[ Panels by World Area Main Menu ]
[ View the Timetable of Panels ]
Images, Texts, and Corpses: Aesthetics and Economics in Buddhist Funerals in Thailand and Cambodia
Organizer and Chair: Pattaratorn Chirapravati, California State University, Sacramento
Discussant: Donald K. Swearer, Harvard University
This panel offers new research from anthropologists, religious studies scholars, historians, and art historians on the neglected topic of Buddhist funeral practices in Thailand and Cambodia. Four papers address their ethics, aesthetics, textual anthropology, and social history. While royal funerals are more elaborate than village funerals in their aesthetics, scale, and attendants, the main core of the funeral ritual Buddhist ceremonies and merit making are similar.
Based on field research conducted by the panelists in Thailand and Cambodia, it is apparent that funeral practices remain one of the most significant events for families of all social classes. While a funeral marks an important transition of the deceased to a new realm, Buddhist ritual allows family members to acquire merit for both the deceased and for themselves. Funeral ceremonies also connect a realm of symbolism with social and agricultural practices. For the royal funeral specifically, merit‑making offerings were believed to enhance the monarch's well‑being and the kingdom's political potency.
Brereton and Chirapravati examine Buddhist texts and images in comparison to contemporary funerals in northeastern Thailand, and royal funerals in Bangkok, respectively.
Davis inspects two standard Cambodian Buddhist funeral rituals that share characteristics with non‑funerary practices, chanting the Pansukula and performing the Baddha Sima, to help illuminate their symbolic import.
Lefferts focuses on the economic side of funeral rituals in the northeast of Thailand such as the expensive sponsorship of household and community festivals, the goal of which he believes is the sending of wishes and material items from this world to the deceased.
Phra Malai in the 21st Century
Bonnie Brereton, Payup University, Thailand
Phra Malai, the Buddhist saint known for his travels to the heavens and hells, has long figured prominently in Tai religious treatises, works of art, and rituals–particularly those associated with the afterlife. It was through tellings of Phra Malai stories that the karmic effects of human actions were taught to the faithful at funerals and other merit-making occasions on behalf of the deceased. It was also through these verbal and visual narratives that Maitreya’s message of hope for attaining nirvana was conveyed. With modernization, urbanization, globalization, and the spread of technological advancements, one may wonder if the power of these traditional stories has diminished. Drawing on field research in northern and northeastern Thailand, this paper seeks to demonstrate that Phra Malai as an icon of Tai Buddhist beliefs about death and the afterlife is still alive and well.
The Costs of Death: Economic and Emotional Expenditures for Deceased Relatives in Rural Theravada Buddhist Northeast Thailand
H. Leedom Lefferts Jr., Smithsonian Institution and Drew University
Observers of Thai culture often discuss ritual practice as providing ways for individuals to exhibit and increase the merit they have acquired from past lives and are amassing in this one. This paper proposes a contrasting but complementary explanation: that many of these practices are mechanisms by which the living treat the dead and the requirements of the deceased in lok winyan, the spirit world. Many Northeast Thai‑Lao Theravada Buddhist ceremonies, from the less costly daily giving of alms to the more expensive sponsorship of household and community festivals, have as their goal the sending of wishes and material items from this world to the deceased. Discussions with villagers show their deep concern that the spirits of deceased ancestors should have the proper wherewithal to live successfully. Almost all ceremonies, both in temple and household, include specific moments when donations are made for the use of these ancestors. To be available to the ancestors, the donor must renounce any desire to use these gifts; thus they must be presented in the context of Theravada Buddhism to members of the Sangha. While making these donations, donors exhibit wealth and internal control and thus make their merit evident. However, the reasons given for these displays of consumption and renunciation are couched in terms of ensuring peaceful existences for ancestors leading to appropriate rebirths.
Paintings of Funeral Scenes and Buddhist Texts: Studies of Royal Funerals
Pattaratorn Chirapravati, California State University, Sacramento
Depictions of funeral scenes are rare in Buddhist manuscripts. In Thailand, the depiction of the Buddha’s funeral strictly followed the Mahaparinibbanasutta text, that “the funeral pyre will not be lit until Venerable Kassapa the Great has paid his homage with his head to the Lord’s feet.” Thai mural paintings and manuscripts portrayed the episode with the Buddha’s feet appearing next to an ornate coffin where Kassapa paid homage to them. In Thailand, manuscripts were commissioned and donated to temples for merit making. The text and illustrations have no direct correspondence: The text was chanted during Buddhist ceremonies such as funerals and weddings, while the illustrations depicted themes such as the life and previous lives of the Buddha. These served as reminders of his teachings and exemplary models for practitioners. The donors and artists were thus free to choose the themes they preferred. By the nineteenth century, the standard rectangular wooden coffin was replaced for royal families, high-ranking nobles, and revered monks with the kot, a coffin made in a stupa-like shape in which the deceased is placed vertically with legs and hands folded into gestures of worship. Thus kot start to appear in paintings, either replacing the coffin or appearing with it. This raises questions on the roles and symbols of the royal funeral in association with the Buddha. This paper examines the tradition of royal funerals in Bangkok period (1767-present) in association with Buddhist texts and the roles and symbols of funerals in murals and Buddhist manuscripts.
Chanting Death and Binding Life: Two Contemporary Cambodian Funerary Sub-rituals
Erik W. Davis, University of Chicago
Chanting the Pansukula (bangsukol) and performing the Baddha Sima are two rituals that help compose the standard Cambodian Buddhist funeral ceremony. They are vital, and unlike many other aspects of contemporary funerary practice, are considered non-negotiable. Although participants and family members consider these two rituals to be of extreme importance, their history and interpretation are subject to widely varying interpretations. In this presentation I will briefly examine these two sub-rituals primarily from recently completed fieldwork on Buddhist funerary practices in contemporary Cambodia. I will make special reference to relevant work by Francois Bizot, whose work on related matters has been very influential in the study of Cambodian religion. Cambodians will often remark that the Pansukula is performed for the benefit of those who can hear it, helping them to prepare for their own inevitable death. In contrast, the Baddha Sima in funeral rituals is done for the purpose of protecting the living. Both rituals share characteristics with non-funerary practices, which can help to illuminate their symbolic import. The thesis of this paper is that while the various interpretations of the import of these rituals do not correlate, their performance engages a realm of symbolism that goes beyond the death and rebirth of individual lives and implicates an entire world of social and agricultural practice.