19 (1)

King Culalongkorn

By Tanakorn Visesjindawat No.19 M.5/17

Context

Preface
Introductory Story
To profess Buddhism
His/her work on Buddhism
Virtues as good model foe leading a life
Reference

Preface

This report is part of Moral subject. The purpose of this report is to
study about Kisa Gotami such as her Introductory Story, her profess to
buddhism, her work on buddhism, and virtues as good model foe leading a
life. I hope this report will have benefits for everyone.

Introductory Story

Chulalongkorn, also called Phrachunlachomklao, posthumous name
Rama V, (born Sept. 20, 1853, Bangkok, Thailand—died Oct. 23, 1910,
Bangkok), king of Thailand who avoided colonial domination and embarked
upon far-reaching reforms. Chulalongkorn was the ninth son of King
Mongkut, but since he was the first to be born to a royal queen, he was
recognized as heir to the throne. He was only 15 years old when his father
died in October 1868, and he succeeded to the throne under the regency of
Somdet Chao Phraya Si Suriyawong. Over the next five years he was
prepared to assume his duties by observing court business and by travels
to British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies in 1871 and to Malaya, Burma
(Myanmar), and India in 1871–72.

Following his coronation in November 1873, the young king enacted
a series of ambitious reforms, beginning with the abolition of slavery, the
improvement of judicial and financial institutions, and the institution of
appointed legislative councils. His commitment to reforms patterned on
Western models, which he considered vital to Siam’s survival, antagonized
conservative factions at court and precipitated a political crisis early in
1875. Rebuffed by the older generation, the king instituted no further
reforms for the next decade, but he slowly built up a corps of able, trusted
administrators with whom he began from the mid-1880s to overhaul Siam’s
antiquated administration. These steps culminated in 1892 with the creation
of 12 ministries functionally organized on Western lines, responsible for
such functions as provincial administration, defense, foreign affairs, justice,
education, and public works. He thereby drastically curbed arbitrary

administration, ended the autonomy of outlying provinces, instituted the
rule of impersonal law, and laid the foundations of modern Thai citizenship
through compulsory primary education and universal military conscription.

Internal reforms were undertaken both because the liberal king
believed them to be right and because he recognized that he had to show
the colonial powers that Siam was “civilized” in order to avoid the fate of
neighbouring countries that fell under colonial rule. Even so, old Siam did
not survive intact. The French provoked war with Siam in 1892, and by
treaties with France up to 1907 Siam had to give up its rights in Laos and
western Cambodia. In 1909 Siam ceded to Great Britain the four Malay
states of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah, and Perlis, and this brought some
moderation of the system of extraterritoriality—which ended only two
decades later. In relations with the West, Chulalongkorn even-handedly
balanced the colonial powers against one another and consistently sought
to have Siam treated as an equal among nations. During tours of Europe in
1897 and 1907, he was received as an equal by Western monarchs. When
Chulalongkorn died in 1910, following the longest reign in Thai history, he
bequeathed to his son Vajiravudh a modern, independent kingdom.

To profess Buddhism

Soon after his ordination, the princely Buddhist scholar discovered
that scholarship in one of the leading monasteries of the kingdom was
lacking and even senior monks were so ignorant that they could make no
clear distinction between the teachings of Buddha on the one hand and the
accretions from animism and Hinduism on the other.

Prince Mongkut was well aware that the Buddha’s teachings were
first recorded in writing four centuries after his death and that during that
period, his disciples had endeavoured faithfully to preserve his teachings
and to pass them on from generation to generation by word of mouth, but
errors and interpretations had inevitably crept into the original body of
teachings. In addition, errors made by laborious manual copying of the
voluminous scriptures in the two thousand years since then had caused
further confusion. Prince Mongkut felt that the true teachings of Buddha
could be sifted from the distortions and accretions of twenty-four centuries
only by studying the scriptures critically, not in the spirit of faith but in the
light of reason.

In his intellectual and critical approach, Prince Mongkut used the
criterion of rationalism taken from Buddha’s famous dictum to his followers
not to believe in his teachings merely because they had faith in Him but
they must test every belief with their own powers of reason. Prince
Mongkut made judicious selections and rejections of Buddhist scriptures,
through eliminating accretions and emphasizing the meaning of the
scriptures and the purpose of each precept. Buddhist scholars consider
Prince Mongkut’s endeavour as an achievement in restoring Buddhism to
its original purity. A western scholar and biographer of King Mongkut
regarded it as a “new Buddhism’ purer than any other extant form of
Buddhism.

Prince Mongkut did not stop with this purely intellectual approach. He
wanted the pure doctrine and the moral principles in which he believed to
be understood by the monks as well as by the people. He began to teach
and taught his followers to preach. He wanted others to understand the
usefulness of the practices which the Buddha had initiated and the purpose
that they carried. His teachings aimed not only at eliminating patent abuses
in the church but also at focusing Buddhist thinking on morality, purging it
of superstitions and other accretions to the pure doctrine. His teachings
brought about the great reform in the Buddhist church and a renaissance of
religion in Thailand.

His/her work on Buddhism

From the status of the royal prince of the highest rank and heir
apparent, living a life in luxury and riches, Prince Mongkut chose to
become a monk sworn to poverty, a life of celibacy and rigorous discipline
of Buddhist priesthood, bound up in learning to subduing self instead of
conquering and ruling others. It is certainly hard for any man to conceive
and accept such a great change in life, but not for Prince Mongkut to leave
a most privileged life of a royal court with its autocratic principles in order to
enter one of the world’s most democratic institutions, the Buddhist
priesthood. On entering the priesthood, titles, ranks, privileges, all being
renounced, Prince Mongkut now known as Makuto Bikkhu (Mongkut the
Beggar) was one among other members of the brotherhood, all being equal
and sharing common poverty. In the Sacred Order, superior knowledge and
only years of good conduct, governed by two hundred and twenty-seven
rules, could bring seniority and precedence.

The Abbot of Bowonnivet Temple, with his fame as a scholar and
already as a teacher revered for his strict adherence to the monastic
discipline, the scholar-monk Mongkut attracted many monks of high calibre
to his monastery from places far and wide. Starting in 1837 with five
resident monks, the number soon grew to more than one hundred. Also
many young men went there to be ordained, even if they intended to take
up residence in some other monastery after the ceremony had been
performed. Thus a new Buddhist sect was born, known as Thammayut
Sect (the Order adhering to the teachings of the Buddha). The essence of
the Thammayut Sect was stricter adherence to the precepts of Buddhism
as laid down by the Buddha. All practices that were not based on reason or
on original Buddhist practice were eliminated. Monks would not blindly
follow rituals and they had to learn the meaning of their Pali chants. It
encouraged rationality, orthodoxy, and austerity in monastic life in exactly
the same way as Makuto Bikkhu had pursued. Those who belonged to the
old established order became known as members of the Mahanikai Sect
(the Order of Greater Number). But the old established order, confronted
with criticism and dissent for what was lacking, could not remain
complacent and resistant to some acceptable changes. Thus the
reformation undertaken by Prince-priest Mongkut had also resulted in the
healthy overall revival of Buddhism in Thailand.

Virtues as good model foe leading a life

His Highness had the knowledge in studying. As can be seen, when
he was young Try to find a good example from what impressed him.

His Majesty had excellent humility.
His Majesty had the initiative. He saw the old prayers to worship the
Triple Gems.
His Highness had a wide vision. because he is a person who is
interested in learning He therefore has a clever way of thinking.
(Yonisomanasikan) in a comprehensive way

Reference

https://sites.google.com/site/bukhkhltnbaeb/phuthth-saw-phuthth-
sawika/smdec-phra-mha-smn-cea-krm-phraya-wchir-yan-w-ro-
rs/khunthrrm-thi-thux-pen-baeb-xyang
https://www.au.edu/news/royal-birthday-anniversary-of-her-royal-highness-
princess-siribhachudabhorn-8-october-2.html
https://www.thaiembassy.sg/friends-of-thailand/p/king-chulalongkorn-day
https://so05.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/polscicmujournal/article/view/136274
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chulalongkorn