against the stream- the thai female buddhist saint mae chi kaew sianglam (1901-1991)

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South East Asia Research, 18, 3, pp 555–595 doi: 10.5367/sear.2010.0006 ‘Against the Stream’: the Thai female Buddhist saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (1901–1991) 1 Martin Seeger Abstract: Both Thai and Western academia have recently paid increasing attention to the changing roles of Thai Buddhist women. Still conspicuously missing, however, are more in-depth studies of female Buddhist saints in Thailand and the attendant symbol- ism, which would provide a more adequate depiction of the contemporary Thai Buddhist landscape. Similar to the prominent role of the mae chi in monastic education, the emergence of hagiographies and the veneration of female Buddhist saints has not, to date, been given sufficient attention in academic studies. To help remedy this situation, this paper provides a life account of one of the most outstanding female practitioners of modern Thai Buddhism: Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (1901–1991). A summary of an increasing number of available biographical materials on Mae Chi Kaew’s life is followed by a thematic analysis in which the author examines various aspects of her life accounts and her veneration. The purpose is to study the enormous significance of Mae Chi Kaew’s biographies 1 This research was financially supported by the ASEASUK Research Committee on South East Asian Studies. I wish to thank the National Research Council in Thailand for permission to conduct fieldwork in Thailand. I would like to thank Mr Naris Charaschanyawong, who accompanied me to temples of the Thai forest tradition and made significant contributions to many of the interviews I conducted with monks, mae chis and lay people. I would also like to thank Ven. Gavesako Bhikkhu, Donald Swearer, Justin McDaniel, Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi, Catherine Newell and Naris Charaschanyawong for their comments on this paper. I thank Phra-khru-palat Suvathanavachirakhun Sawai Chotika (Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University), Khru-ba Jaew Sianglam (Dhammadharo, Wat Pa Wiwekwathanaram) and Phra Ajan Inthawai Santussako (abbot of Wat Pa Nakhamnoi) for their support. Finally, I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed reading of an earlier version of this paper and for their valuable comments and suggestions. A standard- ized system for the romanization of Thai script is adopted here – except in cases where proper names have an established transliteration of their own. Throughout this paper, Thai words are differentiated from Pali words by underlining (Pali words are italicized; Thai words are italicized and underlined). All the translations from the Thai and from Pali are my own, unless stated otherwise.

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  • South East Asia Research, 18, 3, pp 555595 doi: 10.5367/sear.2010.0006

    Against the Stream: the Thai femaleBuddhist saint Mae Chi Kaew

    Sianglam (19011991)1

    Martin Seeger

    Abstract: Both Thai and Western academia have recently paidincreasing attention to the changing roles of Thai Buddhist women.Still conspicuously missing, however, are more in-depth studiesof female Buddhist saints in Thailand and the attendant symbol-ism, which would provide a more adequate depiction of thecontemporary Thai Buddhist landscape. Similar to the prominentrole of the mae chi in monastic education, the emergence ofhagiographies and the veneration of female Buddhist saints has not,to date, been given sufficient attention in academic studies. To helpremedy this situation, this paper provides a life account of one ofthe most outstanding female practitioners of modern Thai Buddhism:Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (19011991). A summary of an increasingnumber of available biographical materials on Mae Chi Kaews lifeis followed by a thematic analysis in which the author examinesvarious aspects of her life accounts and her veneration. The purpose isto study the enormous significance of Mae Chi Kaews biographies

    1 This research was financially supported by the ASEASUK Research Committee onSouth East Asian Studies. I wish to thank the National Research Council in Thailandfor permission to conduct fieldwork in Thailand. I would like to thank Mr NarisCharaschanyawong, who accompanied me to temples of the Thai forest tradition andmade significant contributions to many of the interviews I conducted with monks,mae chis and lay people. I would also like to thank Ven. Gavesako Bhikkhu, DonaldSwearer, Justin McDaniel, Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi, Catherine Newell and NarisCharaschanyawong for their comments on this paper. I thank Phra-khru-palatSuvathanavachirakhun Sawai Chotika (MahachulalongkornrajavidyalayaUniversity), Khru-ba Jaew Sianglam (Dhammadharo, Wat Pa Wiwekwathanaram)and Phra Ajan Inthawai Santussako (abbot of Wat Pa Nakhamnoi) for their support.Finally, I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed reading of an earlierversion of this paper and for their valuable comments and suggestions. A standard-ized system for the romanization of Thai script is adopted here except in caseswhere proper names have an established transliteration of their own. Throughoutthis paper, Thai words are differentiated from Pali words by underlining (Pali wordsare italicized; Thai words are italicized and underlined). All the translations fromthe Thai and from Pali are my own, unless stated otherwise.

  • 556 South East Asia Research

    and attendant symbolic representations in the context of thereligious landscape of Thai Buddhism. The author shows that manyhagiographical elements in the sacred biographies of Mae Chi Kaewapproximate the hagiographical paradigms not only of the Buddhaand other Pali canonical figures, but also of modern saints of theThai forest tradition. At the same time, however, significanthagiographical and venerational particularities can be observed.

    Keywords: Theravada Buddhism; mae chi; religious symbolism;amulets; superhuman powers; hagiography

    Author details: Martin Seeger is a Lecturer in Thai Language andCulture in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Leeds,Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. E-mail: [email protected].

    Significant gender imbalances appear to exist in Thai TheravadaBuddhism. While Thailand has more than 250,000 Theravada monks[bhikkhu]2 and some 70,000 male novices [s ama

    nera], there are no

    officially recognized nuns [bhikkhun] or female novices [s amaner] of

    the Theravada ordination lineage.3 Thai women who wish to be ordainedcan do so by either becoming a mae chi (mae chis are women whoshave their hair, keep either eight or ten Buddhist precepts and wearwhite-coloured robes) or by seeking novice or higher ordination abroad,either in Theravada Buddhism or in Buddhist schools subsumed underMah ayana Buddhism. While there are probably no more than 20,000mae chis4 in Thailand, only a relatively small number of women have

    2 Many Pali and Sanskrit canonical terms have been incorporated into the Thailanguage. As a consequence of this process, their spelling and pronunciation oftensignificantly deviate from the original Pali/Sanskrit form. In this paper, I use theoriginal Pali term instead of the Thai or Sanskrit form when I or my sourcesundoubtedly refer to Pali canonical terms or concepts, even in cases when the sourcesuse these technical terms in the Thai form/pronunciation. When the original Pali/Sanskrit word has developed a new meaning in the Thai language that significantlydeviates from its original meaning in Pali, I maintain the Thai form. Admittedly,very often this differentiation is rather difficult to make.

    3 See Seeger, 2006.4 It is difficult to ascertain the exact number since, unlike monks and novices, they do

    not appear in official monastic records (see Lindberg-Falk, 2007, p 2; see also statis-tics given by the National Office of Buddhism Website: http://www.onab.go.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=912&Itemid=300, accessed 14August 2009). Wirachat Nim-anong reports that the Department of Religious Affairsconducted a survey in 1997, which established that there were 14,690 Thai mae chis(Wirachat Nim-anong, 2002, p 29). According to Manop Nakkanrian (2002, p 94),however, there are approximately 45,000 mae chis in Thailand, although this figureseems rather high.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 557

    the necessary means to become ordained outside Thailand.5 During thelast 90 years, various attempts have been made to establish a Theravadanuns order in Thailand, most recently by the Buddhist studies scholarChatsumarn Kabilsingh, who was herself ordained as a bhikkhunin Sri Lanka in 2003. The Thai Sa ngha Supreme Council[Mahatherasamakhom], the governing body of the Thai monkhood, hasrepeatedly made it clear that the revival of the Theravada femaleorder, which is believed to have vanished some 1,000 years ago, isimpossible due to technical reasons. As a consequence of this stance,there is a monastic regulation (first promulgated in the 1920s) thatforbids Thai monks from ordaining women as female novices or nuns.Ongoing (and sometimes fervent) debates on the possibility of therevival of Theravada nuns have been triggered by a variety ofarguments from scholars who believe that a Theravada bhikkhun ordercan and should be established in Thailand and that the present Thaisa ngha authorities are perpetuating an androcentrism that was intro-duced to Indian Buddhism by early tradition, but which is alien to originalBuddhism. Another argument put forward in these debates is thatestablishing a bhikkhun-sa ngha would help to countervail a number ofgendered inequalities that exist in Thai society. Others have contendedthat allowing ordination for women in Theravada Buddhism would bein conformity with human rights and with Thai constitutional law.6

    Some suggest that Thai mae chis, whose presence in Thai society forat least 300 years can be attested to, may potentially be a satisfactoryalternative to the missing bhikkhun order. A number of Thai scholarsare, however, sceptical about this suggestion and many view [the maechi institution] as a poor substitute for the bhikkhuni [sic] ideal.7 It hasbeen observed that the status of the mae chi is rather unclear and thatthey are, in many respects, clearly disadvantaged when compared withThai monks.8 Generally, they do not receive the same level of respectand support that Thai monks do, and have a lower religious and socialstanding. Even their ordained status is not universally acknowledged.9In this regard, Buddhist studies scholar Somphan Phromta maintainsthat if we [in Thai society] would [fully] acknowledge the ordained5 There are, however, some reports that ordinations of female novices have taken place

    in northern Thailand, and in the provinces of Rayong and Nakhon Pathom, but theseordinations are still not officially acknowledged.

    6 See Seeger, 2010.7 Tomalin, 2006, p 386.8 See Seeger, 2009.9 See Seeger, 2009.

  • 558 South East Asia Research

    status of mae chis, the demands for space for the bhikkhun-sa nghawould not exist or would at least not be as intense as they [currently]are.10 Religious studies academic Suwanna Satha-anand further arguesthat I suspect that it might be possible that [the reason that] somesupport mae chis is an attempt to inhibit discussions [about the revival]of bhikkhuns.11 At the same time, a number of Thai scholars haveargued that the non-existence of a Theravada bhikkhun order does notnecessarily mean that women are denied the opportunities for Bud-dhist practice similar to those available to Thai men. Some would goeven further and say that potentially the mae chi institution offers bet-ter opportunities than the bhikkhun order, since bhikkhuns wouldnecessarily have to be institutionally subordinated to the male sa ngha(as required by the normative canonical monastic regulations)12 andwould consequently not be able to enjoy the flexibility and the manyliberties that the mae chis currently possess or could develop.13

    According to Pali canonical texts, during the time of the Buddhanumerous women left lay life in order to pursue their practice towardsultimate liberation [nibb ana]. Many of these women were highly praisedby the Buddha, while receiving enormous respect from the laycommunity. Despite these examples, the ordination of women isnormally not encouraged in contemporary Thai Buddhism. As Lindberg-Falk notes, The ideal Thai woman is a dutiful daughter who is expectedto marry and become a caring wife and a self-sacrificing mother . . . mensordination is highly prized, whereas women who leave the lay lifedeviate from Thai cultural values. . ..14 This points to the complexitiesof gender relations in present Thai society, on which scholars haveadvanced a range of divergent arguments to explain, particularly withreference to the influence of Buddhism. Discussions have explored thequestion of whether the status of women and men is relatively equal(although different), or whether women are more or less attached tothe world than men. Swearer notes, Students of Thai Buddhismdebate whether or not Buddhism constrains the development of women,

    10 Somphan Promta, cited in Deuan Khamdi, 2008, p 76.11 Suwanna Satha-anand, cited in Montri Seupduang, 2008, p 328.12 I refer here to the eight garudhammas [important/heavy rules/rules of hierarchy]

    that the Buddha imposed on women as a condition for their ordination (Vin.II.253255). See Juo-Hseh Shih, 2000, pp 463464.

    13 See, for example, Seeger, 2009; Collins and McDaniel, 2010.14 Lindberg-Falk, 2007, p 53.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 559

    devalues them as persons, or is silent when violence is waged againstthem. . ..15

    Be that as it may, in addition to and often apparently as a conse-quence of, the absence of an officially acknowledged bhikkhun order,there are a number of other obvious indications of the male dominationof Thai Buddhism. Kulavir Prapapornpipat observes, for example, thefollowing statement made by the abbot of a famous monastery in thenorth of Bangkok as the articulation of a gender bias that is oftenperceived in Thai Buddhism:

    Women are the gender with little merit: they cannot be ordained andare not able to attain awakening. For these reasons, they have to create alot of merit and make a vow so that they can be reborn as a man intheir next life. Then they will be able to become ordained and achieveawakening and be free from suffering [dukkha].16

    Kulavir admits, however, that these kinds of teachings seem to bedisappearing from Thai Buddhism.17 At the same time, Van Esterik,writing in 2000 comments that the idea of rebirth as a woman as aresult of misdeeds in past lives is widespread in Thailand. . ..18

    In temple murals, women are often depicted as obstacles for andseducers of men who try to pursue the path to nibbana [the soteriologicalgoal in Theravada Buddhism]. Murals showing Maras [the BuddhistEvil One] three daughters dancing in front of the meditating Buddha,in a personification of the temptations of lust, desire and aversion, can,for example, be found in many of the over 32,000 temples in Thailand.A mural in the famous southern monastery Suan Moke, entitled Lust:the enemy of peace [rakha sattru haeng santi], depicts a bare-breastedwoman with a giant snake tail trying to infatuate men. This seems toreinforce the Thai saying that women are the enemy of the saffronrobes [phuying pen sattru khorng pha leuang]. In a number of temples,most notably in the north of Thailand, women are barred from specific

    15 Swearer, 2009, p 192; see also Tannenbaum, 1999, pp 244248.16 Cited in Kulavir Prapapornpipat, 2005, pp 3738.17 Ibid.18 Van Esterik, 2000, p 74.

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    areas such as wells or cetiyas [bell-shaped shrine/st upa]19 in whichpowerful Buddha relics are believed to have been enshrined, due to thebelief that menstrual blood could magically pollute or disturb the whole-some powers of relics or holy water. In some monasteries, Thai womenare not permitted to enter the uposatha [here: ordination hall] duringmenstruation. In the Pali canon, the most authoritative scriptures of ThaiTheravada Buddhism, women are said to be the stain of the Holy Life(itth mala

    m brahmacariyassa; SN.I.43).20 It should, however, be noted

    here that, as already indicated above, the Pali canonical texts alsoincorporate numerous passages in which women are depicted in afavourable light and many specific outstanding women, both lay andmonastic, are highly praised and reported to have attained high levelsof spiritual attainment and superhuman powers. Buddhist studies scholarshave attempted to explain this multivocality of often seeminglyconflicting canonical views on women by means of a multitude oftheories in connection with the history of the emergence of the Palicanonical texts.21

    It is clear that religious symbolism in Thai Buddhism is dominatedby the representation of the male, and Thai Buddhist hagiographyalso seems to have been concerned only with the lives of its malepractitioners. The observer of Thai Buddhism not only encountersinnumerable Buddha images, but also the ubiquitous amulets of deceased

    19 Collins notes that [t]he concept cetiya is wider than that of the st upa. Any Buddha-shrine is a cetiya, whereas a st upa must contain a relic; and relics can also be kept inother containers. Both th upa (st upa) and cetiya (caitya) are from verbs meaning topile up, and seem originally to have referred to burial grounds. (Collins, 1998, p278) In this article, I use st upa/th upa or cetiya respectively in the way they arereferred to in the original sources used or when I wish to refer to a relic-containingshrine. I use the Sanskrit st upa instead of the Pali th upa because it is more widelyused and understood.

    20 There are other passages in the Pali canon in which women are depicted in anunfavourable light; see, for example, Pa

    thamaka

    nhasappasutta and Dutiyaka

    nhas-

    appasutta (AN.III.260261) where women are compared to a black snake[ka

    nhasappa]: here women are said to be amongst other things impure [asuci], ill

    smelling [duggandho], dangerous [sappatibhayo] and double-tongued [dujjivho].

    This passage also says that women bear ill-will [upan ah] and have terrible poi-son [ghoraviso]; see also Ther.216, where it is said that being a woman is suffering[dukkha] [dukkho itthibh avo]. (I thank Dr Maithrimurthi for making me aware ofthese passages.)

    21 See Sponberg, 1992.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 561

    and living Thai saints, seemingly all male.22 Admittedly, many of theBuddha images would appear (at least from a Western perspective) topossess some feminine elements, particularly those of the Sukhothaiera (thirteenth to fifteenth century), though they nevertheless depict amale: Buddha Gotama. Moreover, posters of the most famousaccomplished practitioners of Thai Buddhism all of whom are male are ubiquitous on the walls of restaurants, libraries, private homes,offices and so on.23 Even taxis and cars throughout the country havepictures, amulets and small statues of these male saints attached to theirconsoles or hanging down from their rear-view mirrors. The insertionof auspicious magical powers into amulets has been described as anexclusively male domain, while women are, in contrast, believed to bethe source of magically polluting powers due to their menstrual blood.24Recently, a number of large images of charismatic monks have beenerected in Thailand, all again depicting only male saints.25 Numerousst upas and museums have been built for saints of the forest tradition,depicting their life and their spiritual achievements as paradigms forthe Buddhist community.26

    22 Amulets depicting images of female Thai Buddhist practitioners are extremely rare.Saint in this paper is used to refer to an individual whom Thai Buddhists believe tohave achieved transcendental [lokuttara] states of mind. I do not confine the wordsaint to persons who are believed to have attained full awakening [arahant]. Per-sons who are believed to be ariyapuggala [noble persons] or ariyasong [noble(member of the) sa ngha) are also designated as saints, unless specified otherwise.Very often, it is also believed that a saint has developed supernatural abilities, suchas mind-reading powers, the capability to levitate or to charge objects with magi-cally effective powers, but Thai Buddhists might not necessarily expect a saint topossess one or more of these supernatural powers. Furthermore, even though theymight be regarded as holy men, in this paper I understand saint not to include aperson who is believed to be a bodhisatta [Buddha-to-be], although some mightbelieve bodhisattas to have achieved transcendental states of mind.

    23 They depict, in particular, the highly revered Somdet Phra Phutthajan ToPhrommarangsi (17881872); the spiritual father of the Dhammak aya movementsLuang Pho Sot Wat Pak Nam (18841959); the southern monk Luang Pu Thuat (six-teenth to seventeenth century); or the saints of the Thai forest tradition, starting withAjan Man Bh uridatto (18711949) and Ajan Sao Kantaslo (18591941).

    24 Lindberg-Falk, 2007, pp 106109.25 They include the huge image of Luang Pu Thuat in Prachuap Khirikhan province,

    showing him in meditation posture; the monumental, 18-metre-high image of SomdetPhra Phutthajan To Phrommarangsi, also located in Prachuap Khirikhan; and the101-metre-high st upa built by Luang Phu Sri Mah avro in Roi-et province, in whichvisitors can find a collection of bronze statues of the most important figures of theThai forest tradition, all monastic and male. At the time of my visit (August 2008),there were still a number of vacant niches in the statue gallery, and it is possible thatstatues of female saints have now been or will be placed there.

    26 See Gabaude, 2003a and b.

  • 562 South East Asia Research

    What seem to be absent, however, are images and symbols of ac-complished female practitioners of Thai Buddhism. The sameobservation applies to Thai bookstores, with their numerous books onmale Thai Buddhist saints (often displayed in the windows or promotedas bestsellers), yet the conspicuous omission of books on femalepractitioners, in particular of those who are believed to have attainedarahant-ship.27 While bookstores offer titles such as Arahants . . .exist indeed: Siam is not devoid of Arahants [phra arahan . . . mi jing:Sayam prathet mai wang jak phra arahan], all focus solely on malemonks.28 The same is true of the numerous VCDs with documentarieson the lives of Buddhist saints [ariyasong] that are widely available forsale in big supermarkets or monasteries.29

    Nevertheless, despite the ubiquity of religious symbols expressingveneration for accomplished male practitioners, symbols and sites ofveneration for accomplished female practitioners also exist, albeit onlysporadically and to a far lesser extent. Examples include the murals inthe vih ara [shrine-hall] with the reclining Buddha of Bangkoks WatChetuphon (more widely known as Wat Pho) depicting the 13accomplished and foremost [etadagga] bhikkhun and the 10 fore-most female lay followers [up asik a] of the time of the Buddha. Tilemosaics at the Phra Mahathat Napphaphonphumsiri St upa on DoiInthanon also portray a number of outstanding nuns and lay followersfrom the time of the Buddha; while Wat Thepthidaram, in Bangkok,houses 52 bhikkhun statues. Moreover, the veneration of the popularChinese Mah ay ana female Bodhisattva Jao Mae Kuan Im (Guan Yin)should also be noted in this context. As Pattana observes, Worshippedat altars in private houses or businesses and through spirit-medium cults,she is among the most popular deities and draws a large number of

    27 One may find books by or about the two enormously popular mae chis, Mae ChiSansanee Sthirasuta (leader of the Sathira-Dhammasathan) and Mae Chi Thotsaphonin many bookstores. The former is highly respected for her social engagement andher pedagogical skills; the latter is believed to be able to look into former lives.Neither is widely revered as ariyapuggala, however.

    28 Phanthakan Kimthong (nd); the book describes the lives of 16 male monks, all stillalive apart from the paradigm of the forest saint, Ajan Man. Another book, in twovolumes, the first of which has gone through seven printings in only two years, isThe Moment of Attainment: Arahants Do Exist [winathi banlu tham phra arahan mijing] by Thiaranan, 2007. Again, this book, which has since been extended to threevolumes, gives an account of numerous twentieth-century male monks who arebelieved to have attained arahant-ship, the highest stage of Buddhist sainthood.

    29 Despite collecting these VCDs for more than four years, I have not to date found anythat contain the biography of a female Thai Buddhist saint.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 563

    mediums around the country, predominantly women of SinoThaiorigin.30 In the north of Thailand, Queen C amadevs statue in the townof Lamphun is highly revered and is even believed to possessmiraculous powers, as noted by Swearer: Day and night dozens of devo-tees Lamphun citizenry, visitors, and tourists present offerings offlowers, candles, and incense and respectfully kneel before C amadevsheroic, standing image much as devotees venerate the image of theBuddha.31 A statue of the heroine Thao Suranari a noblewomanbelieved to have been instrumental in quelling a rebellion during thetime of Rama III in the city centre of Khorat, is also highly venerated;and pictures of Princess Suphankanlaya, the older sister of the heroicAyutthayan king Naresuan (r 15901605), form part of a recent nation-wide devotional cult.32

    Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that all these symbols representheroines or accomplished female practitioners during the time of theBuddha or from a period prior to the emergence of the modern Thaistate. Can this be taken to mean that no Thai women are regarded andrevered as partly or fully awakened ones [ariyapuggala/arahant] inmodern Thai Buddhism? As I show in this paper, these apparentabsences by no means imply that contemporary female Buddhist saintsdo not exist in Thailand. Indeed, the objective of this paper is todemonstrate that they do exist, but that they have been largely over-looked by both Thai and Western scholarship. This seeming oversightmight be explained in part by the fact that the number of (known)female saints, when compared with their male counterparts, wouldappear to be extremely small at present. As Lindberg-Falk commentsmore generally, [T]he nuns do not have many ascetic role models andare often inspired instead by famous Thai monks.33 Furthermore, itseems that the translocal veneration of female saints in Thailand is arather recent phenomenon.34

    Highly revered female practitioners have been little discussed ineither Western or Thai scholarship on Thai Buddhism (see, however,Cook, 2009; Thanissaro, 1995; Van Esterik, 1996) and scholarly worksthat do examine the life of highly venerated individuals refer largely tomale monastics (see, for example, Tambiah, 1984; Gabaude, 1988;30 Pattana Kitiarsa, 2005, p 480. See also Jackson, 1999b.31 Swearer and Sommai Premchit, 1998, p 26.32 See Taylor, 2008, pp 47.33 Lindberg-Falk, 2000a, p 47.34 See Seeger, 2009; see also below.

  • 564 South East Asia Research

    Jackson, 1999a; Kamala, 1997; Taylor, 1993, 1994). As Cook observes,The hagiography of males who have attained this position [of theaccomplished and charismatic teacher] is a long-standing academic andanthropological concern.35 In this sense, existing scholarship reflectsand reinforces the imbalances within Thai Buddhism with reference tothe veneration and symbolic depictions of outstanding female Buddhistpractitioners.

    Recent attempts to introduce Theravada nuns to Thailand havereceived broad attention from Buddhist studies scholars, anthropolo-gists and activists and have triggered extensive debates more generallyon the religious roles of women in Thai Buddhism, at both the nationaland international level.36 While earlier scholarship largely focused onthe hardships and inequalities women are facing in Thai Buddhism,scholars have more recently noted positive experiences of ThaiBuddhist women: Lindberg-Falk, for example, defines an approxima-tion of roles between monks and mae chis,37 whilst Collins and McDanielobserve that there is a large and increasing number of highly respectedmae chi Pali scholars.38 In another article, I have reported on a series ofcase studies that demonstrate that because of their spiritual practice,social engagement or teaching skills, individual mae chis and laywomenhave become highly revered in Thai Buddhism.39

    While both Thai and Western academia have recently paid increasingattention to the changing roles of Thai Buddhist women, in-depthstudies of female Buddhist saints in Thailand and their attendantsymbolic representation continue to be overlooked, so undermining anadequate depiction of the present Thai Buddhist landscape. As with themae chis prominent role in monastic education, the emergence ofhagiographies and the veneration of female Buddhist saints has so faralso been largely disregarded (but see Cook, 2009).

    To remedy this imbalance, I provide in this paper a life account ofone of the most outstanding female practitioners and venerated femalesaints of contemporary Thai Buddhism: Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (19011991). The brief summary below of a growing body of biographical

    35 Cook, 2009, p 349.36 See, for example, Seeger, 2006; Website: http://www.congress-on-buddhist-

    women.org/index.php?id=21 (accessed 24 July 2009); see also Mrozik, 2009.37 Lindberg-Falk, 2000a, pp 5152; Lindberg-Falk, 2000b, pp 6970; Lindberg-Falk,

    2002, pp 2425; Lindberg-Falk, 2007, pp 8182, 146151.38 Collins and McDaniel, 2010.39 Seeger, 2009.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 565

    materials on Mae Chi Kaew is followed by a thematic analysis in whichI examine in greater detail various aspects of her life accounts and ofher veneration, thereby challenging widespread perceptions of contem-porary Thai Buddhism as exclusively concerned with the spiritualachievements of ordained men.

    The biographical details of the life of Mae Chi Kaew presentedbelow derive from a variety of sources, most notably from anincreasing number of published biographies and from sermons and talksgiven by the famous and extraordinarily influential forest monk PhraMahabua, who played a significant role in the life of Mae Chi Kaew.40

    40 Group of Followers of Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam, 2008; Faith and Follower Group,no date; Group of Followers, 2007; Phensi Makaranon, 2006; Mahabua a

    nasampanno, no date; Group of Followers, 2009. The sermons and talks given by

    Luang Ta Phra Mahabua can be found online at: http://www.luangta.com/ (accessed24 July 2009). I would like to thank Bhikkhu Slaratano who provided me with acollection of Phra Mahabua sermon texts that refer to Mae Chi Kaew. During theprocess of writing this paper, in April 2009, a biography of Mae Chi Kaew inEnglish written by the American Therav ada monk Bhikkhu Slaratano was published(Slaratano, 2009). It contains some information not mentioned in the Thai sourcesthat I had used, and consequently provides an additional valuable source for thispaper. Suniwan Tangphaithunsakuns comprehensive and detailed MA thesis in Thaion the life of Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam (Suniwan, 2006) collates a wide range ofsources, such as printed biographies of Mae Chi Kaew, pictures, teachings and inter-views with key informants. Her thesis has therefore been a valuable source for thispaper. Suniwan also quotes extensively from various hagiographical accounts.Unfortunately, the thesis has so far not been published in its complete form and israther difficult to access, though some sections have been published in ahagiography (Group of Followers, 2007). I became aware of Suniwans thesisduring my first period of fieldwork in 2008 and accessed a copy only after havingcompleted much of my own research. There appears to be only one copy in thepublic domain, namely in the library of the Mahidol University College of ReligiousStudies. Given that both Suniwans thesis and this article examine the life of MaeChi Kaew from an academic perspective, necessarily much information in thisarticle can also be found in Suniwans thesis in particular, though not solely, in thesummary of a number of Mae Chi Kaew hagiographical accounts. However, thisarticle goes beyond Suniwans work in several significant respects, in particular interms of providing the reader with more analysis from a Buddhist Studies perspec-tive, of contextualization in academic literature and of more up-to-date information.Similarly, even though Bhikkhu Slaratano makes Mae Chi Kaews biography avail-able in English in a comprehensive form, the current article differs from his book inthat it engages the biographical material from a much wider academic perspective.Furthermore, this article pursues very different objectives, as evidenced by the factthat Bhikkhu Slaratano writes of Mae Chi Kaew: . . . I have also resorted to myimagination to fill out the picture of her life and her practice, adding graphic detailsto fashion a vibrant and clear mental image of the woman and her extraordinaryachievements. This is not a work of scholarship so much as a narrative biographythat is intended to provide a course of inspiration to those who are devoted toBuddhist practice. With that purpose in mind, it is hoped that this book will be viewed

  • 566 South East Asia Research

    Extensive information on the life of Mae Chi Kaew and the construc-tion of her st upa is also taken from the bilingual tables (English andThai) that are attached to the walls in the museum on the ground floorof her st upa in Ban Huai Sai. I have further relied upon the MP3 CD-ROMs that include talks in the Thai and Phuthai languages by PhraAjan Inthawai (who had a long and close relationship with Mae ChiKaew and has been centrally involved in various projects to spread andpromote her reputation). My own interviews with a number of keyinformants have also been an important source. I interviewed mae chiswho had lived with or been inspired by Mae Chi Kaew; monks who hadknown her particularly well and/or were involved in the publication ofher biographies or the construction of her st upa; and laypeople whoseunderstanding of Thai Buddhism has been influenced by Mae Chi Kaewslife story.41 In addition, I visited various places that are important inMae Chi Kaews biographies and/or have become places of venerationfor her notably Ban Huai Sai village, where she lived, and wherememorials to her have been erected. During these visits, I studied thereligious symbolism that has developed as an expression of herveneration and the venerational practices towards Mae Chi Kaewsremains and the sites where she lived. The accounts of Mae Chi Kaewslife employed for this paper sometimes contain conflicting informa-tion, in particular (but not only) with regard to numbers and dates.Although I have attempted to identify the most reliable information andaccounts, I want to emphasize that my purpose here is not toreconstruct Mae Chi Kaews life as it was, but rather to describe howher life and work has been understood, depicted and disseminated. Thus,my main concern is not to investigate the historical authenticity of thehagiographical texts, but to examine their socio-religious significance

    mainly as an invitation to contemplate the depths and subtleties of mind that areexperienced on the Buddhas path to total liberation. (Slaratano, 2009, p 20) Mysecond period of fieldwork in October 2009 allowed me to probe many of my find-ings and the arguments suggested in both Suniwans thesis and Bhikkhu Slaratanosbook.

    41 For my in-depth interviews with Khru-ba Jaew Sianglam (Wat Pa Wiwekwatthanaram),who has been involved in the writing and dissemination of many (hagiographical)texts on Mae Chi Kaew, and with Khru-ba Ajan who is an expert on Mae ChiKaew, I used a semi-structured questionnaire. (Khru-ba Ajan is a respectful way ofaddressing a monk who is revered for his knowledge. This particular monk asked meto use this appellation in order to not reveal his real identity. As I wish to respect hisrequest, in this paper I will use Khru-ba Ajan when I refer to information derivedfrom this interview.) Some of my informants requested to remain anonymous, as aresult of which, some of the sources used in this paper are not further specified.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 567

    in and for Thai Buddhism. My intention is to study the significance ofMae Chi Kaews biographies and their attendant religious symbolismin the context of the religious landscape of Thai Buddhism. It becomesapparent that many hagiographical elements in the sacred biographiesof Mae Chi Kaew approximate the hagiographical paradigms not onlyof the Buddha and other Pali canonical figures, but also of modern saintsof the Thai forest tradition. At the same time, however, significanthagiographical and venerational particularities can be observed.

    The life of Mae Chi Kaew SianglamMae Chi Kaew Sianglam was born on 8 November 1901 in the villageBan Huai Sai, amphoe (district) Kham Cha-i, in the north-easternprovince of Mukdahan.42 She was the youngest of six children and wasgiven the name Tapai (literally meaning eye-catching). When Tapaiwas four years old, her mother died and several years later her father, alocal magistrate, remarried. In common with people in her village, Tapaibelonged to the Phuthai ethnic group.43 It is reported that the first of themany supernatural occurrences in her life took place when she was onlyone year old: she perceived the mental image [nimitta] of a divine horsethat visited her in order to convince her to accompany it to a heavenlycity. When she was between five and six years old, she was able torecollect past lives and she therefore became renowned for her abilityto enter highly concentrative states of mind [jh ana] from a very earlyage. In one of the most famous of her nimitta, she recalled a former lifeas a chicken with many chicks. As a chicken mother, she had to faceextreme hardship in the constant search for food, not only for herself,but also for her many chicks. Once, whilst listening to the sound of theDhamma [here: Buddhas teaching] during a sermon, however, her mindbecame joyful. This incident allowed her to make a [successful]resolution [athitthan] to escape the realm of animals [tiracch ana] andto be reborn as a human being.44

    42 Mukdahan only became a province in 1982, and the village was previously locatedin Nakhon Phanom.

    43 See Kirsch, 1967. After the Phuthai entered Siam from Laos during the reign ofRama III (18241851), they were first an isolated and semi-autonomous ethnicenclave, only later becoming assimilated within the national Thai framework (Kirsch,1966, p 371).

    44 Compare with Langer, 2007, pp 4547.

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    As a child, Tapais father warned her not to mention her supernaturalexperiences due to concerns that others might regard her as insane [siasati]. Later in life, Mae Chi Kaew recounted that as a girl she could goto the monastery only in the company of her parents, and that she had tosit as far away as possible from the monks. In contrast to this, however,as Terwiel notes, boys are not kept away from monks. On the con-trary, parents often like to present their small sons to a monk when theymeet and note with approval how their children are touched andblessed.45

    In 1917, the village of Kham Cha-i was visited by two meditationmasters of the Thai forest tradition, Ajan Sao Kantaslo and Ajan ManBh uridatto, together with some 70 of their disciples [luk-sit], many ofwhom themselves later became famous and influential meditationmasters. Tapais encounter with Ajan Sao and Ajan Man is described asthe catalyst that led to her strong interest in Buddhist teaching andpractice, and she donated a plot of land to Ajan Man shortly after theirfirst encounter. One night, following his instructions on meditation andhaving developed deep concentration, Tapai had another nimitta in whichshe watched her own body getting older and decaying until eventuallyshe died. Her corpse was then consumed by maggots and only herskeleton remained. While being convinced of her own death during thisnimitta, she worried that she would not be able to donate food to AjanMan the next morning. The nimitta continued, however: after villagershad taken her corpse to the graveyard, Ajan Man arrived and touchedparts of her body with a stick, making it rot, until only her heartremained. Ajan Man picked up her heart, saying that it was indestruct-ible. Regaining consciousness the next morning, Tapai was disappointed,as she believed she had had a dream instead of having practised propermeditation. After having reported to Ajan Man the content of her dream,however, he told her that it was a nimitta and that she had actually madeextraordinary progress in her meditation practice. During the rainyseason of that year, Ajan Man paid special attention to Tapaismeditational progress and her nimittas. When asked why she was able

    45 Terwiel, 1994, p 45. In Thai society, a number of behavioural patterns have developed toensure that physical contact between monks and women is avoided: for example, theprovision of special seating for monks on public transport and the use of a cloth [phaprakhen] when a woman presents an object to a monk (so that the monk does noteven touch the object that is touched by a woman). Thai women also avoid beingclose to monks in crowded places (such as at a market or on the bus) in order tominimize the risk of their touching.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 569

    to achieve such rapid progress in meditation, Ajan Man explained: Thisyoung girl had been practising meditation in many former lives whichis the reason why the principle of impermanence of all conditioned things[anicc a vata sa nkh ar a] had so deeply and completely been ingrainedin her mind. When Ajan Man and the cohort of his disciples were aboutto leave Ban Huai Sai in order to pursue the dhuta nga practices [the(13) austere practices]46 elsewhere, he addressed Tapai. There are atleast two different accounts of what followed, which may not necessar-ily be seen as contradictory. One has it that Ajan Man said to Tapai: Ifyou were a boy, I would have ordained you as a novice so that youcould have come with me. But since you are a girl, accompanying mewould be difficult with regard to the dhammavinaya [the teaching(Dhamma) and monastic regulations (vinaya) of the Buddha]. . . Stoppractising meditation! Ajan Man, so some accounts explain, wantedher first to use up her kamma (Sanskrit: karma) as a layperson beforeeventually meeting a suitable teacher in the future, when she would beable to continue with her meditation practice. According to anotheraccount, however, before leaving Ban Huai Sai, Ajan Man asked Tapaiwhether she wanted to join him as an ordained one [buat]. Tapais oldersibling did not give her permission to be ordained, arguing that if Tapaiwere not able to remain ordained, it would be difficult for her to find ahusband once she returned to lay life. Ajan Man then prophesied thatshe would be a layperson for another 20 years, before eventually beingordained. He forbade her to continue with her meditation practice as, soit is explained, her mind was too venturesome [lote phone] and with-out Ajan Mans instructions and guidance she might go insane.

    As there was no local school, Tapai did not learn how to write,although she was able to acquire reading skills. In all the available lifeaccounts, Tapai is consistently described as having been humble, frugaland hardworking. At the age of 17, following the wish of her parents,Tapai married Bunma Sianglam, despite having no interest in marriedlife. She did not become pregnant, but in the tenth year of theirmarriage adopted a daughter, whom they named Kaew (the villagersthen began to call Tapai Mae Kaew, which translates as Mother ofKaew). Bunma forbade his wife from practising meditation at the localtemple and only permitted her to participate in Buddhist chanting [suatmon] and to donate alms food for the monks in the morning. At the ageof 34, when her adopted daughter was able to take care of herself, Tapai

    46 Buddhaghosa, 1976, pp 5983.

  • 570 South East Asia Research

    asked Bunma for permission to be ordained [buat]. Two years later,after repeated requests and the supportive mediation of a widelyrespected uncle, her husband eventually allowed her to be ordained as amae chi on condition that after one rainy season she would return to laylife. Eventually, in 1937, at the age of 36, Mae Kaew was ordained asa mae chi at the local temple. After 20 years of refraining frommeditation practice, she was now able to devote her energy to prolongedsessions of walking and sitting meditation. Even though ordained, sheoccasionally went to her former home to undertake household chores.At the end of the rainy season, Mae Chi Kaew did not want to disrobe,as she saw that her husband was, despite their earlier agreement,flirting with women, gambling and smoking opium. Instead she decidednever to disrobe and to terminate her relationship with Bunma.

    Mae Chi Kaew spent the years between 1938 and 1945 on amountain some 30 kilometres away from Ban Huai Sai, practisingmeditation intensively in a physically demanding environment that testedher resolution. During this time, she had numerous supernaturalexperiences, such as teaching the Dhamma to n agas [mythical snakes],encountering ghosts [phi] and conversing with the spirits of deadanimals. In 1945, Mae Chi Kaew returned to Ban Huai Sai and built anindependent nunnery there. Apart from being materially underresourced,the other major obstacle for this small community of eight mae chisheaded by Mae Chi Kaew was the absence of a teacher. For this reason,Mae Chi Kaew had to seek out disciples of Ajan Man, and in theprocess stayed for a two-year period with the renowned meditationteachers Ajan Fan and Ajan Kongma. Visiting Ajan Man himselfentailed much hardship, as the mae chis had to undertake a difficultjourney for up to 12 days in order to receive meditation instructionfrom the master. Furthermore, it seems that her visits to Ajan Man wereperceived by his lay followers as disruptive.

    All the life accounts stress the extremely close relationship betweenMae Chi Kaew and Ajan Man. It is reported that when Ajan Manbecame seriously ill he visited her in nimittas, flying through the skyand hovering in the air, in order to let her know that his death [nipphan]was imminent. Even during the night that he passed away in 1949, AjanMan flew to Mae Chi Kaew to tell her that she had missed theopportunity to see him alive again, despite his previous visits duringwhich he had invited her to do so. In 1950, with the arrival of one of themajor disciples of Ajan Man, Luang Ta Phra Mahabua (b 1913) in BanHuai Sai, the above-mentioned prophecy of Ajan Man seemed to come

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 571

    true: from a nimitta, Mae Chi Kaew had learned that a great teacherwas to arrive. Phra Mahabua, who is widely believed to have achievedarahant-ship in 1950, realized that Mae Chi Kaew was too captivatedby her meditative abilities and therefore unable to make furthersubstantial progress toward nibb ana. Phra Mahabua recounts:

    [I told Mae Chi Kaew] to by no means go outside [in her meditation]! Ihad to take these measures so that she would develop knowledgeabout the inside. These things [being able to have nimittas, perceiveghosts and visit heavens and hells] are knowledge about the outsideand not the inside. It is not understanding defilements [kilesa]. Shehad to study the inside in order to be able to get rid of her mentaldefilements. But she did not comply. She argued with me, her teacher[Ajan]. When this happened, I chased her away saying: Go. . . Goaway. . . There are no philosophers here. . . Crying, she departed.47

    This harsh method of instruction eventually succeeded, however. MaeChi Kaew was able to overcome her stubbornness and to understandthat her supernatural abilities were not conducive to her spiritual progress.Following Phra Mahabuas instructions, Mae Chi Kaew changed hermeditation technique, by now observing the inner aspects of her mindand body, without letting herself be distracted by the kinds of nimittas shehad experienced before. Not long afterwards, at dawn on 1 September1952, whilst resting from practising walking meditation [doen jong-krom], Mae Chi Kaew was able to attain full awakening [banlu thamkhan sung-sut]:

    She felt tired from having done walking meditation for the wholenight and therefore sat down on a bamboo platform under a Phayomtree to get some rest. While inclining in order to lie down andthinking: I will rest for a moment and then boil rice, she perceiveda rumbling noise as if lightning was hitting the platform on whichshe was resting. At the same time, there was a noise saying Therebirths have come to an end! Her tears were flowing copiously injoy.48

    47 Faith and Follower Group, no date, pp 5456.48 Ibid, p 57.

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    After her awakening, Mae Chi Kaew followed Phra Mahabua tovarious provinces in Thailand, took care of his mother and helped himbuild his famous monastery, Wat Pa Ban Tat in Udon Thani province.In 1967, Mae Chi Kaew returned to Ban Huai Sai, and spent most of thelast 24 years of her life in her nunnery. Between 1973 and 1977, in thecompany of other mae chis and villagers from Ban Huai Sai, she paidnumerous visits to famous meditation masters in the north-east in orderto exchange knowledge. These travels also allowed her to build up anetwork of practising mae chis of the forest tradition. In 1977, Mae ChiKaew was diagnosed with tuberculosis, diabetes and lung cancer.Despite her severe medical problems, she continued with her disciplinedmeditation practice and strict adherence to monastic rules for the next14 years. Her personal physician, Dr Phensi Makaranon, recounted:All those who had the opportunity to know and experience the realMae Chi Kaew, were deeply overwhelmed and impressed by herenormous humbleness and gentleness. She even held every tablet[respectfully] above her head before taking it.49

    Throughout her ordained life, Mae Chi Kaew pursued the practiceof the Theravadas so-called austere practices [dhuta nga; see Vism.5983], such as eating only once a day or wearing robes made of clothused to cover dead bodies, referred to by Tambiah as the hallmark ofthe wandering forest monk.50 She also consistently practised the eightslas and the 10 kusala-kammapatha (wholesome course of action; see,for example, M.I.287).

    Before her death, Phra Mahabua visited Mae Chi Kaew for the lasttime and instructed those taking care of her not to try to prolong herlife artificially. Her last words [pacchim a v ac a] are reported to havebeen:

    Do not doubt in [the value] of [Buddhist] practice and do not becareless with it. Having practised only a little is already a gain, for itis a reality to be understood by each individual him/herself. Be yourown refuge. Reflect about yourself: who is being born, getting older,suffering and dying. R upa [form] and n ama [name/mind], life doesnot belong to us. Do not defile yourself with dukkha [suffering]!51

    49 Phensi Makaranon, 2006, pp 910.50 Tambiah, 1987, p 114.51 Cited in Suniwan, 2006, p 20.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 573

    According to the biographical accounts, Mae Chi Kaew passed awaypeacefully on 18 June 1991. The cremation, which was held in hernunnery five days later, was attended by some 200 monks, many maechis and hundreds of laypeople. Phra Mahabua forbade the usualfuneral chanting (suat matika bangsakun; reciting texts from the sevenAbhidhamma scriptures: sattappakara

    nabhidhamma), explaining that:

    [Mae Chi Kaew] has done enough for herself. In the Thai Buddhistreligious system, it is believed that the chanting of these Abhidhammatexts generates merit [bun; pua] for the deceased. For this reason,Phra Mahabuas prohibition seems to imply that the generation of meritwould not be required for Mae Chi Kaew, as she had already beenawakened and therefore was not to be reborn any more: a receiver ofwell intentioned transfer of merit is not existent any longer, but utterlyextinguished [nibb ana]. When Mae Chi Kaews body had beencompletely burned, a heavy rain started and extinguished the funeralpyre, even though there had been a clear sky for the whole morning.52Some two to three years after her cremation, parts of her remains werebelieved to have crystallized. In April 2006, a group of Mae Chi Kaewsdisciples, with the support of the well known north-eastern monk PhraAjan Inthawai Santussako (abbot of Wat Pa Nakhamnoi), was able tocomplete a cetiya/st upa some 24 metres high next to Mae Chi Kaewsnunnery, and named by the current Thai sa ngha Supreme PatriarchSomdet Phra Nyanasamvara as the Mae Chi Kaew Cetiya inCommemoration of the Triple Gem. The biographical accountsemphasize that it was built to commemorate the victory of the fullyawakened female follower of the Buddha. On 21 May 2006, the cetiyawas officially opened in a ceremony in which Phra Mahabua enshrinedparts of the crystallized remains of Mae Chi Kaew. On Sunday of thelast week in March each year, her disciples hold a ceremony torecollect Mae Chi Kaews work and achievements.

    Female arahant-ship in Thai BuddhismThe most significant hagiographical element in Mae Chi Kaewsbiographies is undoubtedly the account of her arahant-ship. Many sourcescelebrate her achievement of this, the highest Buddhist spiritual level

    52Uplifting crown of the cetiya (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai;distributed on CD-ROM). These happenings are reminiscent of the account ofBuddhas passing away (cf D.II.64; see below).

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    possible. As I demonstrate below, in the context of the Theravada, butalso of Thai religious history, Mae Chi Kaews arahant-ship is remark-able in a variety of ways. It is widely believed that after the Buddhasdeath, arahant-ship was increasingly difficult to achieve and perhapsno longer possible in modern times. In his magnum opus theinfluential Visuddhimagga the fifth century Theravada scholarBuddhaghosa described the attainment of arahant-ship as an extremelyremote goal.53 Moreover, based on her fieldwork in central Thailand inthe 1960s, Jane Bunnag writes that,

    None of the Thai monks to whom I spoke appeared to considerNirvana [that is, attainment of arahant-ship] a relevant goal for whichto strive; those who considered that Salvation was attainable inmodern times, believed that only after billions of years of tirelesseffort could they or their contemporaries achieve this state.54

    Tambiah observes that [c]ertain orthodox Buddhist circles believethe arahants are exclusively heroes of the past; they maintain that presenttimes are incapable of producing arahants.55 Even one of Ajan Mansforemost disciples, Luang Pu Thet, had doubts as to whether therealization of arahant-ship was still possible.56 Furthermore, asTaylor notes, [a]t the time of the ordination of the forest saint AjanKhao An alayo (18881983) [another of Ajan Mans prominentdisciples] in 1919, he was discouraged from taking to the forestascetics way of life. He was told that the arahant way was no longerpossible and that the practice of meditation makes people go mad.57Ajan Man and Luang Pu Sao certainly belong to the first generation ofmodern saints, who are widely believed to have achieved arahant-shipand are, as a consequence of these beliefs, revered on a significant,translocal scale, expressed in written biographies, amulets and thebuilding of museums and memorials. As I discuss below, this does not,however, necessarily imply that there were no Thai saints prior to this.There may always have been saints in Thai Buddhism who wererevered on a local level, but we simply lack the evidence to confirmthis.

    53 Bond, 1988, p 164.54 Bunnag, 1973, pp 1920.55 Tambiah, 1987, p 112.56 Thiaranan, 2007, p 60.57 Taylor, 2008, p 142.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 575

    Mae Chi Kaews awakening has a number of significant implicationsconcerning aspects of traditional Thai Buddhist understanding. It isreported that some Buddhists, even monastics, harbour doubts [kangkha]as to why, to quote from Phra Ajan Inthawais summary of their view,Mae Chi Kaew had such a long life after her awakening, as accord-ing to the principles of the Pali canon, [one would have expected that]a layperson would die after seven days of his/her attaining arahant-ship.58 Yet Mae Chi Kaew continued to live after her awakening fornearly 40 years, and was not ordained as a bhikkhun. Such doubts seemto relate to two well known Buddhist stories: both the Buddhas fatherSuddhodana and one of his most outstanding disciples [etadagga], B ahiya, died as lay arahants shortly after having reached full awakening.At the same time, while there are a number of Pali canonical stories oflong-term lay ariyapuggalas who have attained one of the first threelevels of awakening, it is not reported in the Pali canon that lay arahantslived longer than seven days beyond their attainment of full awaken-ing. How, then, is this apparent contradiction dealt with in the case ofMae Chi Kaew? This important question points to apparent tensionsbetween the possibility of women attaining arahant-ship in present timesand the refusal of the Thai sa ngha to recognize full (Theravada) ordina-tion for women. In the case of Mae Chi Kaew, it is believed that herbeing a mae chi is equivalent to having being ordained: through keep-ing the eight precepts, she left the lower life form [hina phet/phettam; literally the low gender!]. The decisive characteristic of havingbeing ordained is not therefore perceived in this context as the personhaving been formally accepted as a member of the conventional Bud-dhist sa ngha [sammutisa ngha] during the act of ordination. Rather,the level of Buddhist practice and spiritual attainment is crucial. In thisway, one can become internally ordained [buat khang nai] or ordainedin ones heart/mind [buat jai] and leave the camp of the lay women[khai ubasika] by, amongst other things, avoiding unchaste conduct[abrahmacariy a verama

    n).59 In connection with this point, in one of

    his sermons, Phra Mahabua said that:

    Having attained arahant-ship and not undergone [formal]ordination, does this mean you have to die within seven days? Does

    58At Wat Rangsi (Dhamma talk in Phuthai language by Phra Ajan Inthawai;distributed on CD-ROM); interview with Khru-ba Ajan on 7 November 2009.

    59 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew on 3 November 2009; interview with Khru-ba Ajan on7 November 2009.

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    this mean that the pure dhamma [wisutthi tham] or pure mind [wisutthijit] act as executioner [phetchakhat] of the Five khandhas60 [that is,of a living individual]? This is certainly not the case! An arahantknows what s/he is supposed to do and what not.61

    Moral or righteous behaviour [sla] is practised as a matter of courseby saints.62 With specific reference to Mae Chi Kaew, Phra Mahabuaexplains in another sermon that, had she lived during the time of theBuddha, she would have been called bhikkhun .63

    In this context, the awakened status ascribed to Mae Chi Kaew notonly points to the possibility that contemporary Thai women have thespiritual potential to attain nibb ana, but also shows that it is notnecessary to undergo the bhikkhun ordination procedure, as prescribedin Pali canonical texts, in order to attain arahant-ship; or to stayalive longer than seven days after the awakening event. In the words ofKhru-ba Jaew: Mae Chis are a form of ordained practitioners that didnot exist during the time of the Buddha. . . [But] being a mae chienables ones mind to bear the [exalted] mind [thamma] of a saint[ariyapuggala].64 Thus, Mae Chi Kaews life accounts have not onlychallenged the sharp dichotomy between fully or properly ordainedand lay, but have also made a powerful statement with regard towomens spiritual potential in present Thai Buddhism, in which femalesaints had hitherto been unreported with such assertiveness and on sucha scale.

    The belief that Mae Chi Kaew achieved full awakening has beenexpressed without any uncertainty in a variety of ways, as repeatedlypublicly declared by Phra Mahabua.65 The fact that Phra Mahabuarecognizes Mae Chi Kaew as an arahant lends particular weight: notonly may he well be the most famous and influential Thai monk alive,66

    60 According to Buddhist teaching, the Five Aggregates [khandha] constitute theindividual human being.

    61 Available on Website: http://www.luangta.com/thamma/thamma_talk_text.php?ID=1022&CatID=3 (accessed 1 January 2010).

    62 Interview with Khru-ba Ajan on 7 November 2009.63 Available on Website: http://www.luangta.com/thamma/thamma_talk_text.php?ID

    =4312&CatID=2 (accessed 1 January 2010).64 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009.65

    Uplifting crown of the cetiya (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai, distrib-uted on CD-ROM); Luang Ta Mahabua, 2006. On a table in the cetiya museum ofMae Chi Kaew, Phra Mahabua is cited: Mae Chee Kaew has attained the samepurity of heart that I have (translation as given on the table).

    66 See, for example, Taylor, 2008, pp 110168.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 577

    but many Thais also believe that he himself has been an arahant formore than five decades (and only a noble one can absolutely identifyanother). The respect Phra Mahabua receives from the Thai Royal Familyadds to the enormous personal charisma that he has built up over thelast 40 years or so. Yet there are still other indications that areinterpreted by many Thais as unmistakable manifestations of Mae ChiKaews exalted spiritual status, the alleged crystallization of herremains having been taken as a kind of scientific proof or ultimatecertificate of [her] Arahantship.67 It is believed that the longer a personhas been an arahant in life, the sooner the remains of that person turninto crystals.68 After the cremation of her body, Mae Chi Kaewsremains were collected from the funeral site and divided amongst manypeople so that they could venerate [kep wai sakkara bucha] them. Thelargest part, however, was placed in a jar and stored in Wat Pa KaewChumphon, and later in a safe in Wat Pa Nakhamnoi, before eventuallybeing enshrined in the Mae Chi Kaew St upa in Ban Huai Sai. It hasbeen reported that many people who were in possession of her relicshad reliably and independently confirmed that their part of theremains had become crystallized (albeit not into perfectly clear, roundcrystals).69 It is believed that the religious practice and faith [sattha] ofthose who keep the remains of an arahant can have an impact on thepace at which they transform into relics.70

    Two st upas were also erected to venerate Mae Chi Kaew through hercrystallized remains that are displayed there, one at Wat Pa KaewChumphon, and the other in her nunnery at Kham Cha-i.71 According to67 Gabaude, 2003a, pp 116, 118; see also Luang Ta Mahabua, 2006; Uplifting crown

    of the cetiya (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai, distributed on CD-ROM).68 Here it is explained that the mind had been longer able to purify/cleanse [fork] and

    refine the body (the remains of an arahant might not necessarily turn into crystals,though, as, so it is believed, an arahant is able to make a resolution [atthithan] toprevent this from happening). See also Taylor, 1993, pp 175180.

    69Uplifting crown of the cetiya (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai; distrib-uted on CD-ROM); interview with Khru-ba Ajan, 7 November 2009.

    70 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009; interview with Khru-ba Ajan, 7November 2009.

    71 The first of these memorials was erected in the monastery Wat Pa Kaew Chumphon(in Sakon Nakhon province) beside the st upa of the late Phra Ajan SingthorngDhammavaro, who was a close disciple of Phra Mahabua and is also widely believed tohave attained arahant-ship. This st upa was completed in 1996 and cost some twomillion baht to construct. The second st upa is the aforementioned cetiya in Mae ChiKaews nunnery in Kham Cha-i that was completed in 2006. The costs for thisconstruction were nearly 20 million baht, while the whole site in which the st upa islocated cost some 30 million baht, including all the buildings, the landscaping andparking places (Group of Followers, 2009, p 24).

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    early Buddhism, st upas are in most cases signifiers of sainthood.Descriptions and designations of Mae Chi Kaew as a thup arahapuggala[literally: a person who is worthy of a st upa] can be found frequentlyin her life accounts. Hence, the st upa in Kham Cha-i has been builtto celebrate Mae Chi Kaew as an example for a female lay-follower[s avik a: literally (female) hearer] in the present era and to demonstratethat in current times the realization of nibb ana is still achievable for laywomen, and is not restricted to the male monastic community.72Another objective of this st upa is to encourage women to pursue thepath towards nibb ana.73 In addition, the Mae Chi Kaew St upa in BanHuai Sai has been described as a contribution to the material culturallandscape of north-eastern Thai Buddhism as it augments the religiousmap of highly venerated pilgrimage sites.74

    Another remarkable and powerful signifier of Mae Chi Kaews highlyadvanced spiritual attainment can be seen at Wat Yanasangworn, themonastery of the current Supreme Patriarch in Chonburi province. Thismonastery is a royal monastery of the highest level [phra aramluangchan-ek] under the patronage of the King. At its centre, the visitor findsa building with the name ariyakhan [the building of/for ariyas] inwhich the fibreglass figures of 10 prominent late Thai monks of thetwentieth century are placed on each flank of a Buddha imagepositioned in the centre of the room. In the right corner are two white-robed figures in sitting posture: those of the female Upasik a Ki Nanayon(190178), who has become one of the best-known Dhamma teachers,male or female, in Thailand75 and Mae Chi Kaew.76 The presence ofthese two female practitioners in the room amongst some of the mosthighly revered saints of modern Thai Buddhism arguably suggests thatthey are perceived to have attained, at the very least, the first level ofBuddhist sainthood [sot apanna].

    72Commencing Cetiya construction (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai;distributed on CD-ROM).

    73Points to Ponder 3 (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai; distributed onCD-ROM).

    74Points to Ponder 3 (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai; distributed onCD-ROM). The st upa in Ban Huai Sai was designed by a Thai aristocrat imitatingthe style of the famous and highly revered Phra That Phanom cetiya, and a table atthe st upa informs the visitor that in a previous life Mae Chi Kaew was herselfinvolved in the construction of the Phra That Phanom cetiya.

    75 Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1995.76 Suniwan also briefly discusses this figure of Mae Chi Kaew (Suniwan, 2006, pp 96

    97).

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 579

    Mae Chi Kaews st upa and relicsWhile st upa museums built for the veneration and commemoration ofmale practitioners and their relics are ubiquitous in Thailand, there are in line with my observations on the religious symbolism expressingveneration for Thai women in general few Thai st upas for theveneration of women.77 Some notable exceptions nevertheless exist. Thelargest of the three st upas in the monastery of Wat Kukut (also knownas Wat Camadev) in Lamphun provides an example here, said to havebeen erected by one of the two sons of the eighth century QueenCamadev to enshrine the remaining bones [a

    t

    thi] of his mother.78

    Another famous cetiya built for a Thai woman is to be found in theAyutthaya monastery of Wat Suan Luang Sopsawan, believed tocontain the ashes of the legendary Queen Suriyothai (sixteenth century).Third, the Phra Ariya Sawika Phiksuni Sangkhamaha Cetiya was builtin the grounds of the Royal Palace in Bangkok by Rama III in order tocommemorate noble lay followers and bhikkhuns. Here again,however, in line with the above observations, all these cetiyas/st upashave been built for the veneration of heroic women or of bhikkhunsand women from the time of the Buddha. It is not widely believed, if atall, that Queen Camadev and Queen Suriyothai attained arahant-ship.In the temple compound of the controversial Wat Phra Thammakaimovement in Pathum Thani, however, a huge, golden, hexagonalpyramidal construction has recently been built for one of the foundingfigures of this movement: Mae Chi Jan Khon Nokyung (19092000).Similar to the architectural style of many of the forest-tradition st upas,this construction is surrounded by water and has two floors: while thefirst floor houses a museum displaying personal items and informationabout the life and achievements of Mae Chi Jan Khon Nokyung, on thesecond floor, the visitor finds her statue in meditation posture, soasserting her veneration as a highly accomplished practitioner.79

    77 In Thailand, there is also the tradition of building small st upas for common people.These st upas, however, differ significantly not only in size, but also in their symbol-ism, from the st upas mentioned and discussed in this article.

    78 Nowadays, this cetiya is the object of veneration for many Thai Buddhists. This iseasily visible by the elephant statues, flowers and incense that are offered in front ofthe cetiya, in particular during the anniversary of Queen Camadevs birthday,believed to be in August.

    79 See Website: http://www.dhammakaya.net/visitorzone/detail_page_05_en.php(accessed 7 July 2009). See also Scott, 2009, pp 7076.

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    To sum up, it seems fair to state that there is no evidence to suggestthat in Thai history until quite recently a st upa has ever been builtfor Thai women who are widely believed to have achieved the highestlevel of spiritual perfection. Mae Chi Kaews two st upas clearly belongto the first Thai cetiyas ever built for this purpose, and that built for herin 1996 in Wat Kaew Chumphon may well be the very first.80 Gabaudeobserves that the building of museums for saints is a rather recentphenomenon, having first appeared only around 1990.81 Mae Chi Kaewsst upa museum would therefore appear to be one of the first ever to havebeen built for a female Thai Buddhist saint.

    As with some of the other st upas erected for saints of the Thai foresttradition, the first floor of the Mae Chi Kaew st upa in Ban Huai Saihouses a museum in which personal items of Mae Chi Kaew aredisplayed. In the middle of the museum, there is a solid, white, life-sizestatue of Mae Chi Kaew, showing her practising walking meditation.On the walls of the museum, bilingual tables invite the visitor to studyin English and Thai her life, work and spiritual achievements. Relicsand a fibreglass figure of Mae Chi Kaew in sitting meditation position,with open eyes that seem to look more to the inside than at theonlooker, are to be found on the first floor. Parts of her relics aredisplayed in two glass urns placed in such a way as to invite the visitorto lean over them in order to study the relics very closely, the glassappearing to have a magnifying effect. Unlike in many or perhapseven all traditional Thai st upas where the relics are buried deep withina st upa and are never seen,82 in most of the recently built st upas formonks of the Thai forest tradition, the relics are made easily visibleto the visitor. A remarkable and particular feature of the Mae Chi KaewStupa is that the current Thai Supreme Patriarch not only, as mentionedabove, named this cetiya, but also provided relics of the Buddha[s arrika-dh atu] for their enshrinement in it. Together with relics ofawakened disciples of the Buddha and of some Thai Buddhist saints(such as Ajan Man, Luang Pu Sao, Luang Pu Khao), the Buddha relicswere enshrined in the spire of the Mae Chi Kaew Stupa.83 Initially, therewere plans to place crystallized remains of Mae Chi Kaew in the spireof the st upa too. These plans were later abandoned, however, as it was

    80 See footnote 71.81 Gabaude, 2003a, p 108.82 Veidlinger, 2006, p 174.83 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009; interview with Khru-ba Ajan, 7

    November 2009.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 581

    felt that it would not be appropriate/correct to do so. Phra Ajan Inthawai,one of the main initiators of the construction of the st upa, explains thatthe reason for this decision was that we are still living in a world ofconventions and Mae Chi Kaew was a woman.84 For this reason, theMae Chi Kaew relics were eventually enshrined on the st upas secondfloor underneath her figure.85 Another reason why Mae Chi Kaewsrelics are not enshrined in the spire with the other relics is that this is areflection of one aspect of her own spiritual practice: she consistentlypaid high respect to the saffron robes [pha leuang] and placed herselfon a lower level in the presence of monks, displaying modesty andhumility.86 This gender hierarchy expressed in the st upa design, it isfurther explained, conforms to the first rule of the Eight garudhammas(Vin.II.253255), which stipulate that a bhikkhun must show deference tomonks, regardless of their seniority.87

    The architectural structure of the Mae Chi Kaew Stupa, together withthese accounts, points to the fundamental Buddhist concept of the twotruths: that is, conventional truth [sammuti-sacca] and ultimate truth[paramattha-sacca]. This concept, which can be traced back to Palicanonical texts,88 is often invoked in debates and discussions about therole of women in Thai Buddhism.89 Here it has been used as an inter-pretative strategy to explain the apparent contradiction between Buddhistsoteriological inclusiveness and androcentric tendencies that havebeen observed in Pali canonical scriptures.90 In this way, on the level ofparamattha-sacca, from a soteriological point of view, gender isirrelevant and to be overcome. This concept is nicely expressed in aspeech given by Phra Mahabua on 20 May 2006 during the openingceremony of the Mae Chi Kaew Stupa: being an arahant means to

    84Uplifting crown of the cetiya (Dhamma talk in Thai by Phra Ajan Inthawai;distributed on CD-ROM); The Lords Relics at Udorn (Dhamma talk in Thai byPhra Ajan Inthawai; distributed on CD-ROM).

    85 In this context, it is worthwhile mentioning that when a lay person took pictures ofher, Mae Chi Kaew ordered the pictures to be burnt, explaining: Pictures of womenfor veneration cannot be put on the same level as pictures of monks. This would be ademeritorious thing [p apa] of the one who does this. (Suniwan, 2006, p 113)

    86 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009.87 Interview with Khru-ba Ajan, 7 November 2009.88 The concept sammuti-sacca/paramattha-sacca seems to have first been made ex-

    plicit in a relatively late canonical text, the AbhidhammaText Kath avatthu. Here,the terms sammutisacca in Kv.311 and saccika

    t

    thaparamattha and paramattha

    in Kv.169 appear (see also, for example, Collins, 1990, pp 147156).89 See, for example, Seeger, 2005, pp 200202; Seeger, 2006, pp 165166.90 See Seeger, 2005, pp 206211; compare also with Sponberg, 1992.

  • 582 South East Asia Research

    have transcended the gender differentiation in female and male [khamwa arahan mai niyom wa pen ying pen chai].91 The sammuti-sacca,however, represents social convention and reflects specific socio-cultural contexts and values. In the context of the Mae Chi KaewSt upa, it indicates the widespread worldly convention [lokasammuti]of the socio-religious subordinate status of women. Whilst being soterio-logically irrelevant, socio-culturally speaking, Mae Chi Kaews gendertherefore remains relevant, even after her death and even in her relicsthat appear to be simultaneously both gendered and genderless.

    With regard to Indian Buddhist saints, Ray remarks that . . .while theywere alive, the saints have often been relatively inaccessible: they spentmuch of their time in remote places. . . But when the saints had passed onand their relics were enshrined in stupas, they finally became available toall and could become the objects of an ongoing cult.92 A similar phenom-enon applies in the case of the veneration of Mae Chi Kaew. During herlifetime, due to the remoteness of her nunnery and several other factors(discussed in the following section), the veneration of Mae Chi Kaewappears to have operated on a small scale and largely in her local area.After her death, however, this changed dramatically, her bones, and laterher crystallized relics, having been disseminated to many parts of Thailand.I was able to locate her crystallized relics not only in the two above-mentioned st upas, but also in three other key locations: (1) in the influentialDhammayuttika-nikaya monastery of Wat Chedi Luang in Chiangmai,where her relics are on display in a large, beautifully ornamented glasscase in which the crystallized remains of a large number of other saints ofthe modern Thai era are venerated in small glass st upas; (2) in PhraMahabuas monastery of Wat Pa Ban Tat in Udon Thani province, one ofthe most important pilgrimage centres of present-day Thailand, whereher remains are on display, again in small glass st upas93 and (3)91 Luang Ta Mahabua, 2006.92 Ray, 1994, p 324.93 In the main building of this monastery, in a large and systematically arranged

    collection of display cases, relics are arranged largely in chronological order. The(mostly clearly crystallized) relics of individual saints are kept in miniature glass st upas,which are placed in vertical glass cabinets. Centring on numerous relics of theBuddha himself (for example, of his blood, hair, bones), which are themselves placedaround the major Buddha figure in the building, the visitor can venerate and closelyobserve relics of Buddhas direct disciples. In several glass cabinets, relics ofcontemporary Thai saints are displayed. A huge table in front of the collectionexplains that the relics of the Indian Buddhist saints have manifested themselves[sadet ma duai amnat itthirit]. Some of the mini-st upas are still empty as the saintsto whom they are dedicated are still alive.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 583

    another portion of Mae Chi Kaews relics is kept in the Dhammayuttika-nikaya monastery of Wat Santitham in Chiangmai, where a relic museumis currently being built.94 It is also likely that further portions of MaeChi Kaews relics are venerated and stored in private houses and othermonasteries throughout Thailand, beyond the actual sites where shelived and worked.95 Moreover, pictures and accounts of the crystalliza-tion of her relics have also been electronically disseminated via theInternet, on numerous Thai Buddhist blogs and Websites.96

    Mae Chi Kaews legacyWhile alive, Mae Chi Kaew seemed to have had only a limited impacton the Thai Buddhist landscape and appears to have been little knownoutside her local area. On the translocal level, only monks belonging tothe forest tradition might have known about her. From her ordinationonwards, Mae Chi Kaew was able to build up personal charisma withinher local community, thanks to her convincingly authentic Buddhistpractice and her inspiring teaching. When Phra Mahabua publicly con-firmed her arahant-ship, the local community became electrified [taekteun].97 However, only some time after her death, and with the beliefthat her remains have crystallized, has her reputation and venerationbegun to spread beyond her local community.98 Although she is bestknown in the north-east of Thailand (Isan), her reputation has continued togrow, particularly over the last decade.99 There are several reasons forthis rather late, albeit rapid growth in reputation. In contrast to otherfamous religious figures of modern Thai Buddhism, Mae Chi Kaew didnot attain fame and recognition through homiletic skills. She left a rathersmall textual corpus of her teachings and is also reported to have beena quiet person who gave few sermons.100 In this respect too, she seems94 See also Website: http://www.santidham.com/tatu1st/tatu/present/m-keaw/m-

    keaw.html (accessed 1 July 2009).95 During fieldwork in Thailand in summer/autumn 2009, I was able to identify further

    locations of and narratives on the relics of Mae Chi Kaew, to be discussed in asubsequent paper.

    96 See, for example, www.watpa.com, www.santidham.com and www.dhammasavana.or.th.

    97 Suniwan, 2006, pp 143144; interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009.98 See Group of Followers, 2009, p 64.99 This statement is based on my own observations and my many interviews with

    Buddhist studies scholars and Buddhists in numerous provinces in the northern, north-eastern and central parts of Thailand.

    100 Suniwan, 2006, p 106; interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009; Slaratano,2009, p 206.

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    to have shared a characteristic with many forest monks who are mainlyinterested in mental and ascetic practices transmitted by word of mouth.They were not naturally inclined to publish their teachings.101 Also, asalready noted above, due to her lack of formal education, Mae Chi Kaewwas unable to write. In addition to this, she spoke only her nativelanguage of Phuthai, and not the national language of Central Thai.102Furthermore, her teachings have largely been transmitted orally by herclose disciples. There are no audio recordings or notes of her teachings,which would have helped to preserve them more systematically,completely and efficiently. The teachings of Mae Chi Kaew were infact only systematically compiled in 2003, more than 10 years after herdeath.103

    A further reason why Mae Chi Kaew was not translocally well knownduring her lifetime is that she did not establish a movement ororganization, as many other charismatic figures in Thai Buddhism havedone. Instead she preferred to use her remote nunnery to practisemeditation.104 Nor did she encourage reporters on the supernatural fromnational magazines to write more about her, despite the interest theyheld in her biography. In contrast to many other persons believed topossess supernatural powers, Mae Chi Kaew consistently refused touse her superhuman abilities to attract more followers105 or to produceor consecrate [pluk sek] amulets.106 Instead she preferred a humble andsecluded lifestyle and relied only upon the material support of her teachersor the donations of her supporters in her village.107

    The resources available in her local community would not haveallowed Mae Chi Kaew to support a huge number of followers.108 Whilstshe was alive, the nunnery was able to support itself through donations

    101 Gabaude, 2003b, p 181.102 Suniwan, 2006, p 114; Slaratano, 2009, p 206. Despite its linguistic closeness to

    standard Thai, the Phuthai language is rather difficult to understand for most non-Phuthai Thai people.

    103 Suniwan, 2006, pp 112, 114.104 Interview with Khru-ba Ajan, 7 November 2009.105 Suniwan, 2006, pp 85, 107; interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009;

    Slaratano, 2009, p 205.106 Interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009.107 Suniwan, 2006, p 137. As a consequence of the charisma they obtain through their

    ordination, monks may quite easily gain free shelter, food and financial support inmost places in Thailand, even if they are strangers. In contrast, for mae chis, it canbe relatively difficult to find places to stay or to receive support from lay people inplaces other than those where they are already known.

    108 Ibid, p 142.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 585

    from followers and believers, but following her death it has becomeincreasingly dependent on the support of monks.109 Mae Chi Kaew hasbecome increasingly recognized, venerated and celebrated at a nationallevel, thanks to an increasing number of biographies110 that are morewidely circulated in printed form and are partly published online; to thepatronage of one of Thailands most famous and influential monks, PhraMahabua, and of the current Supreme Patriarch; and due also to thedistribution of her relics across the whole country. This has extended tothe international level through a hagiography published in English in2009 and distributed not only in Thailand, but also in Europe andAmerica.111 Her reputation has further spread via the metal amuletsthat show her image, some 10,000 of which were produced tocommemorate the opening of the Mae Chi Kaew Stupa in KhamCha-i.112

    Mae Chi Kaews popularity is certified by the fact, for example, thatspecific sites at the Mae Chi Kaew nunnery are regarded as havingbecome sanctified as a result of important events in her life having takenplace there: the pathway where she practised walking meditation shortlybefore her awakening has been fenced off with barbed wire so that noone else can use it; her cell [ku

    t] can be visited for paying respect, but

    is no longer occupied; and the spot on which her body was crematedhas been encircled by stones too heavy to be moved by hand. As such,the layout of the nunnery spatially reflects key events from Mae ChiKaews biography with the aim of inspiring faith in its visitors,thousands of whom attend for an annual pilgrimage.113 The Mae ChiKaew st upa in Kham Cha-i has also become one of the major sightsee-ing points in the province of Mukdahan, and on the last Sunday inMarch every year since the st upas completion, an annual commemora-tion day is held there.114 The enormous charisma that Mae Chi Kaew109 Suniwan, 2006, p 144.110 According to Khru-ba Jaew, more than 5,000 copies were printed of each biography

    of Mae Chi Kaew (interview with Khru-ba Jaew, 3 November 2009).111 Slaratano, 2009. A total of 30,000 copies of this book have been produced at a cost

    of one million baht (interview, 7 November 2009 with Bhikkhu Slaratano; e-mailfrom Bhikkhu Slaratano, 24 December 2009).

    112 For the opening of the st upa, some 200 small figures were produced and were givento people who were actively involved in the construction process of the st upa (inter-view with Khru-ba Ajan, 7 November 2009).

    113 The two donations books at the museum on the ground floor of the st upa and myinterviews with locals show that there are up to 100 visitors each weekend.

    114 See, for example, http://www.hellomukdahan.com/thailand-mukdahan-travel.php(accessed 1 January 2010). Also, there are numerous road signs and posters through-out Mukdahan province that make the visitors aware of the Mae Chi Kaew st upa.

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    accumulated, together with her raised reputation, poses a challenge forthe community that she has left behind, both economically and in termsof preserving the authenticity of secluded Buddhist practice that sheexemplified through her life.

    ConclusionsMae Chi Kaew is by no means the only woman in Thai Buddhism whois believed to have achieved sainthood and who is, as a consequence,highly venerated. In a further article,115 I have referred to other womenwho are highly revered in modern Thai Buddhism because it is believedthat they were/are ariyapuggalas [noble persons: that is, they haveachieved one of the four levels of Buddhist sainthood].116 Recentresearch has shown that in indisputably male-dominated Thai Buddhismthere are increasing numbers of outstanding female Buddhist teachersand practitioners, mae chis or lay women, who have made a significantimpact on the religious landscape of Thailand.117 Parallel to the seem-ingly ever increasing number of [male] saints,118 there is also a growingnumber of female practitioners who are widely revered for theirtranscendental achievements. Increasingly, biographies are produced andwidely distributed, and amulets with the images of these women areproduced, circulated and have become sought-after objects of venera-tion. Thus the suggestion that womens spiritual potential is equal tothat of men is more widely explicitly acknowledged and celebrated.The increasing number of memorial sites built in Thailand for modernspiritually highly accomplished practitioners is also suggestive of thefact that mae chis and lay women hold roles of growing importance incontemporary Thai Buddhism, even in the absence of an officiallyrecognized Theravada order of nuns. Such an increase in religious spacefor women has occurred independently of the more general feministmovements and pan-Theravada campaigns for the revival of full[bhikkhun] ordination in the Theravada tradition. In fact, it is seen bymany as a continuation and natural consequence of Thai social andcultural norms and approaches. As a result, these new phenomena

    115 Seeger, 2009.116 I note, for example, the lay teacher of meditation, Khun Mae Siri Krinchai, who has

    a huge number of followers, many of them celebrities, along with Mae BunreuanTongbuntoem.

    117 See Seeger, 2009.118 Gabaude, 2003a, p 114.

  • The Thai female saint Mae Chi Kaew Sianglam 587

    which, though not part of any single organized movement, still repre-sent an important trend in contemporary Thai Buddhism do not facemuch, if any, resistance in Thailand. Rather, they are actively and gen-erously supported by a huge number of laypeople and many seniormonks and are perceived as confirmation that women are able to prac-tise in Buddhism successfully without having to challenge what arepopularly held to be traditional Thai religio-cultural practices and values.

    Historically, this raises the question of whether the attainment ofsainthood by a growing number of mae chis and laywomen is, indeed,a recent phenomenon in Thai Buddhism. Due to the scarcity of sources,it is difficult or perhaps impossible to answer this question. Accountsof forest monks, however, seem to suggest that we cannot concludefrom the absence of the respective relics and hagiographies of femalesaints that they did not exist before Mae Chi Kaews awakening. Onereason why more Thai Buddhist saints, both male and female, seem tohave appeared since the beginning of the twentieth century may belinked to the historical absence of written biographies, as noted by Keyes:

    it has only been quite recently that the lives of Buddhist saints or ofother well-known monks have become the subject of biographicalaccounts in Thailand . . . the first saints and distinguished monks inThailand for whom significant biographical accounts have beenconstructed are men who lived in the nineteenth century. Moreover,insofar as I am aware, none of the accounts of their lives was writtenuntil after the beginning of the twentieth century, . . .119

    Also, for some reason, according to representatives of the foresttradition, followers did not pay much attention to the bones andpossibly relics of reputed accomplished practitioners until quiterecently.120 The wide interest in the relics and biographies of femalesaints probably began only relatively recently with the veneration ofMae Bunreuan and Mae Chi Kaew. However, there are still livingmemories and minor biographical sketches (mostly mentioned in thehagiographies of male saints) of women who are believed to have beenoutstanding pra