The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk

McDaniel, Justin Thomas:
The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk : Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand / Justin Thomas McDaniel. - New York : Columbia University Press, 2011. - xiv, 327 S. : Ill.
ISBN 978-0-231-15376-8
US$ 60,00 / £ 41,50
DDC: 306.694309593
-- Angekündigt für September 2011 --

Beschreibung
Stories centering on the lovelorn ghost (Mae Nak) and the magical monk (Somdet To) are central to Thai Buddhism. Historically important and emotionally resonant, these characters appeal to every class of follower. Metaphorically and rhetorically powerful, they invite constant reimagining across time.
   Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being “Buddhist” and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies.
   Establishing an individual’s “religious repertoire” as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations. Listening to popular Thai Buddhist ghost stories, visiting crowded shrines and temples, he finds concepts of attachment, love, wealth, beauty, entertainment, graciousness, security, and nationalism all spring from engagement with the ghost and the monk and are as vital to the making of Thai Buddhism as venerating the Buddha himself. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
Acknowledgments. ix
Note on Transcription. xiii
Introduction. 1
1. Monks and Kings. 23
   - Ambiguity as Biography. 26
   - The Why of Somdet To. 53
   - Conclusion. 69
2. Texts and Magic. 72
   - The Jinapañjara gāthā: The Most Powerful Text in Thailand. 77
   - History of the Jinapañjara gāthā in and outside of Thailand. 81
   - Recentering Theravada Buddhism. 85
   - Hidden Pools and Holy Water Machines. 88
   - Chanting Clubs and Horror Films. 92
   - The Theravada Tantra or the Esoteric Mainstream. 100
   - Speaking Magically. 109
   - Conclusion. 119
3. Rituals and Liturgies. 121
   - Rituals, Temple Festivals, Decomposing Corpses, and the Nationalizing of Diversity. 125
   - Liturgies and Cacophonies. 139
   - Expanding the Thai Buddhist Repertoire. 153
   - Conclusion. 158
4. Art and Objects. 161
   - Misplaced Piety: Images at Wat Mahabut, Wat Stapathum, and Beyond. 167
   - Beyond Commercialism: Thinking About Amulets Historically and Materially. 189
   - Ultraman and the Siam Commercial Bank: Murals and Agency in Modern Thailand. 213
   - Conclusion. 219
Conclusion. 222
   - On Repertoires and Syncretism. 225
Notes. 231
Bibliography. 283
Index. 315

Autor
JUSTIN THOMAS MCDANIEL is associate professor of Buddhist and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at Ohio University and the University of California at Riverside. Chair of the Southeast Asian Studies Council and the Thailand, Laos, Cambodia Studies Association, and founder of the Thai Digital Monastery Project, McDaniel has lived and researched in Southeast Asia for many years as a Social Science Research Council and Fulbright Fellow, manuscript cataloger, translator, volunteer teacher, and Buddhist monk. His first book, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand won the prestigious Harry Benda Prize for Best First Book in Southeast Asian Studies. Homepage.

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