Pali by bicycle

Likely my former note was a little too prosaic, and left out much that
would be of interest to list-members.  However, setting down a few
practical details seemed to me necessary.

I have just traveled down the Mekong from China, in a path shaped
rather like a fish-hook.

After the 12-hour bus trip from Kunming to the Mekong valley
(descending roughly 2,000 metres), a boat carried me from Jinghong to
the "golden triangle" (Chiang Saen, etc.).  This course covered the
sparsely inhabited area where I formerly worked in small villages,
and, indeed, where I formerly bathed in the Mekong; thus, the view
from the deck was indeed beautiful to the untrained observer, but was
painful for myself --as deforestation and the expansion of rubber
plantations continues to change the landscape.  I know too well what
I'm looking at to enjoy it.  There was scarcely a single tree thicker
than my arm --and, so too, very few older than myself in years.

I was entirely prepared to photograph the (beautiful and historically
significant) inscriptions in the Chiang Saen museum, but, sadly, on
the day I was there it was closed for a lunar festival.  This
happenstance did, obversely, fill the surrounding ruins with chanting
and other pageantry.

At Sukhothai, I particularly enjoyed one circular stone fragment, with
a comment on inter-dependent origination in Pallava script; of course,
it was very badly translated, thus, demonstrating that the pre-Thai
inhabitants of the area probably had more sincere interest in Buddhist
philosophy than the present curators (or, at least, the ancients
imported experts from Southern India --which is precisely what the
modern curators, too, should do!).

I then made the long trip East (around the Mekong, without entering
Laos) through Dan-Sai and Nakhon Thai --an area primarily famous for
its demon-worship masks and rituals, and that I have mentioned before
as the origin of one (vernacular) inscription of singular historical
importance.

I then proceeded east along the Mekong, where, in a small town, I was
mistaken for ethnic Lao for the first (and likely last) time in my
life, after a few unusually fluent turns of phrase.  The woman peered
at me carefully, looking around the edges of my eyes, and asked,
"You're a Lao person of some kind, aren't you?" --viz., perhaps
suggesting that I was one of the tribal, ethnic minorities.

More commonly, I was asked if I had been a member of the French
"ancien regime" --on account of how well I spoke the Lao language
(viz., on a very limited range of topics, but practical matters such
as bus routes being among them).

That area of Thailand has, in fact, become more remote, due to
increases in the price of gas, and the reduction (and elimination) of
a few bus routes over the past two years.

In the course of this journey, I must comment that I did not see
anything that I could honestly call poverty, although I have an eye
out for it at all times.  Aside from the drug addicts, the monotony of
abundance was eerie (and, of course, a stark contrast from the areas
of Laos that were ever a short distance away from each of these parts
of Thailand).

My months of preparation, via the Australian consulate to Laos,
finally came to fruition with a very brief crossing of the border, to
reclaim my bicycle and the contents of my Vientiane bank-account.

I was indeed in Nong Khai for the latest Thai plebiscite (in place of
a revolution).  I took a Lao friend to view the ballot-boxes, and
pointed out that while the difference from the Lao equivalent was
subtle, if one looked closely it could in fact be seen that in
Thailand there is more than one political party on the ballot.  Thus,
the people of Thailand would be forced to sleep with some uncertainty
as to which party might be in power the next day; whereas in Laos, we
are relieved of such uncertainty.

My current "involuntary vacation" in Thailand came about unexpectedly,
and thus I do not have the right books with me to make strides on
Kaccayana in the month ahead.

Today, I rode my bicycle 40 km in a round-trip to an historic site of
some interest: like everything in Issan, it has been subject to "too
much restoration, not enough excavation".

Evidently, the earliest bricks on the site are either Khmer or
Khmer-esque laterite clay, with what appeared to be one Dvaravati
boundary stone, recently smashed to pieces by an ill-thought-through
attempt to fell a tree, and then re-assembled with some bricks and
mortar (the felled tree was still visible at the time of writing, and
the crack looked fresh).

Likely, that Dvaravati stone was never beautiful or intact enough to
merit removal to the museum in Khon Kaen.  However, it still deserves
better than to have construction debris leaning against it, and a tree
felled atop it, etc.  I honestly don't even know if the stone was a
recreation --it was so plain that it had not occurred to me until this
moment that someone would take the trouble to recreate a "typical"
boundary stone of this kind, and then be so negligent as to destroy it
in this fashion, but I suppose this is possible (in Thailand).

A 16th century Theravada temple was later built on the same site, when
what was south of the Mekong was still in the orbit of Vientiane, and
new stucco was put about the place after the Stupa was destroyed by
"the rain" in the 1970s.

This is not the first Issan temple (that I have mentioned) to be
suspiciously destroyed by precipitation, at a time when large
quantities of American steel were precipitating in the course of what
Nixon insisted on referring to as "the third world war".  (I have
previously mentioned That Phanom, situated elsewhere along the Mekong,
and officially subject to the same fate)

Although neither the Lan Xang nor the earlier inhabitants of the site
were likely to have buried lengthy stone-inscribed texts of historical
or philosophic value, I nevertheless lament that nobody has dug a
metre down across the site, to reveal whatever's there.  At That
Phanom, the "excavation" caused by the collapse of the tower revealed
some pre-Buddhist cult stones --none of them inscribed.

I had pause to reflect today, on the occasion of meeting a resolutely
optimistic Mahayanist (who resolutely lectured me), as to just how
truly hopeless the entire situation is, along the entire course of the
Mekong, for Pali scholarship of any kind.

In Yunnan, wherever there is a gap between two buildings, someone will
put a plastic tarp over it, hang a light-bulb, and turn the alleyway
into a shop of some kind --a tailor's shop, most likely.  Nowhere did
I see even such an opportunity for Pali scholarship as one such alley
might provide --and I have wandered a good part of the world's surface
looking.

The opening of a government-sanctioned, turnstile-defined, Theravada
wonderland in Xipxongpanna (Southern Yunnan) was another cause for
such reflection; a colleague was among those admitted to the hall
(largely full of invited journalists) where an international chorus of
108 Theravada monks (none Sinhalese, I note) chanted something in
Pali, to sanctify yet another ornament to worldly authority.

An Englishman (with no scholarly interest) who was also present at the
temple, but stood outside the hall, commented to me very sincerely,
"What we are now seeing in Yunnan is the death of Buddhism"; it is
very much to his credit that he understood enough of what was going on
around him to be depressed by it.  I proposed to him that, "the second
death of Buddhism" might be more appropriate.

My former message mentioned that my assumptions still tend toward
Cambodia in the long term; it is an astounding fact that I feel
relatively optimistic about the lot of a self-styled scholar in Phnom
Penh, where Pali studies are indeed _ex nihilio_, and manuscript
research is literally "from the ashes" --yet perhaps it is precisely
because the Cambodians cannot delude themselves as to how dire the
situation is, that it is possible for me to be relatively optimistic
about the present and future of scholarship in such an evidently
hopeless place.

E.M.