Ordination of Thai Women Monks

The first moves to ordain women in Thailand began at the turn of the previous century. In 1928, the eighteen year old Sara Rongasuwen and her sister, with their father's encouragement ordained as female novices and lived in the first female wat in Thailand, Wat Nareenwong in Nonthaburi. All of them were arrested for disregarding the Supreme Patriarch's order to leave the monkhood. Sara disrobed after two years. In 1933, the government passed a law that prohibits the ordaining of women.

There was no other attempt to revive the Bhikkhuni order until 1956 when Mrs. Voramai Kabilsingh received the eight precepts from Phra Pronmuni of Wat Bovornnives. She started to wear a light yellow robe to distinguish herself from the white robed mae chis. She referred to herself as nak buad, an ordained person. Voramai was born in 1980 in Rajburi Province and educated at a Catholic convent. She was the first Thai woman to train in jujitsu and swordfighting. In 1932, she joined the boy scouts as they biked their way to Singapore for 28 days, to prove that women could do such a thing. She married a member of parliament and had her children, one of whom included her daughter, Chatsumarn, who would later follow in her footsteps. When the abbot gave her the precepts, she shaved her head and took on a vegetarian diet, in contrast to most Thai Buddhists who eat meat. In 1957, she purchased property in Nakhon Pathom Province and established Wat Songhdharma Kallyani, the first temple established by and for women. There she began a private school for children grades K-6 and an orphanage. During the 1960's-1980's, she expanded her work to provide food, medicine, and clothing to the needy. The Mayor of the province became suspicious of her because she wore the yellow robes and called her temple Watra. The Dept. of Religious affairs considered the case against her clothing and determined that if the monks were not allowed to wear light yellow then why could she not wear it? She's not a monk! Furthermore the word "watra" just means "practice."

Because Voramai was ordained by Chinese Buddhists of the Mahayana lineage in Taiwan (the Dharmagupta tradition), the Thai government and Sangha do not officially recognize her ordination, as the lineage must remain within the Theravadin line. This, however, was not possible because ordination requires both male and female monks and there were no Thai female monks! The women have proclaimed however, that this ordination should be valid because the Dharmagupta sect was originally a subsect of Sri Lankan, Theravadin Buddhism.

In 2001, Voramai's daughter, Chatsumarn, a professor of philosophy at Thammasat University, decided to take on the robes herself. She traveled to Sri Lanka where the bhikkhuni order has recently been revived and received ordination as a novice monks, changing her name to Samaneri Dhammananda. Her mother, now over 90 years old, lives in an englassed case within the main hall of the temple she founded, cared for around the clock by nurses and her daughter. Her devotees still call her grandmother monk. (For more information about Samaneri Dhammananda click here.)

After the Feb. 2002 meeting of the Ariyavinaya conference at Wongsanit Ashram in Bangkok, the first ordination of a Thai woman to the Theravadan order occurred on Thai soil. The year previously, Chatsumarn Kabilisingh had traveled to Sri Lanka to be ordained by that country's female Theravadan monks. What follows is an article describing the Thai ordination:

"Clergy Lose Monopoly to Serve Our Needs"
By Sanitsuda Ekichai in Bangkok Post, Feb. 2002

If the establishment reaction to the recent ordination of Samaneri Dhammarakhita is anything to go by, the atmosphere is now more amenable to female ordination.

When Buddhist scholar Chatsumarn Kabilsingh ws ordained as Samaneri Dhammananda in Sri Lanka last year in her preparation to become a female monk, the news was greeted by a chorus of hateful criticism from senior monks. The government sent officers to investigate her temple in an obvious act of harassment.

Last Sunday, Buddhist nun Mae Chee Varangghana Vanavichayen followed in Dhammananda's footsteps. She became Samaneri Dhammarakhita in the first recorded female ordination ceremony ever held in Thailand.

For supporters of the female clergy, the ordination at Wat Songdhamkalyanee in Nakhon Pathom marked a new chapter in Buddhism in Thailand. For the religious establishment, the ordination was an open challenge.

When the cleric elders are not amused, the government usually takes up the lead. So what we heard on Monday was surprising, and probably explains the current silence from the top monks.

Deputy Education Minister Chamlong Krutkhunthod said the government could not stop the ordination because the monks did not belong to the Thai Theravada order but that of Sri Lanka which has recently revived the Bhikkhuni order. And given the constitution's mandate on religious freedom, the state simply cannot intervene until national security is under threat.

Although he promised to set up a study group to map out guidelines for a state response to the new female clergy, this was no more than a tip of the hat to the elders and has no policy bearing. Since the clergy have always been dependent on the state to smash dissent for them, Deputy Minister Chamlong's non-committal stance has left them in the cold.

Interestingly, the media reaction to Dhammarakhita's ordination also indicated a more liberal attitude. Although Thai Rath, the country's largest circulation newspaper openly attacked the ordination, its hostility was not shared by most other papers. Matichon daily, for example, gave the ordination its full support in an editorial which called forth end to gender discrimination in Thai Buddhism. Most TV talk shows also generally presented a balanced viewpoint, allowing audiences to reach their own judgement.

This does not mean Thailand's deeply entrenched sexist culture is crumbling however.

Web board postings, for example, are full of sexist cynicism and whining against female ordination. Some went as far as to accuse foreign third hands of supporting female ordination as a way to undermine Thailand's Buddhism and national security, with some foreign funded NGO's as the instigators.

This may sound the bleating of the lunatic fringe, but it is also the clergy's standard line for anything it perceives as a threat to its power. The danger lies in its effort to fan race-based nationalism by equating threats to the clergy with those of national security.

Fortunately, the government is not dancing to the clergy's tune this time on female ordination. And although deep conservatism remains, society has become too pluralistic for a single voice to dominate all others.

Like it or not, the clergy must face the fact that religious pluralism is here to stay. And they can no longer avoid the issue of female ordination.

The Bhikkhuni order form Sri Lanka which is taking root in Thailand is just one example of how disillusioned Buddhists are seeking alternatives to the feudal, out-of-touch clergy who cannot answer their spiritual needs.

Unless the clergy can reform and are able to answer new demands, they cannot complain when people seek answer elsewhere. They can only wilt and watch the world pass them by.