airplane hanger style meditation hall with television screens, large donation booths, everyone wearing white and garish monuments that look like they were from soviet era Russia. Check out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48102&l=ca7b4&id=504515707
for pictures and a more detailed investigation of it is written in “Religious Movements in Contemporary Thailand: Buddhist Struggles for Modern
Relevance” by Suwanna Satha-Anand
Asian Survey, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Apr., 1990), pp. 395-408.
2 Sidh S. // May 8, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Thanks Andrew and Nick.
Part of me shares your sentiments (ignoring the egomaniac part from my architectural training). I see it as indicators, symbols of decadance and decline in Buddhism - even if some are beautifully crafted (high points in material culture but otherwise… I don’t know - maybe the construction of the Borobudur precipitated similar decline of the religion in Java).
I suspect that this is a phenomenon tied in very closely to the urban mindset and physical scales of mega-projects, malls and highrises. A consumption mindset where bigger is always better - more bun (merit) for your bucks. And Andrew is right that this mindset has long pervaded, through the medias, the rural folks - and they want to be affluent like us urbanites, and rightly so.
So we’ll likely see more, and much more, of these extravagant mountain-top monuments. These are extreme misappropriation of the tradition of building temples, which is considered to gain the sponsors the highest merit. In the ’sufficiency economic’ pre-modern times, this is highly valid as, in building a temple, you are also building a community center, a school, a market, a public park, a hospital, an orphanage, public housing, dogs home etc…etc…
3 Johpa // May 9, 2008 at 3:24 am
Your temple reminds me of the wat built atop the hillside in the small town of Thaton where one catches the long-tail boat for the ride down to Chinag Rai along the Kok river. Once a very sleepy small town that was literally at the end of the road, the wat was once a very modest and very pleasant temple compound overlooking the river perhaps 30 meters above the town. Even before the road was extended and paved to Mae Salong, the temple began a huge expansion that had no correlation to the average income of the townspeople and certainly no correlation with the neighboring minority villagers. By the early 1990s I had already dubbed the now greatly expanded facility the “wat Hilton”. To this day I have no idea where the money came from or what was the perceived investment for such a grandiose facility.
4 Bystander // May 9, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Oh come on.. what do you expect? These people, if they can, they will happily buy and bribe their ways into heaven, or nirvana even.
I’m sure you’ve been to Doi Inthanon. Recently, there’s some controversy about building an observatory on the very summit. The issues is with environmental impact. Well… just a few kilometers before the summit and in areas of similar ecological importance, there are two of these conspicuous monuments to .. well.. you know who. Of course these structures miraculously do not affect the environment. Ever.
Re: Dhammakaya temple. Try Google Earth for a sense of scale of how big these things are.
5 Khun Stillwater // May 10, 2008 at 4:13 am
Since Dhammakaya has already been mentioned, I’ll not repeat what has been clearly stated in regards to MATERIALISM IN THAI BUDDHISM.
Instead I’d like to say this issue stems from lack of education into Buddhist doctrines by lay people. Lay people in Thailand have for too long relied on monks to interpret religion and in the process allowed these saffron robed criminals to preach ONE THING: “Please make merit by making me the richest monk”.
It’s up to lay people to study religion on their own and truly grasp the middle path on their own. Today, business like Dhammakaya are nothing more than temples for the rich to network and attempt to clean themselves from their corrupt daily lives.
6 Sidh S. // May 10, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I remember during PAD protests against PMThaksin’s government in 2006, there were ‘rumours’ that the huge piazzas of Dhammakaya was used as rallying points for pro-TRT groups from around the country. Does anyone know if this is true? (I can’t remember where I read it in the first place)
To be fair, it may be only ’smear campaigns’ against either TRT or Dhammakaya (or both at the same time) - respectively the most successful political and religious phenomenon in recent Thai history. These are mega-scale, capital and image intense movements (anyone in Australia who subscribe to Thai TV Global Network can also get the 24 hour Dhammakaya channel) and they think in millions and billions (both people and money).
As Andrew implied, that money can easily be used to fund education for children of the rural and urban poor - and transform them into the new urban middle-class. Sounds patronizing? Making ‘them’ like ‘us’? But that is only a natural end-product of higher education. What I suspect is that those ‘fools’ Andrew refer to don’t really want ‘them’ to be like ‘us’ and the monuments stand as oppressive symbols of economic power in the poor countryside (and here I am also admiring some of their beautiful proportions and amazing craftsmanship)… On the other hand, I agree with Bystander and many sponsors honestly believe that they are guaranteed a place in heaven (as beautiful as the structures they built).
7 Nick // May 12, 2008 at 1:55 am
in reply to to what Sidh S. said “On the other hand, I agree with Bystander and many sponsors honestly believe that they are guaranteed a place in heaven” on the back of one of the leaflets i was given at the dhammakaya temple about what happens to those who donate money it says:
“the benefits of your generosity are as follow:
1. A rebirth in places of good living conditions suitable for self-development.
2. They will obtain wealth both spiritual and material alike.
3.They will be among the communities of noble friends
4. They will gain respect from all
5. They will possess wisdom enabling the making of right livelihood.
6. Their cultivation to pursue perfection and attaining the truth of life through the dhamma of the lord Buddha will become easier”
Think number two is interesting. Give us money and you will get rich. sounds just like jatukams to me.
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