In the quarter century preceding the August 1945 Revolution, social change was a subject often on the minds of Vietnamese. People of diverse class backgrounds and political predilections knew that Vietnamese society was being altered fundamentally. How to understand, what attitude to ake, where to go in the future—these were questions receiving constant attention.

THIS paper constitutes an attempt to reconcile—at least for one region of Southeast Asia: central Thailand—one of the discrepancies in analyses of contemporary Theravada Buddhism. The model proposed below—which is the outcome of comparing some of the relevant literature with my own field data—encompasses two distinct sections of society, each holding a different attitude towards Buddhism. The interaction between different interpretations of religion may well be one of the major factors n i the process of religious change in Thailand. Furthermore, this model may be of use for other Theravada Buddhist countries.

Literature on the Subject

A survey of the literature on the practice of religion in Theravāda Buddhist countries reveals what may be a unique situation in the study of religions. Many authors state unequivocally that Theravāda Buddhists adhere to more than one religious tradition. Apart from “otherworldly” Buddhism, these Southeast Asian peoples adhere to other strands of religion, generally classed under rubrics such as “non-Buddhist beliefs,” “folk religion,” “animism,” or “supernaturalism.” Yet, though virtually all authors recognize this situation, there is no consensus in their views on how the different subsystems are interrelated.

Although political and cultural developments in India have strongly influenced those in Ceylon for many centuries, the effects were often contradictory and ironic. The land that sent the Buddhist religion to Ceylon also sent invaders to plunder its Buddhist monuments; and the Indian mercenaries recruited by the kings of Ceylon to strengthen the royal army were such a turbulent element that they themselves frequently posed the greatest threat to the stability of the realm. India's cultural contributions to Ceylon are well known, and have been examined in detail by Indian, Ceylonese, and Western scholars. The purpose of this paper is to examine the more abrasive side of the Indian–Ceylonese relationship during the eleventh century, when the imperial Chola kings of southern India sent invading armies into Ceylon, bent upon occupation and plunder. A more general aim of this analysis is to suggest thatorganized plundering activity was a more important politico-economic instrument in the traditional Indian state than most historians have hitherto acknowledged.

Analyses of Japanese political development during the period 1868–1900 have for the most part obscured the fact that the kind of problems faced by the Restoration leaders played a major role in shaping the governing structure they created. Perhaps the most significant of these problems in the years immediately following the restoration of the emperor in 1868 was that of leadership succession. The total replacement of Bakuhan leadership in the decade 1868–78 raised serious practical questions as to how the new leadership could insure their authority and legitimacy. Such questions were not peculiar to the Japanese situation; they are questions all organizations face when they undergo total or partial replacement of leadership. However, the application of such conceptual categories as “tradition” and “modernization” has made it difficult to distinguish between those features of political development that were the consequence of being forced to deal with problems that arise in all organizations as a consequence of leadership succession and those that can be attributed to continuing social and cultural patterns.

In any anthology of Chinese politicalor Kuan Chung or Kuan Tzu scattered in the works of most,writing, one is likely to find the namesif not all, periods fromKuan the Spring and Autumn to the present. According to a widely accepted tradition, it was due to Kuan Chung's political and financial policies when he was prime minister that Duke Huan of Ch'i was able to seize the leadership of the Chinese states in the seventh century B.C. Duke Huan thus became the first of a series of hegemons who dominated the Eastern Chou empire.

In 1871, aborigines in southern Taiwan killed fifty-four shipwrecked Ryukyuan fisherman. By 1874 this incident had grown into a major international crisis for the Ch'ing Court in Peking, because the Japanese had insisted on punishing the aborigines (through a military occupation of their territory) after the Chinese hesitated to do so. As a result of the negotiations with Japanese diplomats concerning this matter, the Court was made sharply aware of the need to intensify and extend the Chinese administration of Taiwan; to fail to do so would obviously tempt the Japanese and other foreigners to occupy and perhaps annex areas that were not governed or settled by the Chinese.