Miloš Hubina

Advertising and Methodology: What Advertising Has to Teach us about (the study of) Thai Buddhism (part two)

Miloš Hubina, "Advertising and Methodology: What advertising has to teach us about (the study of) Thai Buddhism", part two, Central European Journal of Contemporary Religion 2 (2, 2017): p. 47-69.

In this paper I make proposals regarding further advances in the studies of Theravada Buddhism along the lines suggested by Justin McDaniel in his The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk (2011). The benefits of McDaniel’s approach lie in his de-emphasis of doctrinal tradition and his focus on local frames of reference in explaining Thai Buddhism. Its faults lie in a disregard for the developments outside the socio-cultural paradigm. I argue for the integration of socio-cultural and naturalist approaches to the study of religion. Balancing the over-accentuation of the explanatory power of either socio-cultural or cognitive concepts, such integration would also permit a move from the socio-cultural metaphorical models to causal and more controlled explanations of religious phenomena. 

I illustrate my suggestions through an example of a Thai wat (shrine/monastery). One of these suggestions, implied by the de-emphasis of the doctrinal tradition, is to recognize the predominantly advertising and ritualistic function of wats’ visuals, effigies, and architecture rather than reading them as symbolic expressions of doctrinal tenets.

DOI: 10.14712/25704893.2017.10

Download PDF

References

“Global Peace Index 2016” [online], Institute for economics and Peace, accessed June 2016, available online at http://static.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/GPI%202016%20Report_2.pdf.

Atran, Scott, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, New York: Oxford University Press 2004, 400 p.

Bailey, Greg, and Ian Mabbett, The Sociology of Early Buddhism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003, 284 p.

Barrett, Justin L., “Cognitive Constraints on Hindu Concepts of Divine”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37 (4, 1998): p. 608-619.

Barrett, Justin L., “Theological Correctness: Cognitive Constrains and the Study of Religion”, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 11 (4, 1999): p. 325-339.

Barrett, Justin L., „Bringing Data to Mind: Empirical Claims of Lawson and McCauley's Theory of Religious Ritual“, in T. Light and B. C. Wilson (eds.), Religion as a Human Capacity: A Festschrift in Honor of E. Thomas Lawson, Leiden, Boston: Brill 2004, p. 265-288.

Barrett, Nathaniel F., “Toward an Alternative Evolutionary Theory of Religion: Looking Past Computational Evolutionary Psychology to a Wider Field of Possibilities”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78 (3, 2010): p. 583-621.

Boddhi, Bhikkhu, The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya, Boston: Wisdom Publications 2012, 1924 p.

Boyer, Pascal, “Cognitive Aspects of Religious Symbolism”, in Pascal Boyer (ed.), Cognitive Aspects of Religious Symbolism, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 1993, p. 4- 47.

Boyer, Pascal, and Charles Ramble, “Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-intuitive Representations”, Cognitive Science 25 (2001): p. 535–564.

Boyer, Pascal, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, New York: Basic Books 2001, 375 p.

Boyer, Pascal, The Fracture of an Illusion: Science and the Dissolution of Religion, Götingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2011, 112 p.

Boyer, Pascal, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion, Berkeley: University of California Press 1994, 324 p.

Brekke, Torkel, Religious Motivation and the Origins of Buddhism: A Social-Psychological Exploration of the Origins of a World Religion, London, New York: Routledge 2002, 150 p.

Connors, Michael K., Democracy and National Identity in Thailand, New York, London: RoutledgeCurzon 2005, first published 2003, 275 p.

Cook, Joanna, Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 2010, 214 p.

D’Andrade, Roy G., “Schemas and Motivations”, in Roy G.D’Andrade and Claudia Strauss (eds.), Human motives and Cultural Models, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997 (first published 1992), p. 23-44.

Engel, David M., and Jaruwan D. Engel, Tort, Custom, and Karma: Globalization and Legal Consciousness in Thailand, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2010, 190 p.

Evans, Jonathan S., “Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition”, in Annual Review of Psychology, 59 (2008): p. 255-278.

Geertz, Armin W., “The Meaningful Brain: Clifford Geertz and the Cognitive Science of Culture”, in Dimitris Xygalatas and William W. McCorkle (eds.), Mental Culture: Classical Social Theory and the Cognitive Science of Religion, Durham: Acumen 2013, p. 176-196.

Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books 2000 (first published 1973), 470 p.

Gombrich, Richard, “Recovering the Buddha’s Message”, Buddhist Forum (1), London: SOAS 1990, p. 5-20.

Gombrich, Richard, How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings, London, New York: Routledge 2006 (first published 1996), 180 p.

Gombrich, Richard: Theravāda Buddhism: A social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo, London, New York: Routledge 1988, 237 p.

Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, New York: Vintage 2012, 528 p.

Hanks, Lucien M., Jr., “Merit and Power in the Thai Social Order”, American Anthropologist New Series 64 (6, 1962): p. 1247-1261.

Holt, Clifford, Spirits of Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture, Honolulu: University of Hawaii 2009, 348 p.

Jackson, Peter A., “Withering Centre Flourishing Margins. Buddhism's Changing Political Roles”, in Kevin Hewison, (ed.), Political Change in Thailand. Democracy and Participation, London, New York: Routledge 1997, p. 75-93.

Jensen, Jeppe S., “Framing Religious Narrative: Cognition and Culture Theoretically”, in Armin W. Geertz and Jeppe S. Jensen (eds.), Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture: Image and Word in the Mind of Narrative, London, Oakville: Equinox 2011, 336 p.

Kamkee-an Suvanno, Watching: Not ‘Being’: Developing Awareness According to the Practice of Loo-ang Por Tee-an Cittasubho, compiled and translated by Venerable Tone (Tony) Jinavamso (Antoine van der Bom), 2006.

Kirsch, Thomas A., “Complexity of Thai Religious System”, The Journal of Asian Studies 36 (2, 1977): p. 241-266.

Kitiarsa, Pattana, “Beyond Syncretism: Hybridization of Popular Religion in Contemporary Thailand”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36 (3, 2005): p. 461–487.

Kitiarsa, Pattana, “Buddha Phanit: Thailand’s Prosperity Religion and its Commodifying Effect”, in Pattana Kitiarsa (ed.): Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods, London, New York: Routledge 2008, p. 120-143.

Kitiarsa, Pattana, Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books 2012, 170 p.

Komin, Suntaree, Psychology of Thai People: Values and Behavioral Patterns, Bangkok: NIDA 1990, 359 p.

Kumer, Hans, “Causal Knowledge in Animals”, in Dan Sperber, David Premack and Ann J. Premack, Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate, Oxford: Clarendon Press, New York: Oxford University Press 2002 (first published 1995), p. 26-36.

Langer, Rita, Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth: Contemporary Sri Lankan Practice and its Origins, London, New York: Routledge 2007, 243 p.

Lawson, Thomas, “Explanatory Pluralism and the Cognitive Science of Religion”, in Dmitris Xygalatas and William W. McCorkle Jr. (eds.) Mental Culture. Classical Social Theory and the Cognitive Science of Religion, Durham: Acumen 2013, p. 11-32.

Masuda, T., and R. E. Nisbet, Culture and Attention to Object vs. Field, unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan 2001.

Matics, K. I., Gestures of the Buddha, Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press 2004, 295 p.

McDaniel, Justin T., “Buddhism in Thailand. Negotiating the Modern Age”, in Stephen C. Berkwitz (ed.), Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO 2006, p. 101-128.

McDaniel, Justin T., “The Agency between Images: The Relationship among Ghosts, Corpses, Monks, and Deities at a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand”, a talk given at the International Conference: Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond, 9-11 August 2010, Bangkok Thailand (transcript).

McDaniel, Justin T., Gathering Leaves & Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand, Seattle: University of Washington Press 2008, 358 p.

McDaniel, Justin T., The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk, New York: Columbia University Press 2011, 327 p.

McDermott, James P., “Sādhīna Jātaka: A Case against the Transfer of Merit”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 94 (3, 1974), p. 385-387.

McDermott, James P., Development in the Early Buddhist Concept of Kama/Karma, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 2003 (first published 1984), 185 p.

Mole, Robert L., Thai Values and Behavior Patterns, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company 1973, 182 p.

Morris, Brian, Religion and Anthropology, New York: Cambridge University Press 2006, 350 p.

Mulder, Niels, Everyday Life in Thailand: An Interpretation, Bangkok: Duang Kamol 1979, 223 p.

Mulder, Niels, Inside Southeast Asia. Thai Javanese and Filipino Interpretations of Everyday Life, Bangkok: Duang Kamol 1992, 178 p.

Müller, Marion G., “Iconography and Iconology as a Visual Method and Approach”, in Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, Los Angeles: Sage Publications Ltd. 2011, p. 283-297.

Nisbett, RIchard E., Kaiping Peng, Incheol Choi and Ara Norenzayan, “Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus Analytic Cognition”, Psychological Review 108 (2, 2001): p. 291-310.

Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 2004, 329 p.

O’Connor, Richard A., “Centers of Sanctities, Regions and Religion: Varieties of Thai Buddhism", communication at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington D.C. 1985, 26 p.

O’Connor, Richard A., “Interpreting Thai Religious Change: Temples, Sangha Reform and Social Change”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 24 (2, 1993), p. 330-339.

Obeysekere, Gananath, “The Great Tradition and the Little”, The Journal of Asian Studies  22 (2, 1963): p. 139-153.

Obeysekere, Gananath, Imagining Karma. Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth, Berkeley: University of California Press 2002, 448 p.

Ockey, James, Making Democracy: Leadership, Class, Genders, and Political Participation in Thailand, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books 2004, 244 p.

Paden, William E., “Connecting with Evolutionary Models”, in Villi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon (eds.), Introducing Religion. Essays in Honor of Jonathan Z. Smith, London, Oakville: Equinox Publishing 2008, p. 416-417.

Paden, William E., “The Prestige of the Gods: Evolutionary Continuities in the Formation of Sacred Objects”, in Armin W. Geertz (ed.), Origins of Religion, Cognition and Culture, Durham: Acumen 2013, p. 82-97.

Paden, William E., New Patterns for Comparative Religion: Passages to an Evolutionary Perspective, London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic 2016, 253 p.

Pemaratana, Soorakkulame, “Evolution of the Theravāda Buddhist Idea of ‘Merit-transference’ to the Dead, and its Role in Sri Lankan Buddhist Culture”, Buddhist Studies Review 30 (1, 2013), p. 89–112.

Pichard, Pierre, “The Thai Monastery”, in Pierre Pichard and François Lagirarde (eds.), The Buddhist Monastery: A Cross-Cultural Survey, Paris: École française d'extrême-orient 2003, p. 93- 118.

Pyysiäinen, Ilka, How Religion Works: Towards and New Cognitive Science of Religion, Leiden, Boston: Brill 2003, 272 p.

Pyysiäinen, Ilka, Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 2009, 285 p.

Richerson, Peter  J., and Robert Boyd, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transforms Human Evolution, The University of Chicago Press 2006 (first published 2005), 332 p.

Ridley, Matt, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, Penguin Books 1996, 297 p.

Schwartz, Shalom H., “Basic human values: Their content and structure across countries”, in A. Tamayo and J. B. Porto (eds.), Valores e comportamento nas organizações, Petrópolis: Vozes 2005, p. 21-55.

Schwartz, Shalom H., “Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries” [online], Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 25 (1992), accessed May 2016, available online at http://kodu.ut.ee/~cect/teoreetiline%20seminar%2023.04.2013/Schwartz%201992.pdf.

Simpson, Andrew, and Noi Thammasathien, “Laos and Thailand”, in Andrew Simpson (ed.), Language and National Identity in Asia, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 2007, p. 391- 414.

Sørensen, Jesper, “Charisma, Tradition, and Ritual. A Cognitive Approach to Magical Agency”, in Harvey Whitehouse and Robert M. McCauley (eds.) Mind and Religion. Psychological and Cognitive Foundations of religion, Lanham: Altamira Press 2005, p. 167-186.

Sørensen, Jesper, “Religion, Evolution, and the Immunology of Cultural Systems”, Evolution and Cognition 2 10 (1, 2004): p. 61-73.

Sørensen, Jesper, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, Lanham: Altamira Press 2007, 218 p.

Sperber, Dan, “Apparently Irrational Beliefs”, in Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes (eds.), Rationality and Relativism, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 1993 (first published 1983), p. 149-180.

Sperber, Dan, Rethinking Symbolism, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 1975, 153 p.

Spiro, Melford E., “Religion: Problems of definition and Explanation”, in Michael Banton (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. London, New York: Routledge 2004 (first published 1966), p. 85-126.

Spiro, Melford E., Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes, Second expanded edition, Berkeley: University of California 1982 (first published 1970), 510 p.

Swearer, Donald K., Becoming the Buddha: The ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2004.

Talmont-Kaminski, Konrad, Religion as Magical Ideology: How the Supernatural Reflects Rationality, Durham: Acumen 2013, 160 p.

Tambiah, Stanley J., Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand, Cambridge University Press 1970, 388 p.

Tambiah, Stanley J., The Buddhist saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, hagiography, Sectarianism, and Millennial Buddhism, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press 1984, 417 p.

Taylor, James, “(Post-) Modernity, Remaking Tradition, and the Hybridisation of Thai Buddhism”, Anthropological Forum 9 (2, 1999), p. 163-187.

Taylor, James, “Cyber-Buddhism and Changing Urban Space in Thailand” [online], Space and Culture 6 (3, 2003; accessed May 2016): p. 292-308, available online at http://sac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/3/292.

Taylor, James, “Understanding Social Realities: Stanley Tambiah's Early Contribution to Sociology of Thai Buddhism”, in Felicity Aulino, Miriam Goheen and Stanley J. Tambiah (eds.), Radical Egalitarianism: Local Realities, Global Relations, New York: Fordham University Press 2013, p. 51-67.

Terwiel, Barend J., “A Model for the Study of Thai Buddhism”, The Journal of Asian Studies 35 (3, 1976): p. 391-403.

Terwiel, Barend J., Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies in Central Thailand, Third Revised edition, Bangkok: White Lotus 1994 (first published 1975), 302 p.

Thānissaro, The Buddhist Monastic Code: The PāṭimokkhaTraining Rules Translated and Explained, The Mahāmaḳuta Educational Council 1993.

Turner, Léon, “Introduction: Pluralism and Complexity in the Evolutionary Cognitive Science of Religion”, in Fraser Watts and Léon Turner, Evolution Religion and Cognitive Science. Critical and Constrictive Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, p. 1-20.

Whitehouse, Harwey, “Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Religion”, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 14 (2002): p. 293-315.

Wilson, David Sloan, Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2002, 268 p.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951, edited by James Klagge and Alfred Nordman, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing 1993, p. 193.

Xygalatas, Dimitris, and William W. McCorkle (eds.), Mental Culture: Classical Social Theory and the Cognitive Science of Religion, Durham: Acumen 2013, 268 p.