This week I started reading a new book, called "Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom" written by a professor at National University Singapore named Maurizio Peleggi. I have only gotten through the lengthy introduction, and embarrasingly enough he had me scrambling to the dictionary to look up English words more than once.
One word that he used quite frequently, but I don't think I have ever known is "oecumene" (or, as I found out tonight, it is also commonly spelled "ecumene"). To the Ancient Greeks, the word meant the inhabited or known world. Alexander the Great conqured most of the Oecumene during his reign.
The author of this book, however, defined the word as "a geo-cultural space". His thesis for the book (as far as I can tell) is that modern Thailand is the product of many "geo-cultural spaces" over the last 1000 years. Here are the seven oecumene that Peleggi outlines in the introduction of his book:
- We start with the influence of India, or what the scholar Coedes called the Hinduisation (commonly translated as Indianization) of Southeast Asia. Modern Thailand still has many aspects of this Hindu culture, including Sanskrit vocabulary, Brahmanic rituals, Hindu myths (the Garuda, for example), urban design and religious archetecture. So this is referred to as the "Indic Oecumene".
- Theravada Buddhism arrived from Sri Lanka around 1000 years ago, bringing Buddhist icons and patronage of the monastic order known as the Sangha. Obviously, Thailand still has strong ties to this "Theravada Oecumene".
- Around the same time, Persian and Arab traders brought what is now Southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia into the "Islamic Oecumene".
- During the Sukothai and Ayuthaya periods (1400s - 1700s), Siam became a regional power where trade was conducted with countries all over the world. Perhaps the most important trading country at the time was China. Not only did Siam pay tribute to Beijing, but there were also a large number of immigrants from the country (even up to recent times). This is known as the "Sinic Oecumene"
- The great capital city of Ayutthaya fell in the 1770s to invading armies from what is now Burma. A few decades later, the Chakri Dynasty was started in Bangkok and rules to this day. As the author states in this book, "The Bangkok kingdom stood in the cosmological, cultural and trading space at the overlap of the Indic and Sinic Oecumene"
- During the reigns of Rama IV and V (1800s), a new "Victorian Oecumene" was brought to Thailand. England had a lot of influence in the region during this time, as they controlled the countries to the west of Thailand such as India and Burma. Rama IV and V helped to "westernize" Thailand based on European civilization. The Chakri Reformation under Rama V made many changes in the governement, religion, and society, with the help of western advisors.
- Finally, Thailand came under the "American Oecumene" after World War II. The American Oecumene is also known popularly as "the free world". Thailand was the United States' most important ally in Southeast Asia in the cold war fight against communism and played a major role in the Vietnam War. Billions of dollars flowed into the country in the 1960s and 1970s and helped moderize it futher with strategic roads and railways.
So, even though I have never heard of the word "oecumene", it's a nice concept to help explain the crazy mix of influences that can be seen in today's Thailand. Hopefully the rest of the book will be as interesting as the Introduction!
