A postscript on the argument of this chapter is to be found at Appendix XII, p.286.

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CHAPTER YI s FURTHER ASPECTS

OF

The Thai of Kelantan described in Chapter II are a community of distinct culture, prouM of their Buddhist religion. Religion is the area of culture least prone of all tbo assimilation - which is equivalent to saying that the Thais do not wish to lose their identity, for a Thai is essentially defined

(among the Kelantan Thai) as a Buddhist, speaking the Thai language. The implication of such an attitude for integration is not, certainly, that inte­ gration cannot occur, but that it must occur in a sense 'unawares1. The Thais1 religion is extremely tolerant and eclectic, and is far from being at the root of the Thais1 (modified) refusal of legitimacy to Malay rule. But because it defines the Thai and indeed stipulates his nature rather precisely, it excludes from the Thai universe the notion of convergence of the races. Or if, in view of occasional inter-marriage, it is admitted grudgingly to be possible, convergence is certainly not regarded as permissible.

The sort of convergence described in the earlier chapters is not, fort­ unately, understood as convergence, because it does not encroach on what is essentially Thai! It does not encroach on the freedom of religion itself, or on the related freedom of language, and the community's leadership,1 Malay allows complete religious freedom, although the official religion Is Islam,

and Malays (defined - note the parallel - as Muslims habitually speaicing the Malay language) have more rights than other races. Education in the Malay

language is acceptable to the Thais because of its entirely secular value and content; and it does not proscribe the Thai language nor exclude or rival the traditional elementary education in Thai which Is necessary in order to become a monk. (Boys and girls nearing school age but not yet old enough to be called, like to attend wat school in the evenings in imitation

of their older siblings; thus Thai education is experienced in advance of Malay education but under Malay education! s stimulus.) Malay rule and Malay patronage are structures bridging the Malay and the Thai worlds and involving the adaptation of one to the other; but the Thai community is not yet

called upon to identify with Malay leadership by that free conviction which informs the relationship of a layman to his abbot (being based on the reci­ procity of giving and receiving merit) or, for that matter, the relationship

of villagers to a fellow Thai (secular) leader where such a figure arises. And these relationships within the community are preserved.

Freedom to do merit and to preserve special relationships with fellow Thais make a community which, while highly dependent on the Malay world in many ways, is spiritually complete and self-sufficient. This core of self-

sufficiency centring iound merit-making cannot be yielded, logically or morally, without the community's identity being forfeited. A Thai is stipu­ lated in the community's universe to be a descendant of Thai ancestors who laboured to bring him into the world as a member of a Buddhist community. This priceless gift of human life (as a Buddhist), with its manifold

opportunities to do merit, may be partly repaid by certain prescribed acts

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of such meidt-making on one's parents' and ancestors' behalf. No Thai leaves out these rudimentary acts of gratitude. But the fundamental goal of merit-making and of life itself is one's own Enlightenment.

This goal is not of itself chosen or optional, but inherent in any man’s existence, being the ultimate end of every series of birth, death end rebirth. One is free within the limits of one's present capacity simply to acquire more or less merit and so advance along the road at a quicker or

slower pace. However, while all living creatures are involved in this

eternal progression towards perfection, a Thai is born into a religion which has a special insight into man's condition and instructs its members in the best use of their present existence. There are very few Thais in Kelantan who could contemplate rejecting the opportunities which are their Thai birth­ right, by ceasing to be Buddhists. The other motive ™ of adding gratefully to the merit of ones parents and ancestors - is as strong for some as the more self-interested’one of acquiring it on one's own account. Four out of the seven young candidates for the monkhood at Sambbrag in 1967 gave priority to the motive of adding to their parents' merit; one of these added the relief of the suffering of his ancestors. One primary basis of such feelings of gratitude and obligation seems to be that being born a Thai is a special privilege.

The foregoing is a description of some fundamental popular beliefs and attitudes in the Thai villages of Kelantan. These beliefs are freely ex­ pressed in moments of reflectiveness, or when praising or justifying the ceaseless round of wat ceremonies, or when answering a stranger's question about what it means to be a follower of the Buddha (thyy phud). The author did not normally consult abbots or long-time monies on the meaning of Buddhism. His impression was that these more learned Thais were too sophisticated to be

representative of all popular religious beliefs, yet not sufficiently eman­ cipated from them, or sufficiently learned, to give expert guidance on doc­ trine. But so far as they were qualified to give proper guidance, their

instruction might be expected to diverge significantly from the beliefs of the village folk at a number of points.^

For one thing, we are given to understand from our readings on Buddhism - and even from some writing on popular Buddhism in Thailand - that the aim of merit-making is to break out of a potentially endless cycle of death and rebirth. The Thai peasant in Kelantan has been encouraged in a more sanguine view* A long and virtuous life in which much merit is acquired will not re­ main unrewarded. ' A man will have advanced along the road towards a goal which he does not believe to be beyond ultimate reach; and even though no

one knows how long the journey will last, provisional rewards are already assured in the next following life, in the form of an increased intelligence and awareness, increased happiness and fortune. The retribution for a bad life (baab) is just as certainly torment and a slipping back from the goal. The underlying concept is one not of cyclical but of linear progression.

It is also noticeable that the Kelantan Thai peasants give an important place to conventional virtue and conventional sin. An influential (if, alas, not always reliable) monograph strictly distinguished formal merit-making from virtuous living, as to their consequences in the future. Virtue was de­ picted as having an immediate, yet ephemeral, importance in a person's life. The Kelantan Thai peasant by contrast, while in no way planning or organising his virtuous conduct with a view to advantages in future lives, recognises rewards and penalties for the sort of life a person leads aside from formal religious observance. Karma, the capacity of the individual (not referred to as Karma among the Kelantan Thai) is recognised as a limiting factor, biit within these limits a man is not further restricted to the temple round as the sole source of merit. Much merit (bun) was thought to accrue to the author of this study and to the author's wife as a result of their advice

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and help to the villagers of Samdbrag,

The Kelantan Thai, then, in accordance with the normal Buddhist analysis, believe that all creatures are subject to laws of death and rebirth. It is not necessary to be a Buddhist to be subject to these laws, nor are other races unable to acquire merit. The Buddha's injunctions simply offer the better guidance on this point, which is one reason for wanting to remain a

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Buddhist and wanting to show gratitude to parents and ancestors, as already stated. But of course, one cannot do merit for the ancestors either without remaining a Buddhist; this, too, is an impulse, and a powerful one, to regarding oneself as irrevocably a Thai. And the still vital animistic tradition provides that an ancestral presence is felt; it is no mere memory that the Thais cherish. Also, one came from Thais and to Thais oneself must return. A Thai woman does not lose her identity by marrying a Chinese, but some people express reservations about the mixed offspring! their spirit will be tragically uncertain to which community it must return. As to becoming a Malay, the implications are profoundly disturbing. The most con­ temptible - almost the only contemptible - characteristic of the Chinese in the Thai view is the readiness of some of their number to sell baby girls to Malays.

The Thais seem not to make a distinction in their minds between honouring the dead by acts of merit-making and by invocations performed by a 2199 to­ gether with offerings of food. Animistic observances have so penetrated the ceremonies of the wat that it is difficult to make a distinction physically, let alone conceptually, on occasion. The ceremony of Saj Haan (filling the stalls) at the end of the 10th month is held at the wat in association with a Saj Baad for the monks, but the prior intention is that food be placed on two

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stalls for the spirits of the departed. Water is poured slowly into a howl for them to drink before they leave the scene at the end of their annual feast. Water is poured in like manner by the surviving children and other close kin during the Suad Mon performed before and after cremations. On the other hand the animistic ceremony of Waj Khruu (honouring past teachers), performed at Sambbrag on the 4th day of the 5th month each year at the house of the N9raa master, includes a chanted Pali 'Nammo tassa'.

Notwithstanding the interpenetration of two traditions, the Thais are constantly reminded of their dead. They attend to their wants in the same . selfless spirit with which they attend to the material needs of living parents. Identification between living and dead is complete. A bad man who didn't

observe his natural obligations would not cease to count as a Thai after death. His spirit, indeed, would have to account for his negligence to his ancestors, when he himself was called to join them. The world of Thai spirits has its Malay counterpart too, which makes this universe logically complete. Unidentified spirits which work mischief on Thais are usually assumed to be Malay. 'Spirits of the place', and 'guardian spirits' associated with one Thai community are favourable to Thais and not Malays. This by the way has one special consequence for attitudes to land: even Temporary Occupation Licence land, if opened originally and leased from the spirits of the place by T£iais, is regarded as irrevocably Thai.

There is an unresolved contradiction between the belief that a spirit returns to its own, and the belief that the punishment for an evil life will be rebirth not as a Thai, not even necessarily as a human being, perhaps as some lower kind of life. People will muse: 'I wonder where we shall meet

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next time - who knows what I shall be in the next life! * Such uncertainty is in strange contrast to the notion that there is one part of oneself which is irreducibly Thai, whatever Buddhist doctrine may say. The uncertainty is made easier to bear by this opposing current of reassurance to the effect that

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