ricks_2008_national identity and the geo-soul-spiritually mapping siam

National IdentityandtheGeo-Soul:SpirituallyMapping

Siam

Jacob I. RicksEmory University

AbstractThis paper investigates the re-centring of religious identitywithin the geo-body in the developing world through the casestudy of Thailand, formerly Siam. Although by 1932, mon-archic rule and colonial powers had demarcated the geo-bodyof Siam, the national soul was not yet fully cultivated. After thefall of the absolute monarchy, Prime Minister Phibunsongkhramsought to mould the religio-national identity of Thailand untilthe religious communitys borders coincided with those ofthe nation-state. One focus of nationalist leaders efforts wasthe adaptation and promotion of Buddhist temples throughoutthe state. These temples became markers of both geographic andcosmological space, serving to infuse the geographic body witha religio-national soul. Thus, the nationalism that developedembraced the fusion of the religious identity with the nationalidentity.

Introduction1

The end of the nineteenth century saw the borders of the worlds statesmarked out like a colourful jigsaw with numerous interlocking pieces.Thailand, then called Siam, was no exception. The kingdom had evadedcolonisation, but it had been forced to take on Westernised governmentinstitutions and geographic conceptions of space in order to do so,including externally dened borders. Thongchai (1994) elegantly outlinedthe creation of the Siamese geo-body, which was accomplished primarilythrough colonial incursions during the reign of King Chulalongkorn(18681910). This new geo-body became an inuential icon of the

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Siamese state. The map of Siam, serving as a logo, could be imaginarilywithdrawn from the world, like a piece of a puzzle wholly detached fromits geographic context (Anderson 1991: 175). The national body hademerged from the womb of history. Yet, as with any body, the geo-body ofthe Siamese nation needed a soul in order to live. Nationalist leaders whofollowed Chulalongkorn demarcated the geo-soul through centring theBuddhist religion within the Thai identity and the geographic realm of thestate. The Buddhist religio-national identity of Thailand, which was largelyinitiated during the governments of Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram(193844, 194857), has become one of the most enduring markers ofThai identity.

Like Thailand, many other countries in the developing world have nationalidentities with religious aspects. These religio-national identities haveevaded scholars who study nationalism; often they treat religious identitiesas subsiding prior to the rise of nationalism (e.g. Anderson 1991; Smith2000; Gellner 1983). Yet in many areas of the world, the intertwining ofreligious and national identities within the geo-body prompts inquiry intothe development of these geo-souls, or religio-national identities linked tothe geographic locale of the state.

This paper considers the growth of the Thai geo-soul identity through thestates adoption and manipulation of the traditional markers of cosmo-graphic space, Buddhist temples or wat (Thongchai 1994: 2829). Templeswhich were placed under national patronage as part of the development ofThai nationalism during Phibunsongkhrams (hereafter referred to asPhibun) governments served to mark the geographic extent of the Thaistate and the cosmographic location of the nation. The mapping of the geo-soul through Buddhist temples also served to help the Thai nation imagineitself as the sacred bastion of Buddhism; even though it was not thebirthplace of the religion (see Niranam 1986).

The paper proceeds as follows: First, I discuss a theoretical framework ofthe re-centring of religious identities within the geo-body in the developingworld. Second, I turn to the Thai case where I identify the circumstanceswhich prompted the creation of a religio-national identity through the useof Buddhist temples. Third, I discuss the initial creation of the Thai geo-soul by identifying four important temples which were adapted to thenationalism discourse during the administration of Phibun. Each of thesetemples is discussed in relation to the efforts which the state put intodeveloping it as a marker of the Thai national identity; the temples are thenconsidered collectively concerning their effect in creating a geo-soul. The

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paper concludes with a discussion of the consequences of the states effortsand the enduring qualities of the geo-soul, including the role of pilgrimagesto these temples by both political leaders and the populace.

Religio-national Identity and the Geo-Soul

The body of theoretical literature on nationalism is unfortunately lacking inan explanation of the continued intertwining of religion and nationalidentity in many countries of the world. Anderson (1991: 6) wrote that theimagined community involved a communion among the members ofthe community, pointing to the possible link between religion andnationalism. Even so, his explanation of nationalism treated religiousidentity as subsiding prior to nationalisms rise. Smith (2000; 2003)also noted how national identities mimic those which were earlier linkedto religion, but he treats the two as entirely separate. Gellner (1983)explained that religions grip on society had to slacken before nationalismcould grow. These important authors treat the two identities, religious andnational, as competing, or at least unable to co-exist on the same level.One, primarily religious identity, must give way to the other, nationalism.Yet these analyses fail to explain fully the persistence and integrationof religious and national identities in many nations of the world:Buddhism in Thailand, Islam in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Iran,Shinto in Japan, Christianity in America, or Hinduism in India, forexample.

In many places, religious identity has not necessarily been pushed aside byits nationalist counterpart, especially in developing nations. Instead, Iargue, the two have at times fused, creating a religio-national identity, inwhich the identities reinforce each other. Often these identitiesare explicitly linked to the geographic location of the nation-state throughnationalist leaders efforts, reinforcing the states geo-body. Thongchai(1994: 17) denes the geo-body as a man-made territorial denitionwhich creates effects by classifying, communicating, and enforcement on people, things, and relationships. The geo-body was created as amechanism by which nation could be envisioned geographically. It gavethe nation a territorial home. Yet the geo-body was not created in vacuum;as Thongchai noted, someone had to make and enforce it. The geo-soulserves as one of the methods by which the geo-body is enforced.

In many developing countries, leaders sought to equalise their powerdistribution across the land circumscribed by the boundaries whichcolonial powers had given them. This contrasted with the old conceptionsof power, often portrayed as radiating in circles from the centre to the


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periphery. As the distance from the centre increased, governmentalauthority weakened. The new nation-states had boundaries such that theauthority of the centre could be theoretically equal in both the capital andthe most distant border village. Religion, though, was not circumscribed bythe borders of the states, and it could serve to compete with the edglinggovernments. In order to overcome this potential competition, manynationalist leaders sought to incorporate the symbols of religion to fortifytheir embryonic national identities (see Juergensmeyer 1995; Bellah 1965:185186). Yet a problem remained; religious authority was linked throughcosmological space to its centre of power, often in a distant land: Islam wasalways linked to Mecca, Buddhism to India, Catholicism to Rome, and soon. In order for nationalist leaders to link religion to the national identity,they needed to redene the religious geographic structure, preferably re-centring the religious identity within their geo-body. In order to do this,leaders built or adapted religious symbols, especially monuments, to serveas markers which dened the nation-states geo-body as a sacred land, abastion of the religion. Through their efforts, religious power wasconstrued to exist within the framework of their own state. The geo-bodybecame sacred in both a national and a religious sense. Thus, a geo-soulentered the geo-body.

In examining this phenomenon I have chosen to use the Thai case study fortwo main reasons. The rst is the fact that, although its borders werecreated through colonial intrusion, Thailand escaped colonisation. Due tothis, the initial development of the Thai geo-soul can be clearly tracedwithout referencing the interference of a colonial government. Second, theThai nationalist leaders efforts were largely successful. The Thai state andBuddhism today are so tightly enmeshed that it is often difcult todistinguish where one begins and the other ends. State ceremonies areperformed with symbols of Buddhism present; political leaders oftenconsult monks before taking ofce; Buddhist temples display symbols ofthe Thai state, including pictures of the monarchy; the government controlsthe building and maintaining of monasteries through both monetary andlegal means. Recently government and religious leaders have alsoentertained thoughts of constitutionalising the nations links with Bud-dhism (see Wassana and Mongkol 2007).

By investigating Thailand exclusively, though, I hope not to give theimpression that the re-centring of religion does not apply to other nation-states. In an interesting comparison, Sukarno sought to likewise envelopIslam within Indonesia through the construction of Masjid Istiqlal inJakarta. Sukarno declared (Sukarno 1966, 5):


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It is my wish, together with the Islamic community here toerect a Friday Mosque which is larger than the Moham-mad Ali Mosque [Cairo] . . . Larger! And why? We have agreat nation! My wish is to build with all the populous,one Indonesian nation which proclaims the Islamicreligion.

By building the largest mosque in the world, Sukarno, and Suharto whonished constructing the edice, hoped to develop an Indonesian Islamicgeo-soul; locating Islam within national boundaries. Similar attempts couldbe found in other countries around the world.

The Thai Geo-Body and its need of a Soul

Prior to the development of Siams geo-body, the kingdom had existed withonly minimalist borders. The conception of monarchic power did not alignwith Western ideas of space or borders observed on current maps. Instead,the early Siamese maps were dened according to cosmographic or line-of-sight perspectives which ignored the vertical boundaries so importantto colonial powers as they entered the region. The Siamese courts effortsto appease foreigners demands for cartographic maps were linked heavilyto the traditional cosmographic representations which showed merit andspiritual planes rather than vertical lines placed upon terrestrial space.Europeans invited to witness these early mapping efforts struggled not tolaugh in the presence of the Siamese king (Neale 1852: 5456). Even so,the early maps demonstrated the importance of the conuence of thespiritual and the physical planes. The Buddhist-style cosmography denedthe legitimacy of the government and its link to spiritual power.2

Unfortunately for the Siamese, the colonial powers sought to carve outtheir own maps of the territory.

Although King Chulalongkorn endeavoured to indigenously map Siam, itsboundaries were shaped primarily through the inuence of colonialpowers. Altercations with the French in Indochina in 1893 set thenortheastern boundaries, while treaties with the British in the early 1900sdealt with Burma on the west and Malaysia to the south, delineatingthe extent of the Siamese kingdom in those directions (Thongchai 1994:128). The Siamese state quickly expanded its inuence to the bordersin order to consolidate its power and block further colonial intrusion(Vickery 1970: 873877). Administrative reforms ensured that by thetime of King Chulalongkorns death in 1910, the Siamese had a clearlydened geo-body.


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Yet the question of nationalism and national boundaries had merely begun.It was left to the leaders who followed Chulalongkorn to create the nationalidentity of the Thais. The centralisation strategies of the late 1800s and rstdecade of the 1900s encapsulated a variety of ethnic, linguistic, andreligious groups within the geo-body. The peripheral groups resisted thecentres governing efforts through many means including open rebellionand religious protest (Keyes 1977: 283302). The unrest within the newlydened borders concerned the leaders who followed Chulalongkorn, andthey embarked on the process of nation-building in order to consolidatetheir political control within the borders of the geo-body.

Immediately after Chulalongkorns death, his son Vajiravudh becamemonarch. Vajiravudh (191025) sought to nurture what Anderson refersto as ofcial nationalism, or nationalism developed by traditionalpolitical elites in order to retain the reins of power (Anderson 1991: 100101). In doing so, Vajiravudh took preliminary steps towards thedevelopment of the geo-soul. He initiated the nationalistic Wild Tigersparamilitary group through a sacred ceremony in Wat Phra Kaeo (Vella1978: 2729). He also adapted the British saying of God, King, andCountry to nation, religion, and king. Although Vajiravudh is remem-bered as the father of Thai nationalism, his efforts were reserved for theelites, and his nation-building never truly took hold with the masses.Despite the palaces attempts, the absolute monarchy was growing weakerin its hold over society. On ascension to the throne in 1925, KingPrajadhipok, Vajiravudhs younger brother, inherited economic woes andincreasing opposition to monarchic authority. He was only able to cling toabsolute power for seven years.

In 1932, a European-educated group of military ofcers and civiliansstaged a coup, overthrowing the absolute monarchy and developing aconstitutional government. Over the next six years, the coup group splitalong ideological lines between the civilians and soldiers, with the soldiersled by Phibun. In 1938, Phibuns faction took control of the government,and he became Prime Minister.

Phibun felt the need to create a unied national identity in order to bothlegitimate his own power and modernise the Thai state. Phibun hoped toreshape traditional loyalty to the monarchy into a commitment to the nationthrough numerous government efforts to develop nationalism. He changedthe name of the country to Thailand in 1939 to better reect the Thai ethnicgroup which was encapsulated within its borders (Baker and Pasuk 2005:132133). He also employed a variety of strategies to dene what it meant


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to be a good Thai, including instructions on proper dress and actions, evenhow and when men should kiss their wives.

Along with the secular strategies came a determination to developBuddhism as one of the most important components of Thai identity(Kobkua 1995: 12, 105106). Buddhist institutions throughout Thailandduring the early years of the nation were better developed than their secularcounterparts. The temples scattered throughout the country had tradition-ally served as community hubs, providing numerous services which thegovernment was not yet able to. The monasteries provided:

. . . a community chest; a meeting place where news andgossip are exchanged; a recreation centre; a hospital intimes of difculty; a school for religious training as well assecular training; a place of deposit (bank); a communitywarehouse for equipment rental; a home for the psychoticand aged; an employment agency; a social work andwelfare agency; the village clock; a free hotel; a freehostel for students; an information centre; a news agency;playground for children; a sports centre; the poor house; alandlord; a reliable water reservoir; a counseling centre(Somboon 1976: 1920).

The religion was better equipped to supply public goods than thegovernment in almost all respects, especially in rural areas wherethe majority of the people lived. As Somboon (1976: 19) wrote, apartfrom the family, the [temple] is the next most important institution in Thairural life. The religion was a tool for mobilisation as well, spurring bothrebellion (Murdoch 1974) and massive building projects (Tamnan 1968:1214).3

Religion also served as a legitimating factor for the aristocracy and themonarchy, supporting a belief that hereditary political leaders had greatmerit accumulated from previous incarnations. Early cosmographic mapshad placed the king at the centre of this spiritual world which had existedindependently of the physical one (Neale 1852: 55). Historically, Buddhistcosmology had also been delineated through pilgrimages, but the spirituallocations were spread across South and Southeast Asia, with many of themexisting outside what was mapped as Thai space (Keyes 1975: 8589).By overthrowing the monarchy and appealing to the new geo-body ofSiam, Phibun had upset the conceptions of traditional cosmographichierarchy. In order to rectify the discrepancy of spiritual and politicalpower and increase state legitimacy, Phibun undertook to harness this


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amorphous spiritual power and institutional strength within the boundariesof the political geo-body.4 He set out to centre Thai Buddhism withinThai-land.

Genesis of the Geo-Soul

The Phibun government sought to conscript Buddhism to the nationalrhetoric through numerous means including rituals, but one of the mostimportant efforts for the re-centring of Buddhism was the adaptation ofBuddhist temples as markers of national space and identity.5 The choice tofocus on temples hearkened back to traditional patterns of governance inwhich the legitimacy of rulers depended upon merit earned. The role of aruler was that of performing merit in expensive ways, which no commonercould afford. One of the greatest of these methods was that of building orrestoring a religious monument which had fallen into ruin (Byrne 1995:271272). These spiritual buildings, through their adoption by the nationalgovernment rather than individual rulers, became the immortal monumentsof the Thai geo-soul.6 The development and promotion of Buddhisttemples was so important that during Phibuns second government, thestate spent 693 million baht restoring over 5,500 temples around thecountry (Kobkua 1995: 140141).

Although temples generally were given special regard by the government,four temples were chosen to become the focal points for demarcating thegeo-soul. The four represented each of the major regions of the Thai geo-body: Bangkok and the surrounding area, the North, the Northeast, and theSouth.7 Three of the temples existed prior to the development of Thainationalism and were widely regarded as the most sacred locations in theirrespective regions. The fourth temple, at the capital, was built by Phibun inorder to offset the role of the just-overthrown monarchy and centre thestate-style Buddhist religion in Bangkok.

The adoption of each of these temples to the religio-national identityreveals a pattern; so each is briey considered below. Their location inrelation to the geo-body is displayed in Figure 1.

Wat Phra Sri Mahathat in Bangkok

The most important temple for Phibun personally was the one which hebuilt to commemorate the end of the absolute monarchy. During a cabinetmeeting on 19 September 1940, Prime Minister Phibun presented a plan tobuild a temple which in his mind would serve as the paragon of allBuddhist monasteries and the blueprint for future temples (Manit 1997:8385). This temple, which Phibun originally titled Wat Prachathipitai or


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Democracy Temple, was to be located near the site of the defeat of royalistforces shortly after the overthrow of the absolute monarchy. Phibun hademerged as the victorious commander during the incident, and this templewould serve to further promote his government while commemorating the

Figure 1. Distribution of temples under discsussion within the geo-body of Thailand.


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failure of the royalists. It would also serve as an immortal declaration of theBuddhist nature of the Thai state. Phibun declared:

The Buddhist Religion is the most glorious religion for thewhole of the Thai people and many other nations in othercountries to believe in. It is a religion which is alwaysmodern. More importantly, Thailand is a democraticcountry . . . [and] Buddhism is one of the foundations ofdemocratic rule . . . therefore, it is appropriate that [theThai people] do something to help promote Buddhism.Therefore, the government has decided to build a templenear the Constitutional Defense Monument and give it thename of Democracy Temple (cited in Manit 1997: 8385).

The temple was completed very quickly, and its dedication was held onNation Day, 24 June 1942, the ten-year anniversary of the absolutemonarchys fall.

The edice would soon take on even more symbolic importance. As thetemple was planned and built, a special envoy travelled to India. Alongsidethe mandate to develop better relations with the British colonial power andthe Indian government, the delegation had a second important task, toperform a national pilgrimage and retrieve sacred icons from the birth-place of Buddhism. These included dirt from each of the four sacredpilgrimage locations mentioned in Buddhist scripture and sprigs from theoriginal Bodhi tree where the Buddha had rested. The Indian governmentgranted permission for the delegation to obtain the requested items; veBodhi tree starts and other relics were soon on their way to Bangkok(Somkhit et al. 19821983: 82). After a short stay in the National Museum,notably not a Buddhist temple, the relics were placed in Wat Prachathipatai,which was renamed Wat Phra Sri Mahathat to reect its new sacred nature.

Buddhist relics from India were not the only sacred items brought out tostrengthen the nationalist temple. A Sukhothai-era Buddhist image wasclaimed from the National Museum to link the religious edice to thehistoric past. The temple was also prepared to serve as a national cemeterywith 112 urns prepared to receive the remains of those who greatlycontributed to the nation (Somkhit et al. 19821983: 83). The temple wasdeveloped as not only a monument to Buddhism, but a commemoration ofthe democratic Thai nation (Dhamma Thai 2007).

The Bodhi sprigs brought from India took on special signicancein Phibuns nationalism project. Bodhi trees were readily available in


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Thailand, but to obtain shoots from the sacred tree where the Buddha satwas an act of immense merit, accomplished on behalf of the nation. Theve living starts symbolised the transfer of Buddhist cosmological spacefrom its previously amorphous spiritual geography to the physical realm ofThailands boundaries. Two of the trees were planted in Wat Phra SriMahathat in Bangkok; the remaining three were sent out, one to eachregion, to be planted in the strategic temples discussed below (Somkhit etal. 19821983: 8182). The living trees acted as a conduit by which thereligion was tied to the geo-body, with its heart in Bangkok where spiritualand political power was concentrated. The geo-soul began to take shape.

Wat Phra That Phanom in Northeast Thailand

From Bangkok, the Bodhi trees spread out to the farthest reaches of thecountry. In the Northeast, often called the Isan, the destination was thetemple associated with the Phra That Phanom cedi about 50 kilometressouth of the town of Nakhorn Phanom. This temple was by far the mostremote of the four that Phibun used to create the Thai religio-nationalidentity. Besides being unassociated with any major city, it also hugged theriver border between the Thai geo-body and the realm of French Indochina.Even so, and perhaps because of it, Phibun and his government felt that theshrine was the most important Buddhist monument in the Northeast for thecreation of a religio-national identity.8

For almost forty years the temple and cedi had been left to crumble in theharsh climate of the Isan. Previous maintenance was performed by locallords or monks, who regarded the monument as a memorial enshrining arelic of the Buddha, but due to the creation of the geo-body, old powerstructures had changed and maintenance of the temple had slipped throughthe administrative net (Pruess 1976). In 1940, though, Phibun recognisedthe shrine as an important opportunity for the development and strengthen-ing of the Thai geo-body and geo-soul in the Isan due to its signicance inIsan religious lore and its location at the edge of Thai space.

The 1893 treaty with France which created the northeast boundary of theThai state (along with a demilitarised zone on the Thai side) still painedThai nationalists. In 1940, the Phibun government, recognising theincreasingly weak position of the French government due to World War IIin Europe, sought to renegotiate the treaty. Thailand desired to remove thetwenty-ve kilometre demilitarised zone and redraw the border using thethalweg principle (Kobkua 1995: 256259). Although negotiations fellthrough, the government chose Wat Phra That Phanom as an appropriatesymbol which could dene the position of Thai geographic and spiritual


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space. Phibun delegated the temples restoration to the nationalistic FineArts Department which quickly began not only restoration, but expansion(Isan Khong Raw 1985: 112). The government abandoned the previousconstruction materials of mortar; instead, they used new technology,reinforced concrete. The cedis height was increased by ten metres, makingit fty-seven metres tall and visible from even greater distances than before(Phra That Phanom 2006a). The Bodhi tree, travelling from Bangkok,arrived and was planted on the temple grounds, linking the massivemonument to Thailand and local Buddhism to the central temple in thecapital (Pruess 1976: 75).

Throughout the following years, the temple continued to garner symboliclinks to the central Thai religio-national identity. In 1950, the temple wasgranted the status of royal temple of the rst order (Phra That Phanom2006b). Four years later the temple also received a golden umbrellaweighing 110 kilograms from the government to commemorate itsimportance to the national identity (Phra That Phanom 2006a).9 Themonument was no longer important to merely local Buddhists, it becamea very important monument representative of temples and nation also,effectively identifying the religious monument with the national identity(Phra That Phanom 2006b). It enforced the boundary of the geo-body andaligned the geo-soul with the geographic boundaries of the state. Thetemple served as a massive beacon declaring the Northeast as both Thaiand Buddhist.

Wat Phra Mahathat Woromha Wihan in the South

Nestled in the centre of the southern provincial capital Nakhorn SriThammarat sits the most important site in Southern Thailand, the templeWat Phra Mahathat (Tourism Authority of Thailand 2005a). The Buddhistsections of the southern region had a much easier transition as a part ofthe geo-body than the North, the Northeast, and Muslim regions of thefar South (Vickery 1970). This was perhaps in part due to their earlierincorporation into the Siamese kingdom, which was accomplished in 1796AD (Munro-Hay 2001: 169170). Even so, the region garnered attentionfrom nationalist leaders push to create a unied religio-national identity.

Unlike the other temples considered here, Wat Phra Mahathat began itsincorporation into the Thai religio-national identity prior to Phibuns rise topower. It had long been considered sacred; according to local legend,a reliquary within the temple enshrines a relic of the Buddha brought tothe location from India through a set of miraculous circumstances (Wyatt1975: 6676). King Vajiravudh, during a visit to the region, decided to


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enlist the national government as the patron of the sacred temple, tying it tohis ofcial nationalism. He also elevated the temple to royal status with thesufx woromha wihan (Somkhit et al. 19821983: 664). Following thedownfall of the absolute monarchy, the government decided to dedicate aportion of the temple to become a branch of the National Museum in 1937(Wichian et al. 1978: 452). One of the temple structures was adapted to thepurpose, and it began to display Thai objects (Krom Silapakon 1974:197). The connection to the National Museum not only linked the templeby the National title to the religio-national identity, the temple alsobecame a display case for symbols of national identity.10 After Phibunbecame Prime Minister, the government efforts to nationalise the templecontinued. The Bodhi tree arrived with a government escort on 19 May1943. The tree was accompanied by Somdej Mahaveerawonge, theecclesiastical leader of the Bangkok-based Sangha, or monastic order,who presided over the planting ceremony and celebrations (Wichian et al.1978: 461462).11 Thus, the temple symbolically received patronage andlegitimacy from the national government rather than from religious meritor local leaders. The temple became a symbol of the geo-body and anextension of the geo-soul whose heart lay in Bangkok, along with that ofthe nation.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in the North

The Northern region had a difcult time incorporating into the geo-body ofThailand for two reasons. The religion observed in the region was a variantof Theravada Buddhism, but its practice was separate from that of theBangkok government. During the administrative reforms which created theSiamese state, thousands of monks in the region had refused to obeygovernment commands to align themselves with the Bangkok-basedsangha. Their strength was exhibited in the fact that monks could gatherlarge numbers of peasants to give gratuitous labour while the Bangkok-based government struggled to enforce laws (Tambiah 1976: 245246;Tamnan 1968: 1214). The North had also been ruled by a royal courtseparate from the one in Bangkok, and it was difcult to completely severtheir power. Some Northern royals retained their titles until the 1940s(Vickery 1970: 876). The government viewed the region as one of potentialtrouble for the nation if it could not be incorporated into the religio-nationalidentity.

Phibun sought to use religious symbolism to develop the religio-nationalidentity in the region, and Wat Phra That Doi Sutheps location and historyof royal patronage played into the governments choice to adopt it to thenational rhetoric. Mountains held a signicant role in the Northern


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religious practices as a focus of spiritual power and governmentallegitimacy (Swearer and Sommai 1978: 2032).The choice to commandeera sacred temple at the top of a mountain overlooking the largest city in theregion had tremendous symbolic implications.

On the afternoon of 2 July 1943, a crowd gathered around the Chiang Maitrain station in North Thailand. The gathering was one prepared to receivethe merit-lled Bodhi tree sapling garnered by the national governmentfrom India. When the tree arrived with its entourage from Bangkok, it wasparaded through the streets of the city and then displayed at one of thecitys temples for seven days of celebrations and worship. At the end of theseventh day, the tree was carried up the mountain overlooking the city to itsresting place at one of the most sacred temples in the region, Wat Phra ThatDoi Suthep (Phra That Doi Suthep 2003). Phibun had graciously grantedthe people of North Thailand the opportunity to raise the tree, which tiedtheir religious tradition cosmologically to Bangkok and the other regions ofthe country.

After the sacred tree was planted, other symbolic gestures indicated itsimportance in tying together the geo-body and the geo-soul. The templereceived a name upgrade in 1951, aligning it with the Bangkok-basedBuddhist priesthood. Its central cedi also received a new coat of gold at acost of over 540,000 baht to the national government (Tamnan 1968: 1415). Through government manipulation, the temple became the symbol ofThai religio-national identity for the region.

Spiritual Mapping

Each of the temples developed by the Phibun government held specialsymbolic and spiritual signicance for the development of a religio-national identity. They did this in three ways. First, the temples denedThai spiritual space. Each temple discussed in this analysis was asignicant point of spiritual power. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and WatPhra That Phanom were both early markers of religious iconography in thespiritual maps of the regions which were later incorporated into the Thaistate (Keyes 1975). They were linked to locations both inside and outsideof what would one day become Thailand. Wat Phra Mahathat hadtraditionally been considered a centre of Buddhist learning and importance(Wichian et al. 1978: 442443). In the minds of locals, it was of immensespiritual signicance. Phibuns Wat Phra Sri Mahathat became a beacon ofspiritual space due to the relics interred there from India. By placing earthfrom each of the sacred pilgrimage locations mentioned in Buddhistscripture and planting two Bodhi starts taken from the tree where the


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Buddha sat within the temple, Phibun hoped to make it a new spiritualcentre of Buddhism. Each of the four temples also held sacred relics fromthe Buddha, and they could serve as substitutes for pilgrimages to distant(non-Thai) Buddhist homelands. Thus the temples enabled Thailand tosubstitute itself as a homeland for Buddhism.

Second, the temples which Phibun chose delineated Thai geographicspace. It was no accident that the government developed a major templein each region. Phibuns efforts to use Buddhism as a unifying factor in theThai national identity also allowed for the use of Buddhist emblems assymbols of the Thai nation. Thus, the temples could act as signs delineatinggeographic space, reinforcing the geo-body with religious symbols. Themost dramatic example is that of Wat Phra That Phanom which overlooksthe border of the Thai state, but Wat Phra Doi Suthep and Wat PhraMahathat overlook population centres, which are just as important in thedelineation of geographic space.

Finally, nationalist leaders efforts infused the geo-body with a geo-soul.In the effort to enforce the reach of the state equally across all landscircumscribed by its borders, the Thai government faced strong resis-tance, partially orchestrated through religious means (see Murdoch 1974;Kamala 1997: 4345). Through manipulating the temples in each regionand tying them to Bangkok, the government sought to create a uniedreligio-national identity and effectively ll the geo-body with a singulargeo-soul.

The Enduring Geo-Soul

The Thai geo-soul has been one of the most enduring products of thePhibun era. The leaders who followed Phibun, even those who dislikedhim, found themselves paying tribute to the religio-national monuments headapted to the national identity (with the notable exception of Wat Phra SriMahathat, discussed below). Throughout the decades since the develop-ment of Thai nationalism, the geo-soul has taken on increasing signicancedue to continuing governmental support, primarily through the efforts ofthe current monarch.

Following the fall of Phibuns second regime, the government continued todevelop the religio-national identity of Thailand. The next Prime Minister,Sarit, recognised the signicance of using religious symbols to promotenationalism, but unlike Phibun, he chose to promote the palace as thedefender of Buddhism and the nation. Under Phibun, the monarchy hadbeen constantly pushed aside, but after he was ousted the palace was able to


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regain much of its former inuence. Through the assistance of monarch-friendly political leaders, King Bhumibol has been able to tie himself intothe religio-national identity. Where Phibul had manufactured nationalpatronage at temples, the king personied the national image. Instead ofan amorphous Thai patron, the king made royal, vicarious pilgrimages toeach of the peripheral temples discussed above. At Wat Phra That DoiSuthep the king took part in the casting of a golden Buddha image whichremained at the temple as an ever-present spiritual reminder that the templeserves as one of the outposts of a Thai religio-national identity (Phra ThatDoi Suthep 2003). After a rainstorm caused the collapse of the Wat PhraThat Phanom cedi in 1975, the national government quickly rebuilt theshrine. King Bhumibol presided over the rededication ceremony andcalmed the religious fears that the collapse had created (Bangkok Post1975). He also visited the temple in the South to make an ofcialpilgrimage and bestow his royal blessing. Through this monarchic patron-age, the geo-soul of the nation has been reinforced and strengthened.

The only temple among the four which has failed to live up to its nationalpotential is Wat Phra Sri Mahathat, Phibuns creation. It is relegated to alow position on the Bangkok Tourism Website and ignored in the TourismAuthority of Thailands suggested list of important religious sites inBangkok (Tourism Authority of Thailand 2005b). The temples failurecould be attributed to many causes including the abundance of alternativetemples in Bangkok and its distance from the centre of the city. Perhaps themost important factor for the temple is its failure to gain support from themonarchy. King Bhumibol and Phibun disliked one another, whichprompted the Kings later choice to avoid Phibuns temple. In 1952, theking and his royal princes snubbed the temple as they presented new robesto monks in the rst-class royal temples, of which Wat Phra Sri Mahathatwas one (Handley 2006: 128130). The temples location near themonument commemorating the defeat of the royalist rebellion likely addedto the kings desire to keep his distance from the temple. Instead, templesclosely associated with the monarchy in central Bangkok have embodiedthe role of the geo-souls focal point.

Although Phibuns central temple failed to work its way into the enduringgeo-soul, his efforts to create a religio-national identity served as afoundation for future governmental actions to nationalise Buddhism.Phibun took a new political order with weak institutions within a geo-bodycreated by external colonial inuences and began to develop a geo-soul byre-centring Buddhism within the state. Successive political leaders havefurther developed the religio-national identity of the Thais (see Keyes


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1971). The Buddhist identity of the Thais has continued to serve as one ofthe states most important unifying factors for more than half a century. Thetemples along with the Buddhist hierarchy and numerous other religioussymbols manipulated during the development of Thai nationalism havebecome markers signifying the geographic and spiritual space occupied bythe Thai nation.

Thus far, this paper has considered the elite action of spiritually mappingthe country, yet the map is only effective if it is widely read and used. TheThai people have, by and large, readily accepted the spiritual map of thegeo-soul delineated by the elites. Prior to the nationalist era, religiouspilgrimages had followed cosmographic maps (Keyes 1975), but with there-centring of Buddhism, national shrines became more important. Thetradition of a village pilgrimage (Kamala 1997: 3940) was slowlyreplaced by two other types of pilgrimage. The rst were ofcialpilgrimages by government elites evidenced above by the Royal Familyspatronage of certain temples. These national pilgrims would visit animportant temple, garbed in an ofcial uniform, representing thenational community, to worship. Their visits were often short, but wellreported. Print media, and later television and radio (both heavilycontrolled by the government), served to enlighten the public about thesevicarious pilgrimages of national leaders on behalf of the Thai people,many of whom had neither physically seen the leader nor the shrine inquestion.

More recently, the spiritual maps developed early in the nationalist era havebecome the blueprint for individual tourist pilgrimages. The populacewhich makes these pilgrimages has shifted from a village community to anational community: school children go on overnight trips to nationallyimportant temples; tour groups, made up of strangers, but nationalcompatriots, travel together and partake in the same pilgrimage. Thesetourist pilgrims take a quick tour in an air-conditioned bus to make meritat an auspicious temple. Kamala (1997: 288289) quotes one monkcomplaining about the nature of these new pilgrimages:

These days people are going all over the place looking formerit. [My temple] has become a stopover point. Somepeople are in such a hurry I dont even get a chance to seeor speak to them.

These pilgrims move quickly about their country bereft of traditionalvillage connections, taking in the Thai-ness of their homeland while alsopartaking in a brief religious experience.


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The government, through bureaucracies such as the Tourism Authority ofThailand (TAT) and the Fine Arts Department, has played a strong role indeveloping these tourist-pilgrimages. Thousands ock to yearly celebrationsput on by the government at Wat Phra That Phanom and Wat Phra Mahathat.Already by the 1970s, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, one of the templesmost heavily promoted by TAT, was regularly attended by thousands ofpious worshipers (Tambiah 1976: 501). The number has certainly grownexponentially since then. The government of Chiang Mai province recordsthat in 2004 over two million Thai tourists made their way to the province; in2005 that number increased by 50,000. The provincial government expectedthat number to continue to increase in 2006 (Chiang Mai ProvincialGovernment). The same report listed Wat Phra That Doi Suthep as one ofthe most important tourist draws to the area.12 These pilgrims, following thespiritual map of Siam, like blood travelling along the arteries of the nation,breathe life into the geo-body developed a century ago.

The geo-soul that Phibun wrought has evolved into the religio-nationalidentity which exists in Thailand today. Through linking Buddhismgeographically with the body of the Thai state, the religion became aninherent part of the Thai identity which would develop over the nextdecades. The geo-soul and consequent religio-national identity continue toshape the Thai political landscape today, from preventing integration ofminorities (see Chaiwat 2005: 97100) to shaping constitutional debates(see Wassana and Mongkol 2007).

In conclusion, through tracing the spiritual mapping process initiated by Phibun,we see that religious identity can be incorporated into the national identitythrough the vessel of the geo-body. By re-centring the religious identity withinthe national boundaries, nationalist leaders are able to create an environmentamenable to both identities. They can coexist and steadily reinforce one another,contrary to the claims in much of the nationalism literature that the religiousidentity should subside previous to the rise of the national identity. The Thaicase demonstrates that this conuence of the two identities has long-lastingeffects for the political climate of a nation. Thus, it is important to ecognize theimplications of a geo-soul, not only in the Thai case, but in the development ofreligio-national identities throughout the developing world.

Notes1 This article is a revised excerpt from mymasters thesis, Jacob Ricks, Sacred Symbols andNational Souls: Religion and National Identity in Thailand and Indonesia (Dekalb, IL:Northern Illinois University 2007). I wish to express special thanks to James Ockey for hisguidance and direction in this project. Thanks also go to Philips Vermonte and theanonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Any mistakes are my own.


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2 Thongchai (1994) gives a wonderful examination of these ancient maps and theirtreatment of cosmographic space in the rst chapter of his book. Cosmographic space wasmapped as relative to centres of spiritual power. Kings or temples were often at the centreand they were linked to other spiritual locations, with geographic space and distancemattering little. The ancient cosmography of Buddhism, linked through spiritual symbols(primarily temples) rather than geographic planes, is especially signicant in theconsideration of the method which Phibun used to centre the religion within nationalboundaries as detailed below.3 In 190102, millennial Buddhist tales often recited in temples spurred an uprising ofthousands in Northeastern Thailand. In the Northern region, monks under the leadership ofPhra Sriwichai gathered thousands of supporters to build a road up Doi Suthep Mountain toreach the temple at the summit. The project kept three to four thousand workers on site forve months in 1934; a time when the government struggled to assert itself in the region.4 It should be noted here that Phibuns motives were many. This brief treatment onlyhighlights a few of them. For a more detailed account of the context in which Phibunworked see Kobkuas (1995) book on Phibun cited in the bibliography.5 Important rituals which the government uses for the incorporation of the geo-soul includethe ploughing ceremony, the clothing of the Emerald Buddha, and the kathin (robebestowing) ceremony. These rituals and others are important to the development of theThai geo-soul, and their effect merits further research.6 Anderson (1973: 61) wrote of monuments signicance in the Indonesian context, notingthat it is useful to think about monuments as ways of mediating between particular types ofpasts and futures. In using a monument as a method of political communication, the builderestablishes a message of permanence stretching in both temporal directions.7 The Thai geo-body is composed of four regions evidencing distinct historical, political,geographic, and linguistic characteristics: the Central Plains, the North, the Northeast, andthe South. This categorisation of regions became an important part of the state-buildingprocess. For a more detailed discussion of how these distinctions affected the regionalintegration into the Thai state, see Vickery (1970).8 Other border temples have also been subject to national interest. Wat Chon Thara Singheon the banks of the Tak Bai River was used as evidence of Thai sovereignty during thenegotiations with the British over the southern border in 1909. Khao Phra Wihan, in thenortheast, was the source of a decades-long border dispute between Thailand andCambodia, which was decided by the World Court in 1962 in favour of Cambodia.9 The history produced by the monks at Phra That Phanom contains an interestingcommentary on the celebrations at that time. Although the Thai government sponsored theevent, Buddhists from both sides of the Mekong attended the event. The record (translatedinto English by one of the monks) distinguishes those attending along religio-nationalistlines: from the left bank . . . Laotian Buddhism, from the right bank . . . Thai Buddhism(Phra Thepratanamolee 2004: 67). The original Thai version makes less of a distinction(Phra Thepratanamolee 2004: 54 Thai pagination).10 For a more detailed treatment of the link between museums and national identity seeAnderson (1991: 178184).11 Somdej Mahaveeravongse presided at all three upcountry tree-planting ceremonies. Hispresence was signicant in that he symbolised the supremacy of the Bangkok-based Sangha overthe local monastic hierarchy. Only an ofcially sanctioned monk was sacred enough to presideover the planting of such a holy tree. This was also a reinforcement of the governments efforts tonationalise the monastic order (see Tambiah 1976: 241252). Today the Sangha leaders visit iscommemorated through a prominent plaque near each of the trees.


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12 A local saying in Chiang Mai states, going to Chiang Mai without paying homage toPhra That Doi Suthep is like never going to Chiang Mai at all. See Prawit 2004: 23.

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Jacob I. Ricks is a PhD student in Political Science atEmory University. He holds an MA in Political Sciencefrom Northern Illinois University with a concentration inSoutheast Asian Studies. His interests include nationalismand identity, democratisation, and statesociety relations.


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