[Buddha-l] Query--forest tradition monks in Japan today?

[jkirk]

Considering the various responses to my query,  it no longer seems useful to set up a 'forest monk' category based on Thai and Chinese mountain traditions. It seems to be more useful to simply recognize that Buddhism has always allowed for hermit or forest wandering practitioners, including in the time of the Buddha--wasn't Mahakashyapa  a well-known example? and that there is not any particular category of such that can effectively be considered as separate and different from other kinds of forest or mountain practice involving residence away from urban areas. So, at this point, I'm giving up on using 'forest tradition monks' as some kind of special category. 

Tiyanavich wrote: "The Thai term for such monks is phra thudong (ascetic wandering monk) or phra thudong kammathan (wandering ascetic meditator monk). A thudong monk is one who observes at least some of the thirteen ascetic practices mentioned in the Buddha's discourses, in particular the practice of eating only one meal per day, sleeping outdoors in a forest or a cemetery, and being content with the very fewest possessions." (p.1) In that respect the description would apply to many different kinds of wandering or hermit monks, wherever found--whether temporarily wandering or permanently wandering. 

She also says: "The wandering meditation monks from Thailand's Northeast constitute a distinct type that emerged out of the peculiarities of Lao Buddhist traditions." (12) Most of the individual monks her book studies were from that area. Thus, I don't see how they compare to the situation that is said to have prevailed in Sri Lanka, with putative foreign influence.

Having done a good deal of work in India and Bangladesh, I'm quite aware of the local use of the term jangal and jangli. 

I gather that the Carrithers book you mention is his _The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka_, OUP, 1983. (Note that he also uses the moniker, 'forest monks' in his title, misleading or not.) Tiyavanich cites him in her bibliography, but since she doesn't include a names index, I'd need to search her book to see if she contests his viewpoint in any way. But then why would she? It apparently doesn't apply to the Thai monks she studied. 

Joanna K.
========================================================



> We need to keep it in mind that 'forest' is not quite an adequate 
> translation  of the Skt/Pali words, e.g., aran~n~a. It doesn't mean 
> literally forest, although the forest/jungle is maybe a sort of 
> paradigm example or a prototype of  the conceptual category so 
> labelled. It does, as some of these discussions here more than hint, 
> mean remote from centres of [secular-social] order or power. This 
> idea surfaces in Modern Indic, as Hindi, where the word jangal 
> (adj.jangli), from which we get English 'jungle', refers to 
> up-country, un-cosmopolitan, back-country places (the limit instance 
> being the literal forest or desert or wilderness). Thus in Indian 
> English, a 'jungly village' is a village of backward peasants far 
> from regular contact with urban centres and so on.
> 
> There is, in this connection, a problem with Dr. Kamala's book about 
> Thai 'Forest' Monks. It is easily shown (and the early book by 
> Carrithers documents this nicely, you know) that the idea of an 
> earl/'original' Buddhist Forest tradition is in at least good measure 
> a product of European misconstrual of aran~n~avaasi; and Theravadins 
> in Sri Lanka, Thailand and so on, swallowed this European 
> Buddhalogical work hook, line and sinker, and 'revived' that 
> tradition. It is a capital error to take prototype, or limit, 
> instances of a category as definitions of the category -- 
> Wittgenstein to the contrary notwithstanding.
> -- 
> F. K. L. Chit Hlaing
> Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
> 
> 
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.0/525 - Release Date: 11/9/2006
> 
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20061109/ec1d4e2a/attachment.htm