 | Buddhism and the spirit cults in North-east Thailand |  |
(D) Secular specialists for whom literacy is not required
Craftsmen and experts in manual skills (e.g. carpenter, blacksmith, cloth-weaver).
In respect of the ritual statuses, the basic distinction I want to bring
out here is that some of them require and are associated with literacy
and others not. The village monk, the acharn wat (the lay leader of the
Buddhist congregation), the mau khwan or paahm (the officiant at khwan
rites), the mau ya (the physician), and the mau du (the astrologer) can
read texts in Tham, Lao and Thai alphabets with varying degrees of
competence. In fact, apart from the monk's, the other roles are lay, and
it is possible for the same man to practise all of them, or some of them,
concurrently. All these specialist roles are interlocked in a manner which,
in general terms, can be stated as follows. Except in the case of a few
persons, monkhood is of temporary duration. Some of the ex-monks
who have reached the required level of literacy can and do become lay
ritual experts whose art is dependent on the reading and consultation
of ritual texts. Buddhism and Buddhist rites are allied to those practised
by the mau khwan (and to the art of the physician) because they are rites
of auspicious `charging' and do not traffic with malevolent spirits (phii).
The monk does not practise khwan rites; but he is not opposed to them
and can himself be the client or patient.
In contrast, all such ritual specialists as mau song (diviner), cham, tiam
(intermediary and medium of village guardian spirits), mau tham (exorcizer),
and mau lum phii fa (medium of the sky spirit) are distinguished as dealing
with spirits (phii), with whom both doctrinally and in practice monks
have no truck and to whom Buddhism is `opposed'. Reading (and, much
less, writing) ability in any script is not required of these practitioners;
their art consists of manipulating objects and memorizing divining codes,
or spells or forms of invocation and thanksgiving; mediumship especially,
inasmuch as it stands for possession by a spirit, is furthest removed
texts.
In light of this, it is understandable that in the village the ritual specialists
who are literate have higher prestige than those who are not literate—
partly because Buddhism and its allied rituals are ethically superior and
opposed to the spirit cults; partly because the former's art is associated
with specially valued learning and literacy per se. This herarchical distinction
is not merely a matter of prestige; it directly impinges upon
leadership. The most important village elders (phuuthaw—or thawkae—both
words mean `old persons' and `mediators'/`witnesses') are those who are
achaan wat, mau khwan or paahm, and mau ya. Together with the abbot,
they comprise the membership of the village temple committee which
organizes Buddhist festivities and manages the finances of the temple.
They are also the officiants at marriages and other rites of passage (except
death, which is the province of the monk), the settlers of disputes, and the
witnesses to marriage and divorce transactions.
No specialist in the cult of the spirits (phii) is a village elder or leader
in this sense. He may be individually respected but he is not a leader in
the community. This is as much as evaluation of the lesser respect due
his cult as of his lower level of personal achievement in both a technical
and a moral sense.
Three kinds of ex-monk literate specialists are particularly important
in Phraan Muan village: the achaan wat (lay leader of Buddhist congregation),
mau khwan or paahm (officiant at khwan rites), and mau ya
(physician). The purist can legitimately criticize my inclusion of medicine
under ritual specialisms. My reasons for doing so are: the literacy in
question was learned in the temple; one man can combine all three
specialisms; the folk science of medicine has ritual frills; and often, in
village Thailand, monks practise medicine and may later function as
lay mau ya or while in robes teach medicine to lay students.
Achaan wat: the role of the achaan is to invite (aratana) the monks on
behalf of the congregation to give precepts, or to chant, or to make a
sermon, and to receive food and other gifts presented by laymen. Every
merit-making occasion which monks attend requires the chanting of
invitations in the Pali language.
The following chants of invitation are some of the most frequent that
an achaan recites:
aratana sil: to invite monks to give the five or eight precepts;
aratana tawai sankatarn: to invite monks to accept food;
aratana pahung: to invite monks to chant before alms are given to
them, followed by breakfast;
aratana theed: invitation of a monk or monks to give a sermon. In the
festival of Bun Phraawes; there is a special invitation requesting monks
to read Lam Phrawesandaun;
aratana Uppakrut: invitation to Phraa Uppakrut (a mythical being
who lives in the swamp) to accompany villagers to the temple before
the Bun Phraawes proceedings start.
In Phraan Muan there were three persons who enacted this role and their
paths of literacy conformed to a standard pattern: preliminary education
as a child dekwat in the school run by the monks; then, in adolescence
service as novice during which skills in reading and copying the sacred
Tham and secular Lao languages were acquired, and finally a period
of service as monk in which ritual skills were perfected. In Chapter 13,
two of these ritual experts will engage our attention in detail.
Mau Ya and Mau Khwan/Paahm: the physician's art is not within the
scope of this book; the village's most successful physician, Phau Tu
Phan, was in fact also an achaan wat and a mau khwan. He learned the
arts of medicine and the conduct of sukhwan rites, after he had given
up his robes, from his mother's brother and a kinsman of his grand-parental
generation respectively, but his previous acquisition of literacy
in the wat was an essential qualification.
The khwan rites and its officiants will be treated in a subsequent
chapter. Here it is sufficient to note that the most popular mau khwan
in the village in 1961 was Phau Champi, who had been a novice and a monk,
was an achaan wat, a pupil of and successor to Phau Tu Phan (a distant
kinsman), a member of the `wat committee', and the village's most
respected and pious leader. His ritual expertise was acquired after service
in the wat, where he gained literacy.
The recruitment to these positions may be summed up as follows: the
practice of medicine and khwan and associated rites requires literacy of
the type acquired in the temple; yet a person who has been a novice and
monk does not automatically become a medical or ritual expert. Traditionally
these arts have to be learned from an existing practitioner, who is likely
to nominate and train a kinsman to succeed him; the apprentice usually
waits until his teacher is ready to give up before he himself practises
on his own. This appears to be the professional etiquette within the
village.
Thus this interlocking relationship of teacher and chosen disciple means
that recruitment for the learning of the arts of mau khwan and mau ya
is not completely open nor a simple commercial transaction. The eligibility
and suitability of the candidate are assessed by the teacher, and the
prescribed qualities of character are intrinsic to the role of ritual elder.
| Buddhism and the spirit cults in North-east Thailand | |