ABSTRACT
In his path-breaking article on ‘Buddhism in a Secular City: A View from Chiang Mai’, Keyes (1975a: 64) observes that Buddhism in the rapidly secularizing Northern Thai city ‘is acquiring new meanings as the populace of the city, both lay and clerical alike, adapt to their altered conditions of life’. He argues that socioeconomic and cultural modern forces do not necessarily lead to ‘the ultimate decrease of Buddhism’ (ibid.). The religion still performs its functions amidst the secularization processes re-orienting the local people toward modernity. Buddhism, especially its magical versions and other popular beliefs and practices beyond the monastic walls located in the heartland of urbanizing Chiang Mai, tends to offer its devotees ritual services pertaining to life crises rather than agricultural fertility and local politics, which have formed strong bases for merit-making events in the past. Other than from monks, urban laypersons have also sought religious services from and made offerings to specialists like astrologers, folk healers and spirit mediums. Keyes’s article, like other works on Thai Buddhism published in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Reynolds 1978; Tambiah 1970, 1984), explored the secularization phenomena of Thai Buddhism during their time, but stopped short to augur what has fully emerged as the phenomenal commoditization of Thai Buddhism in the 1990s (Apinya Fuengfusakul 1993; Jackson 1999a,b; Suwanna Satha-Anan 1998). Thai Buddhism into the 21st century has continually provided powerful cosmological and moral frameworks to the Thais. Under the ongoing secularization process of Thai social life, Buddhism is transformed into a commodity by the complex forces of capitalist economy and modern life style.
