 | Buddhism and the spirit cults in North-east Thailand |  |
`Thewada' and `phii' (two opposed supernatural categories)
As verbal categories the words thewada and phii are habitually used by
villagers to refer to certain supernatural agents or personifications. The
two categories are in their general reference opposed: the thewada (devata)
are divine angels, benevolent in nature, and living in heaven (sawan); the
phii are malevolent agents, either free-floating, localized in the world of
human beings, or condemned to hell (narog).
This way of stating their characteristics immediately raises the question
of how thewada/phii concepts are linked with human ethical status—
bun/baab—and life/death. Now, in general, it is said that the winjan
of every individual turns into a phii at death. Phii, then, are after-death
phenomena. Villagers say that those persons who have lived a meritorious
life go to heaven, but this heaven is quite different from the heaven in
which thewada reside. A human being can never become a thewada; he
can go to heaven and he can then be reborn; thewada are never reborn.
This statement is quite different from the doctrinal position in Buddhism.
Humans who have lived a life of baab are condemned to hell or become
malevolent spirits living (disembodied) in this world. It would seem then
that if phii are pictured as after-death human phenomena, there is a basis
for their differentiation into kinds of phii, with characteristics ranging
from benevolence, prestige and responsible power to malevolence, notoriety
and caprice.
The basic opposition between thewada and phii emerges in village
ritual. Phii can punish people and cause illness or misfortune. The help
of the thewada is necessary to diagnose the malevolent agent and, depending
on the category of phii, either to placate him or exorcize him. Thus the
village diviner (mau song) always begins by inviting the thewada (pao-sakke)
to appear in his divining device and `force' the phii to appear. In this
instance the thewada, as good agents, are helping man to circumvent
misfortune. Normally, because thewada are opposed to phii, they do not
appear in the propitiatory or placatory rites addressed to the latter and
conducted by a specialist (cham). But they make their appearance again in
rites of exorcism as the enemies of afflicting malevolent spirits.
In ordinary village formulation the thewada constitute a relatively undifferentiated
category of divine benevolent agents. The classical cosmology
stated earlier postulates the existence of twenty-six heavens subdivided
into three kinds of loka. By and large such fine gradations are ignored in
the village. The accent is not on formulating a pantheon of hierarchically
ordered and named individual gods. To be sure, on specific ritual occasions,
or in reciting portions of mythology, the names of distinguished deities occur,
for example Phra In (Indra the ruler of the second heaven), the guardians,
Phra Prom (Brahma), and others characterized specifically as `female'
such as Nang Thoranee, the goddess of the earth. (For instance, Indra,
King of the second level of heavens (Dawadung) with his three-headed
elephant Erawan and his host of angels appears frequently in Thai legends,
and it is to his inspiration that the Thai attribute the Lak Inthapat, an old
law book.) But these personages are not ordered on a cognitive map;
rather they are activated by ritual or mythological context and therefore
I shall follow the thought patterns of the village and elucidate the attributes
of these personages when I deal with specific myths or rituals. In ordinary
dialogue the thewada belong to a single undifferentiated category. From
a comparative point of view this orientation of the Thai villagers of
Phraan Muan is dramatically different from that, say, of the Sinhalese
villagers, for whom a hierarchy of gods and their individuality is a sine
qua non of thought relating to the supernatural world (Obeyesekere 1966;
Yalman 1964).
There is one noteworthy divergence between the village and the classical
formulations of gods and godlings and malevolent spirits. In the classical
and doctrinal tradition both the deities and the inhabitants of the heavens,
and the demons and victims of the hells, are subject to rebirth and the
vagaries of karma; their status is not permanent. For the villagers, however,
the thewada are a permanent heavenly category of non-human origin.
In contrast the phii are visualized as beings who were formerly human—
respected elderly human beings, the most malevolent as manifestations
of humans who have died violent deaths. Unlike the undifferentiated
thewada, the phii as a general category are highly differentiated and their
attributes extend from benevolent and disciplinary guardianship to extreme
capricious malevolence. The first type may then enjoy an elevated title
(e.g. Chao Phau = respected father) which makes them a mixture of both
thewada and phii. While in a general sense they are opposed, the border
line between phii and thewada may in actual fact be vague. This need
not necessarily mystify us because hierarchical positions and comparisons
are usually relative.
The incorporation of thewada into Buddhism and their role in expressing
Buddhist aspirations and ideals finds conspicuous demonstration in myths
and rituals current in Phraan Muan village. I have already described the
myth associated with the bodhisattva Maitreya who now lives in Tusita
heaven as a deity and will in time descend to earth as the next Buddha
and saviour. Some aspects of this myth are dramatized in Bun Phraawes,
which is the village's grandest annual festival.
Another legend which is known but not ritually dramatized in the
village (but is performed in Central Thailand) is that of the Buddha's
descent from heaven after preaching to his mother. The Buddha's mother
died seven days after his birth and thereby she was deprived of hearing
the truth from the lips of her own son. The Buddha, in compassion for
her, ascended in three steps to reach Indra's heaven to which his mother
had been transported, and there preached to her and the gods for three
months. Indra then devised three ladders to facilitate the Buddha's return
to earth. The centre ladder was made of seven precious substances—
gold, silver, coral, ruby, emerald and other gems. The Buddha descended
on this. To its right was a ladder of gold on which Indra descended,
blowing the conch and accompanied by his retinue of gods. To its left
was a ladder of silver by which Brahma and the other Brahma gods
descended, holding an umbrella over the Buddha. The three ladders
appeared to the people of the earth as three rainbows.
There are many other legends of the presence of the gods at sermons
given by the Buddha, and of their acclamation of the truth he preached.
The presence of thewada in rituals conducted in the village today thus
harks back to classical traditions.
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