University of Virginia Library

NOVICES AND MONKS

In theory novicehood not only precedes monkhood but is a preparation
for it. The religious vocation in Buddhism (as in any of the `world religions'
which have their dogma and doctrine set out in texts) can be followed
properly only with the aid of literacy. A novice therefore is supposed to
acquire progressively over the years the doctrinal knowledge, to learn
the chants and the ritual procedures. Then as a monk he ascends into
the higher reaches of Buddhism. While this conventional progression
was to some extent true in the past, it is much less evident today. It is
therefore necessary to establish the underlying pattern and the contemporary
changes.

Novicehood is entered upon in adolescence, usually between the ages

of twelve and eighteen. A requirement (which is a regulation of the
Sangha) today is that a candidate shall have passed the fourth grade in
the primary school. In the past it would appear that most novices were
initiated in late adolescence—after a gap of some years following the
early schooling as dekwat. It was usual for a good number of these novices
to stay in the wat until they were twenty years old and then to become
ordained as monks. Thus in terms of numbers novicehood was not in the
past (nor is it today) a popular form of religious service, for adolescents
became novices primarily in order to learn for a couple of years as
a prelude to monkhood of some duration, if not life-long vocation. (Quite
distinct from this kind of novicehood is the institution of temporary
novicehood that is entered upon for a few weeks by grandsons or sons to
make merit for a dead grandparent or parent.)

Both traditionally and today, the usual time for becoming a monk is
early adulthood (twenty to twenty-one years), and prior to marriage.
In the village it is unusual for a married man to renounce family life;
however, as might be expected, it is not unknown for an old man to
become a monk towards the end of his life, especially when he is no
longer a family head or has no family.

The formal restrictions to entry as novice or monk are in practice
minimal. We have seen that a minimum educational qualification is
required of the novice (and therefore of the monk). Formal permission
to be initiated is obtained from the tambon (commune) abbot. This is
really a paper formality and virtually all village candidates for ordination
are accepted, provided the local village abbot agrees to recommend.
The ordination ritual asks of the candidate whether he is free of certain
impediments which are not seriously restrictive.

There are two remarkable divergencies in the village from the doctrinal
assertion regarding the salvation quest of the monk as a world-renouncer.
First, that both in the past and in the present, ordination to monkhood
has been more popular than novicehood; secondly, the period of service
as monk has been for the vast majority of cases of short duration, followed
by resumption of lay life, marriage, and the founding of a family. A minority
continue as professional monks, but are not necessarily committed to
life-long service. This feature calls for an anthropological interpretation,
since no explanation is provided by the doctrinal texts.

There are elders in the village who have travelled the path from temple
boy to novice to monk and then to lay life. The following biographical
facts, relating to three elders who are the village's most illustrious citizens,
provide good illustration. Phautu Phan (`Grandfather Phan'), who is
over seventy years old (1966), is the village's most renowned mau ya

(physician) as well as mau khwan (lay ritual officiant at khwan ceremonies),
and a leader of the lay congregation at Buddhist rites. From the age of
twelve to sixteen years he was a novice, and became thoroughly literate
in Tham and Lao dialects. He became a monk at the age of twenty-one
and continued for three years of service and study. Achaan Pun is an
ex-abbot of the temple and a leader of the congregation. He is sixty-four
years old. He went to the temple school as dekwat from the age of ten
to twelve years; at eighteen he became a novice for two years and then
a monk, which he remained for seven years, becoming the abbot in his
fourth year. After some time he resumed lay life, and is now a householder.
Phau (`father') Champi, aged fifty-nine, is perhaps the most respected
elder of the village and the successor of Phautu Phan, who is now too
old to be active. Champi started to go to the village school at the time
compulsory education was first proclaimed, and studied there for five
years (from the age of nine to fourteen); at seventeen he became a novice,
and stayed on in the temple to become a monk three years later. He gave
up his robes after one year as monk.

The contemporary complication is that since secular schooling, especially
secondary schooling, is available, a lesser number of boys become novices
because the monastery is not the sole institution of learning nor is its
learning competitive with that transmitted by schools preparing for
secular occupations. But the institution of novicehood is by no means
dead; it is, however, becoming increasingly shorter in point of service,
and increasingly approximates the temporary vocation of monkhood
which can and does persist without interference because of its brevity.
Nonetheless, it is still true to say that novicehood represents apprenticeship
to professional monkhood. The minority who function as monks for
some length of time or indefinitely tend to have novicehood behind
them.

With these preliminaries stated I can now deal with some statistics
relating to the annual intake of monks and novices into the village wat,
and the length of their service. I shall first give the picture for 1961, and
then make brief statements for the years 1963-6.

Before the onset of the Lent season[2] in 1961 three young men were
ordained as monks in Baan Phraan Muan. Two were twenty-one years old
and the third twenty-three; all three left the priesthood at the end of Lent
in late November, about four months later. Two other monks who had
been ordained previously stayed on after Lent. One was the abbot of the
wat, who was twenty-two years old and had been ordained in 1959 (after
a spell of novicehood in 1954). He gave up his robes in early 1962, when

we were in the field, but returned to monkhood later in the year in
November. The fifth monk was ordained in early 1961, having been
a novice in 1957; in 1962 he was still in robes, although it was certain he,
too, would give them up at any time.

In 1961 three youths were ordained as novices; two were seventeen
and one was eighteen—somewhat older than the usual age of ordination
to novicehood. In a village those who become novices are likely to stay
on in the wat in that status for a longer period than most of the young
men who are ordained as monks. However, it is the custom that a monk—
irrespective of when he was ordained—must complete one entire Lenten
season, whereas a young boy may be ordained as a novice for a few
weeks only, in order to make merit for a dead relative, usually of the
grandparental generation.

All the monks and novices referred to above—except one—were sons
of village households; the odd man out was in fact no stranger: his parents
had migrated and he was ordained in what was considered the traditional
village wat of his parents.

The year 1962 was a lean one for the village wat. The abbot himself
had left the wat and no new monks or novices were ordained. But in 1963
there was a relatively large number of ordinations: five monks (three
aged twenty and two twenty-one) were ordained. All spent about seven
or eight months in the wat and resumed lay life in January 1964 during
harvesting time. In the same year, seven novices ranging in age from
twelve to fourteen years were ordained; their period of stay at the wat
varied, ranging from four months (two cases), eight months (two cases),
and ten months (two cases) to sixteen months (one case).

In 1964 four young men, three of whom were twenty-one years old
and the fourth twenty-four years, were ordained; they, too, left the
wat at the beginning of the following year after eight months of service.
Four novices of age twelve to thirteen years also took robes: one left after
five months, another after nine months, the third after thirteen months,
and the last was still a novice in 1966. During the Lent season of 1966,
there were six monks and five novices in the wat, of whom five monks
and four novices were newly ordained.

The point that emerges from these facts is that annually a group of
young men and youths from the village are ordained, and at the conclusion
of Lent or soon thereafter the majority resume lay life. At the village level,
then, monkhood does not normally imply professionalism or life-long
vocation. If ordination to monkhood is in religious terms a rite of initiation,
in social terms it is distinctly a rite of passage for young men before they
marry and set up their own households.

The turnover in the population of monks in Baan Phraan Muan is
dramatic. Usually the abbot of a village wat and one or two other monks
form a core of professionals or semi-professionals who give continuity
by being in robes for some years. Abbot Tongloon, the present abbot,
a young man only twenty-two years old, is one of the few professional
monks produced by the village. He had his normal village primary schooling
from age nine to fourteen; immediately afterwards he became a novice,
and remained so until he was twenty. He was then ordained a monk.
He has passed three nagtham examinations and after his second was given
permission by the clerical authorities to teach monks and novices in the
village. While the abbot of a village temple may in fact decide to be a
life-long priest, others who see a service of more than one Lent usually
resume lay life after at most three years. In fact the main continuity in
the Baan Phraan Muan wat was provided by an elderly monk, born in the
village, who had been the local abbot for several years before being
promoted abbot of a larger temple in another district. However, he
retained his interest in and control over the affairs of wat Phraan Muan:
he was consulted in financial matters, he conducted the ordination ceremonies
or gave his approval to prospective candidates, and he was the
chief officiant at major annual collective rites such as Bun Phraawes. It is
interesting that there were in Phraan Muan two ex-abbots who at the
time of fieldwork were elderly household heads.

The fact that, at the village level, true religious professionals are few
and monkhood is virtually a rite of passage—not indeed for all young
men but for a good number of them—can be established by statistics
relating to the religious service performed by a sample of 106 family
heads out of a total universe of 182 households. Over half of the family
heads had served as monks, about a third as novices, and nearly a fifth
as both. This lends substance to my assertion that both monkhood and
novicehood must be viewed as rites of passage; this in turn raises the
question of how they are integrated with various levels of social structure
and how they also reflect underlying social principles.

Why do youths and young men lead a monastic life as a phase of their
lives? While of course a novice or a monk makes merit for himself by
assuming a religious role, a frequent statement made by both layman
and novice/monk is that becoming a monk confers merit on one's parents.
It is said in the village, for instance, that a novice in his first year makes
merit for his mother, in his second for his father. This is interesting in
view of the popular evaluation of women as religiously `inferior' to men,
since only the latter can become monks. A frequent occasion on which
a young boy becomes a novice is when a parent or grandparent dies, and

the youth is required to make merit for the deceased in order to further
the latter's progress after death.

Monkhood is of greater religious merit than novicehood. That a son
should show gratitude to his parents by being ordained is part of village
ideology and village expression of filial piety. The very `sponsoring' of
an ordination ceremony is considered a meritorious act par excellence.
This ceremony, then, lends itself to a conspicuous public statement of
religious piety. At the village level, and in popular Buddhism generally,
merit accrues to everyone who contributes to the holding of a ceremony.