A history of the thet maha chat and its contribution to a Thai political culture

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the thet maha chat, the ritual recitation of the Vessantara Jataka, in Thai cultural history. The two primary questions the thesis addresses are: why the Vessantara Jataka and the form in which it was disseminated, the thet maha chat were so popular throughout the Thai world; and why this popularity began to decline from the latter part of the nineteenth century. It begins by examining the Vessantara Jataka (known in Thai as the maha chat, literally, the 'great life') as a performative text. It is clear that one of the most important reasons for the story's historical popularity among the Thai was the fact that unlike much Buddhist scripture, it was a text that was written for the express purpose of recitation to a lay audience. The thesis traces the history of the thet maha chat among the Tai peoples influenced by Theravada Buddhism, focussing mainly on its popularity among the ethnic Thai and their kingdoms. The historical record clearly shows that the Vessantara Jataka has long been popular both with Thai rulers and their rural subjects. The popularity of the thet maha chat with Thai rulers is especially evident at periods of political integration, best illustrated in the period directly after the resurrection of the Thai state following the fall of Ayuthaya to the Burmese in 1767. This would suggest that the ideas contained in the Vessantara Jataka played a role in Thai state formation. The thesis argues that the reason that the Vessantara Jataka was favoured by Thai rulers was because it exemplified in the form of religious narrative notions about authority and social order that lay at the heart of premodern Thai political culture. Both Thai and Western scholarship has depicted the Vessantara Jataka, and the genre of Jatakas generally, as folklore, religious parables, and legends. However, this interpretation of the Jatakas as tales is a recent one. It originated in the Buddhist scholarship of both Western and Thai court scholars towards the end of the nineteenth century. This interpretation of the Jatakas has hindered the recognition of their real significance to Thai political culture. For the Western Buddhist scholars the Jatakas were irrational tales, indicative of a later 'corrupted' form of Buddhism, as distinct from an earlier, 'purer' Buddhism. For the Thai court, the Jatakas and associated religious scripture were not only outdated in their epistemology but the ideology they articulated and disseminated rendered them, in the age of European imperialism, also potentially threatening to the continued independence of the Thai kingdom and the survival of the monarchy. Performances of the thet maha chat continue to be held annually in temples throughout Thailand, although the ceremony's popularity has long been on the wane. Despite the decline of the story, vestiges of its influence are clearly recognizable in contemporary Thai society and political culture, bearing witness to the intimate association between the Maha chat and the Thai over the last seven centuries.

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