Department of History, National University of Singapore

Thai Temples and Temple Murals by Rita RingisReview by: Stanley J. O'ConnorJournal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Sep., 1991), pp. 459-460Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Department of History, National Universityof SingaporeStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20071381 .

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Book Reviews 459

being between "stable" and "turbulent" times (hence the title). Broadly, the argument runs that the domestic and international contexts of Thailand's development have

become less predictable, more pluralistic in terms of participation and determining

factors, and therefore more turbulent over time. As a result, the development task has

needed to adapt from an optimizing/centralized approach to an interactive/decentralized

strategy that is flexible and responsive to changing conditions.

Few would argue with the proposition that the task of the National Economic

and Social Development Board (NESDB, with which both the authors are directly

associated) has needed to change over time and that substantial restructuring is required.

However, to reduce the overriding context of change to increasing "turbulence" is at

once reductionist and ultimately concealing rather than revealing of the changes that

have occurred in Thai society, economy and polity over the past quarter-century. The

"stable" period of Abonyi and Bunyaraks' study coincides with the authoritarian

Sarit/Thanom-Prapas regimes, the beginning of "turbulence" with the more liberal

period that followed, but nowhere is the nature of this transition analyzed. To what

extent is turbulence a shorthand for economic restructuring, crisis of capitalism, res

ponse to authoritarian-bureaucratic excess, and so on? In what sense, also, is the pre

sent more turbulent than 1973 or the late 1970s? In many ways, Thailand's emerging

sub-regional role, notably vis-?-vis Indochina (which is not mentioned, even in the

section on changing international context), suggests a period of relative stability ahead.

The review of development planning and performance does not attempt evaluation

of each. It is interesting that the lowest ebb of NESDB's role, the Chatchai era, was

also Thailand's period of highest growth in recent years. Coming from the planners'

perspective as they do, the authors tend to overestimate the role and effect of develop ment planning in an economy such as Thailand's. Ultimately we learn very little about

the relationship of such planning to the wider bureaucratic, political and economic

institutions of the country, except in a final footnote. More of this and less in the way of handbook-type explanation of bureaucratic planning principles might have made

this a more enlightening study.

University of Sydney Philip Hirsch

Thai Temples and Temple Murals. By RITA RINGIS. Singapore: Oxford University

Press, 1990. Pp. xxix, 163. Illustrations, Glossary, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Countless visitors have succumbed to the unhurried calm and visual enchantment of

the Buddhist monasteries of Thailand and have wished to understand something about

their function and development. With this book in hand, they will be able to learn a

great deal about both the structural, decorative, and symbolic features of the principal architectural forms encountered in the monastic compound as well as the formal pro

perties, techniques, and themes presented in the mural paintings which embellish the

interior walls of buildings or galleries. The author is an admirable guide, channelling perceptions, pointing out special

features, making connections between appearance and function. In Chapters One and

Two she sets the buildings in their historical and religious traditions. These are neces

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460 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 22, 2 (1991)

sarily much compressed, virtually thumb-nail sketches, but they set the stage for what

is the heart of her discussion, in Chapter Three, of the major architectural forms and

spatial organization of the monastic compound. These are the galleries, entrances,

reliquary structures {prang and chedf), ordination halls {ubosot), congregation halls

{vihan), open pavilions {sala), and the cube-shaped buildings {mondop) with tiered

roofs that are used to enshrine holy objects or scriptures. Thai architectural traditions are a synthesis of local vernacular building techniques

and the mixed cultural impacts absorbed from both immediate neighbours and Sri

Lanka and China. The author shows that the Thai response to Khmer example was

especially fruitful and she follows in detail the characteristically innovative Thai re

working of Khmer spatial ordination, sanctuary towers, and decorative schemata.

In Chapters Four and Five the technique, layout, visual qualities, and general thematic

sources of Thai mural painting are sketched out. There is a useful account of stylistic

development and modification during the nineteenth century from an unsystematic use of aerial perspective, flat decorative shapes, theatrical formality of gesture, and

arbitrary divisions of scenes toward a gradual introduction of Western perspective and

an increasing documentary interest in the round of ceremonial and historical events.

This book succeeds in making an unfamiliar, if immediately appealing, artistic tradi

tion part of the realm of humane literacy. It is to be hoped that it will be issued in

a paperback edition.

Cornell University Stanley J. O'Connor

Institutionalization of Democratic Political Processes in Thailand: A Three-Pronged Democratic Polity. By PISAN SURIYAMONGKOL. Bangkok: Arunee Indrasuksri,

1988. Pp. 162. Tables, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

This is a very readable, interesting and informative study. The author's argument that

socio-economic development over recent decades has gradually provided a basis for

extra-bureaucratic forces in Thailand ? student organizations, labour unions, trade

associations, mass media and political parties ? which are strong enough to check

bureaucratic power is an important one. The result, as he points out, is a new attitude

of compromise among the bureaucracy and its leaders, especially the military, evident

in the "constitutional" decade of the 1980s. It is not surprising, therefore, that he con

cludes (writing in 1988), that "key civilian and military personages in Thai society seem to support peaceful political change through current constitutional means"

(p. 91). Such a new pattern of political behaviour has emerged mainly from the inter

action of three key variables ? kingship, bureaucratic forces and extra-bureaucratic

forces ? whose mutual checks and balances of power and influence form the "three

pronged democratic polity" of his sub-title.

The coup d'etat of February 1991 comes as an unpleasant surprise, for Dr. Pisan

writes (p. 77) that one is tempted to conclude that coup d'etat has become a thing of

the past ? an opinion this reviewer shared. Admittedly he has guarded himself against

undue optimism by mentioning the possibility of a return to the "bureaucratic polity"; but his basic argument

? as mine would have been ? is that this is unlikely in view

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