Hi,
Just like to add some more little information. There is also a popular Pali
teaching school in Thai at Wat Mahathat, section 25. I used to study very
basic Pali there briefly. I remember my very first lesson is to pronounce
the Pali basic alphabet correctly. I was very fun for me. Although we use
Thai alphabets in writing Pali, the sound in Pali is not exactly similar to
usual Thai pronunciation. Most of the Pali masters here have connection with
Wat Tha Ma-O in Lampang, most of the masters also went to study Pali in
Myanmar. The library at section 25 has extensive collection of Pali
textbooks. There are some collection in English, most are in Myanmar and
some are in Thai.
To go to Salaya, you can get a free ride by a campus bus. They depart almost
every 30 mins, from Ramathibodi Hospital, and Faculty of Science, Rama VI
road, and also at Siriraj Hospital Campus close to the train station that
the train go to Salaya.
Best wishes,
Num
On Feb 3, 2008 6:46 PM, Eisel Mazard <Parajanaka@...> wrote:
> A short report on some places and resources related to Pali studies in
> Bangkok, 2008.
>
> _Table of contents_
> (1) Notes on Chulalongkorn University
> (2) Notes on Mahidol-Salaya
> (3) Notes on the National Library
> (4) Notes on Museums & Historiography
> (5) Short note on publishers
>
> (1) CHULALONGKORN
>
> UNESCO's Bangkok office under R. Engelhardt has, reportedly, been
> highly influential in "schooling" the Thai universities in winning
> project funding. The most palpable result is the proliferation of
> tiny, specialized departments, such as the (alleged) "Department of
> Xipsongpanna-culture studies" (!) at Chulalongkorn University, headed
> by Prof. Pawan (presumably a nickname or shortened surname; the
> professor is female, but we have not met). Presumably, this tiny,
> specialized department will take advantage of the UNESCO-led
> manuscript research in Yunnan --I have written for more information.
>
> Chulalongkorn has succeeded in making its campus both "more beautiful"
> and "less ugly" over the last three years --and the
> construction/upgrading now continues.
>
> Unfortunately, the gardens at "Chula" are indeed infested with rats
> --and the barking dogs don't help matters. Pali scholars should start
> a petition to replace the dogs with cats, to guard against the rats
> --as, after all, rats can destroy books and manuscripts (no animus
> against them on my part, I assure you! The year of the rat is fast
> upon us!).
>
> The university also has two (equally large) bookstores, with
> confusingly similar names, at present; one in the middle of the
> campus, one adjacent to Siam square. I would advise against promising
> to meet anyone "at the bookstore" for this reason.
>
> (2) MAHIDOL-SALAYA
>
> I made a formal visit to Mahidol University, to meet with the
> professor who founded their new Pali & Buddhist Studies programmes (a
> department now less than six months old) --and to "inspect" the place
> generally.
>
> The University campus that houses the programme is NEITHER in Bangkok,
> nor in Nakhon Pathom. Do not be misled into thinking that the city of
> Nakhon Pathom is closer to the university than Bangkok (it isn't). In
> reality, the University is NOWHERE, but it is apparently more popular
> to describe its location as "Nakhon Pathom" than "out on a highway
> somewhere".
>
> If you wish to visit the campus in question, the easiest way to do so
> from Bangkok is to go to the Victory Monument, and get onto Bus #515.
> In addition to the number (515), this bus does have the toponym
> "Salaya" written on it in English --and the campus in question is
> "Mahidol Salaya". This is genuinely easier even than taking a taxi
> (not to mention train --which I also tried). When you buy a ticket,
> the only Thai you need to know is to repeat the name of the college
> (at most, one could say, /Bai Kollet Mahidon Salaya/ --and then the
> ticket-seller on board would know to tell you to get off when you come
> to the correct location). The bus travels by the same major highway
> that leads to the airport, and then passes the college campus almost
> immediately after it turns off of the highway; thus, it is easy to see
> (on your left), and you will surely notice when you have suddenly made
> the 90-degree turn off of the major highway into the town of "Salaya"
> (you won't see anything like a town from the campus, however).
>
> I met with Prof. Bodhi, and spoke with him for a little under two hours.
>
> (3) NATIONAL LIBRARY
>
> The national library has much changed in the three years since I saw
> it first (or: last).
>
> The first two floors have been entirely refurbished, and rooms that
> used to be sweltering hot, and full of the polluted dust of the
> street, are now "sealed" and air-conditioned. The locations of the
> books are largely unchanged. Thus, I had the slightly surreal
> experience of walking into the main room of the second floor
> collection, and walking directly to the location of the linguistics
> section, and the sub-section on Pali, while the actual appearance of
> the room had utterly changed since I had last taken those same steps
> through it.
>
> The bathrooms, too, have made a leap into the modern era (but bring
> your own toilet paper).
>
> Unfortunately, while the 4th floor (bastion of conservatism that it
> is!) has not changed a bit, all of the non-Thai script (Pali)
> materials that used to be on the second floor were removed to the 4th.
> Thus, the Mon Tipitaka, _inter alia_ is now nearly impossible to get
> at, along with the manuscripts on the 4th floor. Start writing those
> letters to parliament if you want permission to use the resources
> there.
>
> If you have not arranged access to the 4th floor collections in
> advance, there is now hardly any reason for a Pali researcher to go
> there. The English-language resources on Pali/Buddhism are still in a
> strangely organized room "to one side of" the main room on religion.
>
> (4) MUSEUMS
>
> Museums were the reason that I originally lived in Bangkok (now over
> three years ago) --and two of the projects I was sent there to work on
> are now manifest in brick.
>
> One of the two, "TCDC" (Thai Creative & Design Centre) is not salient
> to this list; however, the National Discovery Museum Institute
> ("NDMI") is worth noting briefly here.
>
> The NDMI was created to challenge the both the orthodoxy of Thai
> museology, and the official historiography (cf. Prince Damrong, etc.)
> still found echoed in the National Museums throughout Thailand.
>
> Unfortunately, it replaces one "fictional history" with another, and
> many of the fictions will be especially painful for a Pali scholar to
> witness --especially as (re-)stated in such a newly opened
> institution.
>
> A large part of the museum is dedicated to "retrenching" the myth of
> Suvannabhumi, including the (repeatedly stated) assertion that
> Ashoka's two missionaries were sent there (viz., "here").
>
> The illusory nature of this claim (or even the notion that the edicts
> of Ashoka mention Suvannabhumi as a destination of his missionaries)
> has already been discussed on this list.
>
> Other long-since-debunked notions, such as the equivalence of "Siam"
> with modern Thailand in Chinese dynastic records (circa 2,000 years
> ago), are employed with no more tact than the name of Ashoka.
>
> A long narrative that emphasizes the peaceful co-existence of multiple
> races (in "Suvannabhumi" then and in Thailand now) begins with the
> absurd racialist premise that "Homo erectus, 'Peking Man' evolved into
> today's Mongoloid element, while 'Java man' provided the Australoid
> input today."
>
> Despite everything we know about migrations and the non-continuity of
> Thailand's population, it is boldly asserted that "Lampang man" of
> 500,000 years ago, could be among "the earliest ancestors of the
> Siamese people". No, he couldn't.
>
> Quite a number of politically charged claims are made about Buddhism
> itself, and, sadly, almost all of them are either historically false
> or wildly misleading. As part of the retelling of history minus
> slavery and warfare, it is essential to mis-represent Buddhism as
> "uniting" the people of the putative Suvannabhumi, "as it failed to do
> in India" (!) ... "Thus in Suvarnabhumi, Animism, Buddhism and
> Hinduism fitted [sic.] together so perfectly that now only scholars
> can distinguish them".
>
> Perhaps the scholars working for the museum ought to go ahead and
> distinguish them.
>
> It is asserted that Ayudhaya ruled over all of the "city states" of
> Suvannabhumi (which is defined as stretching from Burma to Cambodia!)
> starting from the 14th century; among the examples of such alleged
> "city states" under Ayudhaya's dominion are Lan Xang ("Lanchang"),
> Lavo and Sukhothai. What was formerly "the Sukhothai period" is
> actually deleted from history --along with any notion of Lanna's
> independence (not to mention Cambodia, Laos, etc.!).
>
> This pseudohistory is a self-conscious attempt to replace the
> "nationalist" and "racialist" narratives of the past; and it does so
> by denying the existence of "national" and discrete "ethnic" entities
> in pre-modern South-East Asia --and then subordinates the histories of
> all of the "city-states" (that remain after national and ethnic
> toponyms are removed from the map) as supposed vassals to the kingdom
> of Ayudhaya.
>
> This effectively deletes Cambodia from the history of South-East Asia
> (something many Thai nationalists have attempted to do before in their
> historiographies) and relegates Burma to an extremely shadowy role,
> until its (inconvenient) conquest of Ayudhaya (viz., the only war
> mentioned in the entire historical portion of the museum). Dvaravati
> is described repeatedly as a multi-ethnic society, too, and while this
> may be politically preferable to the old narrative of the Thais
> conquering and enslaving the non-Thais, it only serves to mystify the
> real ethnicity of each of the "city states" described --and to further
> obfuscate the question of when and where the Thais/Tais migrated (and
> who was, so to speak, "pre-Thai").
>
> Students of Thai culture and anthropology will here see another
> attempt at writing the myth of the "noble savage" in Thailand. The
> Chinese dynastic records actually show that Thailand exported natural
> forest products (including resins and medicines that were tremendously
> valuable in the ancient world), and imported metals, gold, etc.
> (resulting in a well-documented balance-of-trade problem for the
> Chinese) --but the museum sets out to prove the very opposite instead.
> It is asserted that the Thai "noble savages" were great producers and
> exporters of metals and gold to the world.
>
> Reflecting nothing other than modern, bourgeois preoccupations, the
> museum goes on to say, "Rice cultivation may have reasons [sic.] for
> permanent settlement, but it did not necessarily lead to growth and
> development of towns and states. What was it that made Suvarnabhumi
> so important, attracting outsiders to seek its wealth? Certainly not
> rice and bamboo!"
>
> On the contrary, the crucial factor for the development of cities and
> ports for international trade was NOTHING OTHER than rice --viz., the
> need to produce sufficient rice not only to sustain a large
> population, but to load up trade ships for long, slow journeys along
> the shores. Rice, forest products, and slavery were the crucial
> factors in the history of trading empires as they rose and fell in
> South-East Asia. The protracted claims about early Thai metal-workers
> are about as absurd as claiming that Cambodia was exporting fine
> porcelain to China; very simply, it was the other way around.
>
> The main point of the "new historiography" of the NDMI seems to be the
> anachronistic projection of an idealized multi-ethnic Bangkok onto
> previous periods of history --all the way back to the stone age. The
> "bad" old narrative of one race conquering and enslaving another has
> been replaced by an equally flawed new narrative in which slavery (and
> feudalism) has completely disappeared --and wars between states have
> been reduced to a very minor part of history.
>
> The history continues into the modern period, presenting the dictator
> Phibun ("Phibul Songkran") as if he had invented racism, and racial
> nationalism, in Thailand. The enslavement of non-Thais by Thais seems
> to just pop up as a novel idea in 20th century propaganda, with no
> historical precedent. Thus, the (supposed) multi-ethnic utopia comes
> to an abrupt halt in the modern era. Apparently, Phibun is the only
> historical figure whom it is safe for the curators to blame. As bad
> as this pseudohistory is, it is difficult to imagine any contemporary
> scholar wanting to take on the thankless task of defending Phibun's
> (odious) role in history against this slight.
>
> (5) PUBLISHERS
>
> It is remarkable that (a) White Lotus, (b) Silkworm, and (c) Orchid
> Press, are all interested in publishing materials on Pali. The latter
> two were founded later, and their business model follows the first
> (viz., they openly sought to emulate White Lotus) --and, of course,
> none of them make any money.
>
> Thus, Bangkok has an unusual concentration of private-sector
> publishers that are willing to support scholarship in our field
> --apparently with a degree of disinterest.
>
> E.M.
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]