(Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005)
Ian Harris
Cambodia Buddhism: History and Practice
(Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005) Ian Harris
PREFACE
How the protectorate started:
In 1853 the Catholic priest Jean Claude Miche had been responsible for drafting King Ang Duang’s letter to Napoleon III, asking for French protection and aid in retrieving the provinces of Cambodia that had been lost to the neighboring powers of Thailand and Vietnam. Thus he was instrumental in establishing a European presence in the region. But he was also an early observer of the religious scene. Yet to his prejudiced eyes Cambodian Buddhism appeared a “vast and absurd Pantheism, which covers with its veil a hopeless atheism.” He wrote that it “defies the whole of nature,” for its sacred writings ranked “man in the same class with the brutes.” Its conception of heaven was likewise problematic, in that the blessed were supposed to experience various joys that “for the most part consist in carnal pleasures of which decency forbids the mention” (Miche 1852, 605, 607–610). Vii
The first seminal work on Cambodian buddhism was done by Adhémard Leclère, who begun his service as a fonctionnaire in Cambodia in 1866 (vii). This seminal work covers a wide range of matters from cosmology to metaphysics, the Buddhist annual cycle, its festival, monastic ordination, the ecclesiastical organization and discipline. Yet still, these early works on Khmer version of Buddhism suffer from a blatant, if nuanced, sense of European triumphalism. (viii)
Other noticeable early scholarships included Éveline Porée-Maspero’s three-volume study entitled Étude sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens (1962–1969), and more recently Ang Chouléan’s Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire khmère (1986), among his other studies.
“Into the fabric of my own work”
For Harris, the by far and away most significant scholar in the field of Cambodian Buddhist studies is François Bizot.
Harris called the mid-1970s in Cambodia a time of “collective madness.” The work of Bizot during this period is deemed with “outstanding competence, range, and originality.” Bizot’s findings must be considered a major landmark in Buddhist and Cambodian studies, since “it clearly demonstrates that, at core, the religious traditions of the country are at some variance with Theravada orthodoxy of the sort now found in neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand. (ix) Cambodia Buddhism: History and Practice (Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005) Ian Harris
One of Harris’ most poignant claims is his discussion of the importance of Buddhist modernism: Here, he wrote: Buddhist modernism, a phenomenon that has, in one way or another, exercised a significant presence in all the countries of Buddhist Asia since the end of the nineteenth century. Put simply, Buddhist modernism has a preference for those modes of thought and behavior specifically authorized by the “scriptural tradition” of Theravada Buddhism as expressed in the Pali canon (Tripitaka) and its commentaries. It also shows a marked tendency toward laicization and the employment of modern proselytizing techniques, such as pamphlet production, distribution, and the like. Buddhist modernism, then, presents itself as a movement of purification, reform, and return to the “original truth” of the Buddha’s vision. It has tended to flourish in Buddhist cultures under colonial rule and has been influential in the development of various national liberation struggles, which may be read as alternative forms of the liberation recommended by the Buddha. (ix)
George Coedès is another point of reference, fundamental to the understanding of early
Cambodian history. His work, in light of Vickery’s commentary and expansion upon in Society, Economics, and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia: The Seventh–Eighth Centuries (1998) provides Harris with ample insights in the first chapters of this book.
Post-Angkorian period, arguably the least well-understood phase of the region’s historical record, can be investigated through Mak Phoeun’s and Khin Sok’s works on the royal chronicles, as well as Ashley Thompson’s 1999 doctoral thesis, “Mémoires du Cambodge,” in which the author examines the manner by which ancient temples constructed in Angkor time were reappropriated by a spreading “Theravada tradition with strong probable links to a reinvigorated cult of kingship.”
Harris points to Ven. Huot Tath’s Kalyànamitt roboh kñom (My intimate friend, 1970), the partial account of the career of arguably the most influential monk Ven. Chuon Nath, the champion of the emerging Buddhist modernist cause. This account is crucial in teasing out the tension that emerged within the Buddhist order, and “to a lesser extent” in the wider Cambodian society, especially in and around the beloved capital in the first half of the twentieth century.
He mentioned the 4 pillars – David Chandler, Steve Heder, Ben Kiernan, and Michael Vickery.
“The first real manifestation of organized anticolonialism in Cambodia materialized in 1942,
when a monk-led demonstration challenged various reforms being imposed on the Khmer people.” Xiii
However, Harris suggests a viable link between the Buddhist-inspired nationalist movement and the germination of violent and virulent communism. Cambodia Buddhism: History and Practice (Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005) Ian Harris
