Restructuring Sangha–Monarchy Relations in King Mongkut’s Buddhist Reforms: State Buddhism and the Nineteenth-Century Siamese State-Building Project
Abstract
This study examines the restructuring of relations between the Sangha and the monarchy during the Buddhist reforms of King Mongkut (Rama IV) and analyzes their implications for the formation of the Siamese state in the nineteenth century. This research is significant because Buddhist reform in Thailand often appears in scholarship as a purely religious renewal, detached from its broader political, ideological, and state-modernization contexts. Employing a qualitative historical approach based on library research, this study conducts a critical analysis of historical texts, religious policy documents, and academic works on Thai Buddhism, the Chakri monarchy, and Southeast Asian modernity. The findings demonstrate that Buddhist reform under Rama IV did not constitute a historical rupture but rather represented a logical continuation of long-standing Sangha–monarchy patronage patterns that had developed since the Ayutthaya period. These reforms produced three major transformations: the rationalization of Buddhist doctrine and practice, the bureaucratization of the Sangha as a state-regulated institution, and the consolidation of state Buddhism as a source of symbolic legitimacy and social cohesion. At the same time, this process generated several dysfunctions, including the erosion of Sangha autonomy, internal tensions between monastic orders, and ambiguities in religious identity. This study offers an original contribution by positioning King Mongkut’s Buddhist reforms as an integral component of Siam’s state-building project and political modernity. The findings enrich broader debates on religion–state relations by demonstrating how Buddhism functioned simultaneously as cultural capital, social infrastructure, and a technology of power within the Southeast Asian context.
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