ABSTRACT

Religious phenomena display a very complex configuration in contemporary Laos, even to the most casual of observers. There was constant communication across Asia that comprised elements of Hindu "religions", and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, as well as other ideas. The ruler guaranteed the integration of the cosmological system as managed by the religious specialists. The world religion creates a level of socio-cosmic integration that makes plausible why an external entity like a different village or town falls within the range of one's own internality. The foreignness of Brahmanism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity enables communities and households that adopt the respective religion to define other, more remote communities as "inside" in specific contexts. The chapter outlines the layers of religious institutions and social environments in connection with the outline of sociocultures. It deals with the intermediate objective layers, and these layers may be characterized as sociocultures, institutions and social environments.