Jacob I.

Ricks: National Identity and the Geo-Soul: Spiritually Mapping Siam

National Identityand the

Geo-Soul: Spiritually Mapping
Siam
Jacob I. Ricks
Emory University
Abstract
This paper investigates the re-centring of religious identity
within the geo-body in the developing world through the case
study of Thailand, formerly Siam. Although by 1932, monarchic rule and colonial powers had demarcated the geo-body
of Siam, the national soul was not yet fully cultivated. After the
fall of the absolute monarchy, Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram
sought to mould the religio-national identity of Thailand until
the religious communitys borders coincided with those of
the nation-state. One focus of nationalist leaders efforts was
the adaptation and promotion of Buddhist temples throughout
the state. These temples became markers of both geographic and
cosmological space, serving to infuse the geographic body with
a religio-national soul. Thus, the nationalism that developed
embraced the fusion of the religious identity with the national
identity.

Introduction1
The end of the nineteenth century saw the borders of the worlds states
marked out like a colourful jigsaw with numerous interlocking pieces.
Thailand, then called Siam, was no exception. The kingdom had evaded
colonisation, but it had been forced to take on Westernised government
institutions and geographic conceptions of space in order to do so,
including externally dened borders. Thongchai (1994) elegantly outlined
the creation of the Siamese geo-body, which was accomplished primarily
through colonial incursions during the reign of King Chulalongkorn
(18681910). This new geo-body became an inuential icon of the
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Siamese state. The map of Siam, serving as a logo, could be imaginarily

withdrawn from the world, like a piece of a puzzle wholly detached from
its geographic context (Anderson 1991: 175). The national body had
emerged from the womb of history. Yet, as with any body, the geo-body of
the Siamese nation needed a soul in order to live. Nationalist leaders who
followed Chulalongkorn demarcated the geo-soul through centring the
Buddhist religion within the Thai identity and the geographic realm of the
state. The Buddhist religio-national identity of Thailand, which was largely
initiated during the governments of Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram
(193844, 194857), has become one of the most enduring markers of
Thai identity.
Like Thailand, many other countries in the developing world have national
identities with religious aspects. These religio-national identities have
evaded scholars who study nationalism; often they treat religious identities
as subsiding prior to the rise of nationalism (e.g. Anderson 1991; Smith
2000; Gellner 1983). Yet in many areas of the world, the intertwining of
religious and national identities within the geo-body prompts inquiry into
the development of these geo-souls, or religio-national identities linked to
the geographic locale of the state.
This paper considers the growth of the Thai geo-soul identity through the
states adoption and manipulation of the traditional markers of cosmographic space, Buddhist temples or wat (Thongchai 1994: 2829). Temples
which were placed under national patronage as part of the development of
Thai nationalism during Phibunsongkhrams (hereafter referred to as
Phibun) governments served to mark the geographic extent of the Thai
state and the cosmographic location of the nation. The mapping of the geosoul through Buddhist temples also served to help the Thai nation imagine
itself as the sacred bastion of Buddhism; even though it was not the
birthplace of the religion (see Niranam 1986).
The paper proceeds as follows: First, I discuss a theoretical framework of
the re-centring of religious identities within the geo-body in the developing
world. Second, I turn to the Thai case where I identify the circumstances
which prompted the creation of a religio-national identity through the use
of Buddhist temples. Third, I discuss the initial creation of the Thai geosoul by identifying four important temples which were adapted to the
nationalism discourse during the administration of Phibun. Each of these
temples is discussed in relation to the efforts which the state put into
developing it as a marker of the Thai national identity; the temples are then
considered collectively concerning their effect in creating a geo-soul. The
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paper concludes with a discussion of the consequences of the states efforts

and the enduring qualities of the geo-soul, including the role of pilgrimages
to these temples by both political leaders and the populace.
Religio-national Identity and the Geo-Soul
The body of theoretical literature on nationalism is unfortunately lacking in
an explanation of the continued intertwining of religion and national
identity in many countries of the world. Anderson (1991: 6) wrote that the
imagined community involved a communion among the members of
the community, pointing to the possible link between religion and
nationalism. Even so, his explanation of nationalism treated religious
identity as subsiding prior to nationalisms rise. Smith (2000; 2003)
also noted how national identities mimic those which were earlier linked
to religion, but he treats the two as entirely separate. Gellner (1983)
explained that religions grip on society had to slacken before nationalism
could grow. These important authors treat the two identities, religious and
national, as competing, or at least unable to co-exist on the same level.
One, primarily religious identity, must give way to the other, nationalism.
Yet these analyses fail to explain fully the persistence and integration
of religious and national identities in many nations of the world:
Buddhism in Thailand, Islam in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Iran,
Shinto in Japan, Christianity in America, or Hinduism in India, for
example.
In many places, religious identity has not necessarily been pushed aside by
its nationalist counterpart, especially in developing nations. Instead, I
argue, the two have at times fused, creating a religio-national identity, in
which the identities reinforce each other. Often these identities
are explicitly linked to the geographic location of the nation-state through
nationalist leaders efforts, reinforcing the states geo-body. Thongchai
(1994: 17) denes the geo-body as a man-made territorial denition
which creates effects by classifying, communicating, and enforcement
on people, things, and relationships. The geo-body was created as a
mechanism by which nation could be envisioned geographically. It gave
the nation a territorial home. Yet the geo-body was not created in vacuum;
as Thongchai noted, someone had to make and enforce it. The geo-soul
serves as one of the methods by which the geo-body is enforced.
In many developing countries, leaders sought to equalise their power
distribution across the land circumscribed by the boundaries which
colonial powers had given them. This contrasted with the old conceptions
of power, often portrayed as radiating in circles from the centre to the
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periphery. As the distance from the centre increased, governmental

authority weakened. The new nation-states had boundaries such that the
authority of the centre could be theoretically equal in both the capital and
the most distant border village. Religion, though, was not circumscribed by
the borders of the states, and it could serve to compete with the edgling
governments. In order to overcome this potential competition, many
nationalist leaders sought to incorporate the symbols of religion to fortify
their embryonic national identities (see Juergensmeyer 1995; Bellah 1965:
185186). Yet a problem remained; religious authority was linked through
cosmological space to its centre of power, often in a distant land: Islam was
always linked to Mecca, Buddhism to India, Catholicism to Rome, and so
on. In order for nationalist leaders to link religion to the national identity,
they needed to redene the religious geographic structure, preferably recentring the religious identity within their geo-body. In order to do this,
leaders built or adapted religious symbols, especially monuments, to serve
as markers which dened the nation-states geo-body as a sacred land, a
bastion of the religion. Through their efforts, religious power was
construed to exist within the framework of their own state. The geo-body
became sacred in both a national and a religious sense. Thus, a geo-soul
entered the geo-body.
In examining this phenomenon I have chosen to use the Thai case study for
two main reasons. The rst is the fact that, although its borders were
created through colonial intrusion, Thailand escaped colonisation. Due to
this, the initial development of the Thai geo-soul can be clearly traced
without referencing the interference of a colonial government. Second, the
Thai nationalist leaders efforts were largely successful. The Thai state and
Buddhism today are so tightly enmeshed that it is often difcult to
distinguish where one begins and the other ends. State ceremonies are
performed with symbols of Buddhism present; political leaders often
consult monks before taking ofce; Buddhist temples display symbols of
the Thai state, including pictures of the monarchy; the government controls
the building and maintaining of monasteries through both monetary and
legal means. Recently government and religious leaders have also
entertained thoughts of constitutionalising the nations links with Buddhism (see Wassana and Mongkol 2007).
By investigating Thailand exclusively, though, I hope not to give the
impression that the re-centring of religion does not apply to other nationstates. In an interesting comparison, Sukarno sought to likewise envelop
Islam within Indonesia through the construction of Masjid Istiqlal in
Jakarta. Sukarno declared (Sukarno 1966, 5):
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It is my wish, together with the Islamic community here to

erect a Friday Mosque which is larger than the Mohammad Ali Mosque [Cairo] . . . Larger! And why? We have a
great nation! My wish is to build with all the populous,
one Indonesian nation which proclaims the Islamic
religion.
By building the largest mosque in the world, Sukarno, and Suharto who
nished constructing the edice, hoped to develop an Indonesian Islamic
geo-soul; locating Islam within national boundaries. Similar attempts could
be found in other countries around the world.

The Thai Geo-Body and its need of a Soul

Prior to the development of Siams geo-body, the kingdom had existed with
only minimalist borders. The conception of monarchic power did not align
with Western ideas of space or borders observed on current maps. Instead,
the early Siamese maps were dened according to cosmographic or line-ofsight perspectives which ignored the vertical boundaries so important
to colonial powers as they entered the region. The Siamese courts efforts
to appease foreigners demands for cartographic maps were linked heavily
to the traditional cosmographic representations which showed merit and
spiritual planes rather than vertical lines placed upon terrestrial space.
Europeans invited to witness these early mapping efforts struggled not to
laugh in the presence of the Siamese king (Neale 1852: 5456). Even so,
the early maps demonstrated the importance of the conuence of the
spiritual and the physical planes. The Buddhist-style cosmography dened
the legitimacy of the government and its link to spiritual power.2
Unfortunately for the Siamese, the colonial powers sought to carve out
their own maps of the territory.
Although King Chulalongkorn endeavoured to indigenously map Siam, its
boundaries were shaped primarily through the inuence of colonial
powers. Altercations with the French in Indochina in 1893 set the
northeastern boundaries, while treaties with the British in the early 1900s
dealt with Burma on the west and Malaysia to the south, delineating
the extent of the Siamese kingdom in those directions (Thongchai 1994:
128). The Siamese state quickly expanded its inuence to the borders
in order to consolidate its power and block further colonial intrusion
(Vickery 1970: 873877). Administrative reforms ensured that by the
time of King Chulalongkorns death in 1910, the Siamese had a clearly
dened geo-body.
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Yet the question of nationalism and national boundaries had merely begun.
It was left to the leaders who followed Chulalongkorn to create the national
identity of the Thais. The centralisation strategies of the late 1800s and rst
decade of the 1900s encapsulated a variety of ethnic, linguistic, and
religious groups within the geo-body. The peripheral groups resisted the
centres governing efforts through many means including open rebellion
and religious protest (Keyes 1977: 283302). The unrest within the newly
dened borders concerned the leaders who followed Chulalongkorn, and
they embarked on the process of nation-building in order to consolidate
their political control within the borders of the geo-body.
Immediately after Chulalongkorns death, his son Vajiravudh became
monarch. Vajiravudh (191025) sought to nurture what Anderson refers
to as ofcial nationalism, or nationalism developed by traditional
political elites in order to retain the reins of power (Anderson 1991: 100
101). In doing so, Vajiravudh took preliminary steps towards the
development of the geo-soul. He initiated the nationalistic Wild Tigers
paramilitary group through a sacred ceremony in Wat Phra Kaeo (Vella
1978: 2729). He also adapted the British saying of God, King, and
Country to nation, religion, and king. Although Vajiravudh is remembered as the father of Thai nationalism, his efforts were reserved for the
elites, and his nation-building never truly took hold with the masses.
Despite the palaces attempts, the absolute monarchy was growing weaker
in its hold over society. On ascension to the throne in 1925, King
Prajadhipok, Vajiravudhs younger brother, inherited economic woes and
increasing opposition to monarchic authority. He was only able to cling to
absolute power for seven years.
In 1932, a European-educated group of military ofcers and civilians
staged a coup, overthrowing the absolute monarchy and developing a
constitutional government. Over the next six years, the coup group split
along ideological lines between the civilians and soldiers, with the soldiers
led by Phibun. In 1938, Phibuns faction took control of the government,
and he became Prime Minister.
Phibun felt the need to create a unied national identity in order to both
legitimate his own power and modernise the Thai state. Phibun hoped to
reshape traditional loyalty to the monarchy into a commitment to the nation
through numerous government efforts to develop nationalism. He changed
the name of the country to Thailand in 1939 to better reect the Thai ethnic
group which was encapsulated within its borders (Baker and Pasuk 2005:
132133). He also employed a variety of strategies to dene what it meant
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to be a good Thai, including instructions on proper dress and actions, even

how and when men should kiss their wives.
Along with the secular strategies came a determination to develop
Buddhism as one of the most important components of Thai identity
(Kobkua 1995: 12, 105106). Buddhist institutions throughout Thailand
during the early years of the nation were better developed than their secular
counterparts. The temples scattered throughout the country had traditionally served as community hubs, providing numerous services which the
government was not yet able to. The monasteries provided:
. . . a community chest; a meeting place where news and
gossip are exchanged; a recreation centre; a hospital in
times of difculty; a school for religious training as well as
secular training; a place of deposit (bank); a community
warehouse for equipment rental; a home for the psychotic
and aged; an employment agency; a social work and
welfare agency; the village clock; a free hotel; a free
hostel for students; an information centre; a news agency;
playground for children; a sports centre; the poor house; a
landlord; a reliable water reservoir; a counseling centre
(Somboon 1976: 1920).
The religion was better equipped to supply public goods than the
government in almost all respects, especially in rural areas where
the majority of the people lived. As Somboon (1976: 19) wrote, apart
from the family, the [temple] is the next most important institution in Thai
rural life. The religion was a tool for mobilisation as well, spurring both
rebellion (Murdoch 1974) and massive building projects (Tamnan 1968:
1214).3
Religion also served as a legitimating factor for the aristocracy and the
monarchy, supporting a belief that hereditary political leaders had great
merit accumulated from previous incarnations. Early cosmographic maps
had placed the king at the centre of this spiritual world which had existed
independently of the physical one (Neale 1852: 55). Historically, Buddhist
cosmology had also been delineated through pilgrimages, but the spiritual
locations were spread across South and Southeast Asia, with many of them
existing outside what was mapped as Thai space (Keyes 1975: 8589).
By overthrowing the monarchy and appealing to the new geo-body of
Siam, Phibun had upset the conceptions of traditional cosmographic
hierarchy. In order to rectify the discrepancy of spiritual and political
power and increase state legitimacy, Phibun undertook to harness this
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amorphous spiritual power and institutional strength within the boundaries

of the political geo-body.4 He set out to centre Thai Buddhism within
Thai-land.
Genesis of the Geo-Soul
The Phibun government sought to conscript Buddhism to the national
rhetoric through numerous means including rituals, but one of the most
important efforts for the re-centring of Buddhism was the adaptation of
Buddhist temples as markers of national space and identity.5 The choice to
focus on temples hearkened back to traditional patterns of governance in
which the legitimacy of rulers depended upon merit earned. The role of a
ruler was that of performing merit in expensive ways, which no commoner
could afford. One of the greatest of these methods was that of building or
restoring a religious monument which had fallen into ruin (Byrne 1995:
271272). These spiritual buildings, through their adoption by the national
government rather than individual rulers, became the immortal monuments
of the Thai geo-soul.6 The development and promotion of Buddhist
temples was so important that during Phibuns second government, the
state spent 693 million baht restoring over 5,500 temples around the
country (Kobkua 1995: 140141).
Although temples generally were given special regard by the government,
four temples were chosen to become the focal points for demarcating the
geo-soul. The four represented each of the major regions of the Thai geobody: Bangkok and the surrounding area, the North, the Northeast, and the
South.7 Three of the temples existed prior to the development of Thai
nationalism and were widely regarded as the most sacred locations in their
respective regions. The fourth temple, at the capital, was built by Phibun in
order to offset the role of the just-overthrown monarchy and centre the
state-style Buddhist religion in Bangkok.
The adoption of each of these temples to the religio-national identity
reveals a pattern; so each is briey considered below. Their location in
relation to the geo-body is displayed in Figure 1.
Wat Phra Sri Mahathat in Bangkok
The most important temple for Phibun personally was the one which he
built to commemorate the end of the absolute monarchy. During a cabinet
meeting on 19 September 1940, Prime Minister Phibun presented a plan to
build a temple which in his mind would serve as the paragon of all
Buddhist monasteries and the blueprint for future temples (Manit 1997:
8385). This temple, which Phibun originally titled Wat Prachathipitai or
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Figure 1. Distribution of temples under discsussion within the geobody of Thailand.

Democracy Temple, was to be located near the site of the defeat of royalist
forces shortly after the overthrow of the absolute monarchy. Phibun had
emerged as the victorious commander during the incident, and this temple
would serve to further promote his government while commemorating the
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failure of the royalists. It would also serve as an immortal declaration of the

Buddhist nature of the Thai state. Phibun declared:
The Buddhist Religion is the most glorious religion for the
whole of the Thai people and many other nations in other
countries to believe in. It is a religion which is always
modern. More importantly, Thailand is a democratic
country . . . [and] Buddhism is one of the foundations of
democratic rule . . . therefore, it is appropriate that [the
Thai people] do something to help promote Buddhism.
Therefore, the government has decided to build a temple
near the Constitutional Defense Monument and give it the
name of Democracy Temple (cited in Manit 1997: 8385).
The temple was completed very quickly, and its dedication was held on
Nation Day, 24 June 1942, the ten-year anniversary of the absolute
monarchys fall.
The edice would soon take on even more symbolic importance. As the
temple was planned and built, a special envoy travelled to India. Alongside
the mandate to develop better relations with the British colonial power and
the Indian government, the delegation had a second important task, to
perform a national pilgrimage and retrieve sacred icons from the birthplace of Buddhism. These included dirt from each of the four sacred
pilgrimage locations mentioned in Buddhist scripture and sprigs from the
original Bodhi tree where the Buddha had rested. The Indian government
granted permission for the delegation to obtain the requested items; ve
Bodhi tree starts and other relics were soon on their way to Bangkok
(Somkhit et al. 19821983: 82). After a short stay in the National Museum,
notably not a Buddhist temple, the relics were placed in Wat Prachathipatai,
which was renamed Wat Phra Sri Mahathat to reect its new sacred nature.
Buddhist relics from India were not the only sacred items brought out to
strengthen the nationalist temple. A Sukhothai-era Buddhist image was
claimed from the National Museum to link the religious edice to the
historic past. The temple was also prepared to serve as a national cemetery
with 112 urns prepared to receive the remains of those who greatly
contributed to the nation (Somkhit et al. 19821983: 83). The temple was
developed as not only a monument to Buddhism, but a commemoration of
the democratic Thai nation (Dhamma Thai 2007).
The Bodhi sprigs brought from India took on special signicance
in Phibuns nationalism project. Bodhi trees were readily available in
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Thailand, but to obtain shoots from the sacred tree where the Buddha sat
was an act of immense merit, accomplished on behalf of the nation. The
ve living starts symbolised the transfer of Buddhist cosmological space
from its previously amorphous spiritual geography to the physical realm of
Thailands boundaries. Two of the trees were planted in Wat Phra Sri
Mahathat in Bangkok; the remaining three were sent out, one to each
region, to be planted in the strategic temples discussed below (Somkhit et
al. 19821983: 8182). The living trees acted as a conduit by which the
religion was tied to the geo-body, with its heart in Bangkok where spiritual
and political power was concentrated. The geo-soul began to take shape.
Wat Phra That Phanom in Northeast Thailand
From Bangkok, the Bodhi trees spread out to the farthest reaches of the
country. In the Northeast, often called the Isan, the destination was the
temple associated with the Phra That Phanom cedi about 50 kilometres
south of the town of Nakhorn Phanom. This temple was by far the most
remote of the four that Phibun used to create the Thai religio-national
identity. Besides being unassociated with any major city, it also hugged the
river border between the Thai geo-body and the realm of French Indochina.
Even so, and perhaps because of it, Phibun and his government felt that the
shrine was the most important Buddhist monument in the Northeast for the
creation of a religio-national identity.8
For almost forty years the temple and cedi had been left to crumble in the
harsh climate of the Isan. Previous maintenance was performed by local
lords or monks, who regarded the monument as a memorial enshrining a
relic of the Buddha, but due to the creation of the geo-body, old power
structures had changed and maintenance of the temple had slipped through
the administrative net (Pruess 1976). In 1940, though, Phibun recognised
the shrine as an important opportunity for the development and strengthening of the Thai geo-body and geo-soul in the Isan due to its signicance in
Isan religious lore and its location at the edge of Thai space.
The 1893 treaty with France which created the northeast boundary of the
Thai state (along with a demilitarised zone on the Thai side) still pained
Thai nationalists. In 1940, the Phibun government, recognising the
increasingly weak position of the French government due to World War II
in Europe, sought to renegotiate the treaty. Thailand desired to remove the
twenty-ve kilometre demilitarised zone and redraw the border using the
thalweg principle (Kobkua 1995: 256259). Although negotiations fell
through, the government chose Wat Phra That Phanom as an appropriate
symbol which could dene the position of Thai geographic and spiritual
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space. Phibun delegated the temples restoration to the nationalistic Fine

Arts Department which quickly began not only restoration, but expansion
(Isan Khong Raw 1985: 112). The government abandoned the previous
construction materials of mortar; instead, they used new technology,
reinforced concrete. The cedis height was increased by ten metres, making
it fty-seven metres tall and visible from even greater distances than before
(Phra That Phanom 2006a). The Bodhi tree, travelling from Bangkok,
arrived and was planted on the temple grounds, linking the massive
monument to Thailand and local Buddhism to the central temple in the
capital (Pruess 1976: 75).
Throughout the following years, the temple continued to garner symbolic
links to the central Thai religio-national identity. In 1950, the temple was
granted the status of royal temple of the rst order (Phra That Phanom
2006b). Four years later the temple also received a golden umbrella
weighing 110 kilograms from the government to commemorate its
importance to the national identity (Phra That Phanom 2006a).9 The
monument was no longer important to merely local Buddhists, it became
a very important monument representative of temples and nation also,
effectively identifying the religious monument with the national identity
(Phra That Phanom 2006b). It enforced the boundary of the geo-body and
aligned the geo-soul with the geographic boundaries of the state. The
temple served as a massive beacon declaring the Northeast as both Thai
and Buddhist.
Wat Phra Mahathat Woromha Wihan in the South
Nestled in the centre of the southern provincial capital Nakhorn Sri
Thammarat sits the most important site in Southern Thailand, the temple
Wat Phra Mahathat (Tourism Authority of Thailand 2005a). The Buddhist
sections of the southern region had a much easier transition as a part of
the geo-body than the North, the Northeast, and Muslim regions of the
far South (Vickery 1970). This was perhaps in part due to their earlier
incorporation into the Siamese kingdom, which was accomplished in 1796
AD (Munro-Hay 2001: 169170). Even so, the region garnered attention
from nationalist leaders push to create a unied religio-national identity.
Unlike the other temples considered here, Wat Phra Mahathat began its
incorporation into the Thai religio-national identity prior to Phibuns rise to
power. It had long been considered sacred; according to local legend,
a reliquary within the temple enshrines a relic of the Buddha brought to
the location from India through a set of miraculous circumstances (Wyatt
1975: 6676). King Vajiravudh, during a visit to the region, decided to
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enlist the national government as the patron of the sacred temple, tying it to
his ofcial nationalism. He also elevated the temple to royal status with the
sufx woromha wihan (Somkhit et al. 19821983: 664). Following the
downfall of the absolute monarchy, the government decided to dedicate a
portion of the temple to become a branch of the National Museum in 1937
(Wichian et al. 1978: 452). One of the temple structures was adapted to the
purpose, and it began to display Thai objects (Krom Silapakon 1974:
197). The connection to the National Museum not only linked the temple
by the National title to the religio-national identity, the temple also
became a display case for symbols of national identity.10 After Phibun
became Prime Minister, the government efforts to nationalise the temple
continued. The Bodhi tree arrived with a government escort on 19 May
1943. The tree was accompanied by Somdej Mahaveerawonge, the
ecclesiastical leader of the Bangkok-based Sangha, or monastic order,
who presided over the planting ceremony and celebrations (Wichian et al.
1978: 461462).11 Thus, the temple symbolically received patronage and
legitimacy from the national government rather than from religious merit
or local leaders. The temple became a symbol of the geo-body and an
extension of the geo-soul whose heart lay in Bangkok, along with that of
the nation.
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in the North
The Northern region had a difcult time incorporating into the geo-body of
Thailand for two reasons. The religion observed in the region was a variant
of Theravada Buddhism, but its practice was separate from that of the
Bangkok government. During the administrative reforms which created the
Siamese state, thousands of monks in the region had refused to obey
government commands to align themselves with the Bangkok-based
sangha. Their strength was exhibited in the fact that monks could gather
large numbers of peasants to give gratuitous labour while the Bangkokbased government struggled to enforce laws (Tambiah 1976: 245246;
Tamnan 1968: 1214). The North had also been ruled by a royal court
separate from the one in Bangkok, and it was difcult to completely sever
their power. Some Northern royals retained their titles until the 1940s
(Vickery 1970: 876). The government viewed the region as one of potential
trouble for the nation if it could not be incorporated into the religio-national
identity.
Phibun sought to use religious symbolism to develop the religio-national
identity in the region, and Wat Phra That Doi Sutheps location and history
of royal patronage played into the governments choice to adopt it to the
national rhetoric. Mountains held a signicant role in the Northern
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religious practices as a focus of spiritual power and governmental

legitimacy (Swearer and Sommai 1978: 2032).The choice to commandeer
a sacred temple at the top of a mountain overlooking the largest city in the
region had tremendous symbolic implications.
On the afternoon of 2 July 1943, a crowd gathered around the Chiang Mai
train station in North Thailand. The gathering was one prepared to receive
the merit-lled Bodhi tree sapling garnered by the national government
from India. When the tree arrived with its entourage from Bangkok, it was
paraded through the streets of the city and then displayed at one of the
citys temples for seven days of celebrations and worship. At the end of the
seventh day, the tree was carried up the mountain overlooking the city to its
resting place at one of the most sacred temples in the region, Wat Phra That
Doi Suthep (Phra That Doi Suthep 2003). Phibun had graciously granted
the people of North Thailand the opportunity to raise the tree, which tied
their religious tradition cosmologically to Bangkok and the other regions of
the country.
After the sacred tree was planted, other symbolic gestures indicated its
importance in tying together the geo-body and the geo-soul. The temple
received a name upgrade in 1951, aligning it with the Bangkok-based
Buddhist priesthood. Its central cedi also received a new coat of gold at a
cost of over 540,000 baht to the national government (Tamnan 1968: 14
15). Through government manipulation, the temple became the symbol of
Thai religio-national identity for the region.
Spiritual Mapping
Each of the temples developed by the Phibun government held special
symbolic and spiritual signicance for the development of a religionational identity. They did this in three ways. First, the temples dened
Thai spiritual space. Each temple discussed in this analysis was a
signicant point of spiritual power. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and Wat
Phra That Phanom were both early markers of religious iconography in the
spiritual maps of the regions which were later incorporated into the Thai
state (Keyes 1975). They were linked to locations both inside and outside
of what would one day become Thailand. Wat Phra Mahathat had
traditionally been considered a centre of Buddhist learning and importance
(Wichian et al. 1978: 442443). In the minds of locals, it was of immense
spiritual signicance. Phibuns Wat Phra Sri Mahathat became a beacon of
spiritual space due to the relics interred there from India. By placing earth
from each of the sacred pilgrimage locations mentioned in Buddhist
scripture and planting two Bodhi starts taken from the tree where the
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Buddha sat within the temple, Phibun hoped to make it a new spiritual
centre of Buddhism. Each of the four temples also held sacred relics from
the Buddha, and they could serve as substitutes for pilgrimages to distant
(non-Thai) Buddhist homelands. Thus the temples enabled Thailand to
substitute itself as a homeland for Buddhism.
Second, the temples which Phibun chose delineated Thai geographic
space. It was no accident that the government developed a major temple
in each region. Phibuns efforts to use Buddhism as a unifying factor in the
Thai national identity also allowed for the use of Buddhist emblems as
symbols of the Thai nation. Thus, the temples could act as signs delineating
geographic space, reinforcing the geo-body with religious symbols. The
most dramatic example is that of Wat Phra That Phanom which overlooks
the border of the Thai state, but Wat Phra Doi Suthep and Wat Phra
Mahathat overlook population centres, which are just as important in the
delineation of geographic space.
Finally, nationalist leaders efforts infused the geo-body with a geo-soul.
In the effort to enforce the reach of the state equally across all lands
circumscribed by its borders, the Thai government faced strong resistance, partially orchestrated through religious means (see Murdoch 1974;
Kamala 1997: 4345). Through manipulating the temples in each region
and tying them to Bangkok, the government sought to create a unied
religio-national identity and effectively ll the geo-body with a singular
geo-soul.
The Enduring Geo-Soul
The Thai geo-soul has been one of the most enduring products of the
Phibun era. The leaders who followed Phibun, even those who disliked
him, found themselves paying tribute to the religio-national monuments he
adapted to the national identity (with the notable exception of Wat Phra Sri
Mahathat, discussed below). Throughout the decades since the development of Thai nationalism, the geo-soul has taken on increasing signicance
due to continuing governmental support, primarily through the efforts of
the current monarch.
Following the fall of Phibuns second regime, the government continued to
develop the religio-national identity of Thailand. The next Prime Minister,
Sarit, recognised the signicance of using religious symbols to promote
nationalism, but unlike Phibun, he chose to promote the palace as the
defender of Buddhism and the nation. Under Phibun, the monarchy had
been constantly pushed aside, but after he was ousted the palace was able to
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regain much of its former inuence. Through the assistance of monarchfriendly political leaders, King Bhumibol has been able to tie himself into
the religio-national identity. Where Phibul had manufactured national
patronage at temples, the king personied the national image. Instead of
an amorphous Thai patron, the king made royal, vicarious pilgrimages to
each of the peripheral temples discussed above. At Wat Phra That Doi
Suthep the king took part in the casting of a golden Buddha image which
remained at the temple as an ever-present spiritual reminder that the temple
serves as one of the outposts of a Thai religio-national identity (Phra That
Doi Suthep 2003). After a rainstorm caused the collapse of the Wat Phra
That Phanom cedi in 1975, the national government quickly rebuilt the
shrine. King Bhumibol presided over the rededication ceremony and
calmed the religious fears that the collapse had created (Bangkok Post
1975). He also visited the temple in the South to make an ofcial
pilgrimage and bestow his royal blessing. Through this monarchic patronage, the geo-soul of the nation has been reinforced and strengthened.
The only temple among the four which has failed to live up to its national
potential is Wat Phra Sri Mahathat, Phibuns creation. It is relegated to a
low position on the Bangkok Tourism Website and ignored in the Tourism
Authority of Thailands suggested list of important religious sites in
Bangkok (Tourism Authority of Thailand 2005b). The temples failure
could be attributed to many causes including the abundance of alternative
temples in Bangkok and its distance from the centre of the city. Perhaps the
most important factor for the temple is its failure to gain support from the
monarchy. King Bhumibol and Phibun disliked one another, which
prompted the Kings later choice to avoid Phibuns temple. In 1952, the
king and his royal princes snubbed the temple as they presented new robes
to monks in the rst-class royal temples, of which Wat Phra Sri Mahathat
was one (Handley 2006: 128130). The temples location near the
monument commemorating the defeat of the royalist rebellion likely added
to the kings desire to keep his distance from the temple. Instead, temples
closely associated with the monarchy in central Bangkok have embodied
the role of the geo-souls focal point.
Although Phibuns central temple failed to work its way into the enduring
geo-soul, his efforts to create a religio-national identity served as a
foundation for future governmental actions to nationalise Buddhism.
Phibun took a new political order with weak institutions within a geo-body
created by external colonial inuences and began to develop a geo-soul by
re-centring Buddhism within the state. Successive political leaders have
further developed the religio-national identity of the Thais (see Keyes
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1971). The Buddhist identity of the Thais has continued to serve as one of
the states most important unifying factors for more than half a century. The
temples along with the Buddhist hierarchy and numerous other religious
symbols manipulated during the development of Thai nationalism have
become markers signifying the geographic and spiritual space occupied by
the Thai nation.
Thus far, this paper has considered the elite action of spiritually mapping
the country, yet the map is only effective if it is widely read and used. The
Thai people have, by and large, readily accepted the spiritual map of the
geo-soul delineated by the elites. Prior to the nationalist era, religious
pilgrimages had followed cosmographic maps (Keyes 1975), but with the
re-centring of Buddhism, national shrines became more important. The
tradition of a village pilgrimage (Kamala 1997: 3940) was slowly
replaced by two other types of pilgrimage. The rst were ofcial
pilgrimages by government elites evidenced above by the Royal Familys
patronage of certain temples. These national pilgrims would visit an
important temple, garbed in an ofcial uniform, representing the
national community, to worship. Their visits were often short, but well
reported. Print media, and later television and radio (both heavily
controlled by the government), served to enlighten the public about these
vicarious pilgrimages of national leaders on behalf of the Thai people,
many of whom had neither physically seen the leader nor the shrine in
question.
More recently, the spiritual maps developed early in the nationalist era have
become the blueprint for individual tourist pilgrimages. The populace
which makes these pilgrimages has shifted from a village community to a
national community: school children go on overnight trips to nationally
important temples; tour groups, made up of strangers, but national
compatriots, travel together and partake in the same pilgrimage. These
tourist pilgrims take a quick tour in an air-conditioned bus to make merit
at an auspicious temple. Kamala (1997: 288289) quotes one monk
complaining about the nature of these new pilgrimages:
These days people are going all over the place looking for
merit. [My temple] has become a stopover point. Some
people are in such a hurry I dont even get a chance to see
or speak to them.
These pilgrims move quickly about their country bereft of traditional
village connections, taking in the Thai-ness of their homeland while also
partaking in a brief religious experience.
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The government, through bureaucracies such as the Tourism Authority of

Thailand (TAT) and the Fine Arts Department, has played a strong role in
developing these tourist-pilgrimages. Thousands ock to yearly celebrations
put on by the government at Wat Phra That Phanom and Wat Phra Mahathat.
Already by the 1970s, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, one of the temples
most heavily promoted by TAT, was regularly attended by thousands of
pious worshipers (Tambiah 1976: 501). The number has certainly grown
exponentially since then. The government of Chiang Mai province records
that in 2004 over two million Thai tourists made their way to the province; in
2005 that number increased by 50,000. The provincial government expected
that number to continue to increase in 2006 (Chiang Mai Provincial
Government). The same report listed Wat Phra That Doi Suthep as one of
the most important tourist draws to the area.12 These pilgrims, following the
spiritual map of Siam, like blood travelling along the arteries of the nation,
breathe life into the geo-body developed a century ago.
The geo-soul that Phibun wrought has evolved into the religio-national
identity which exists in Thailand today. Through linking Buddhism
geographically with the body of the Thai state, the religion became an
inherent part of the Thai identity which would develop over the next
decades. The geo-soul and consequent religio-national identity continue to
shape the Thai political landscape today, from preventing integration of
minorities (see Chaiwat 2005: 97100) to shaping constitutional debates
(see Wassana and Mongkol 2007).
In conclusion, through tracing the spiritual mapping process initiated by Phibun,
we see that religious identity can be incorporated into the national identity
through the vessel of the geo-body. By re-centring the religious identity within
the national boundaries, nationalist leaders are able to create an environment
amenable to both identities. They can coexist and steadily reinforce one another,
contrary to the claims in much of the nationalism literature that the religious
identity should subside previous to the rise of the national identity. The Thai
case demonstrates that this conuence of the two identities has long-lasting
effects for the political climate of a nation. Thus, it is important to ecognize the
implications of a geo-soul, not only in the Thai case, but in the development of
religio-national identities throughout the developing world.
Notes
1

This article is a revised excerpt from my masters thesis, Jacob Ricks, Sacred Symbols and
National Souls: Religion and National Identity in Thailand and Indonesia (Dekalb, IL:
Northern Illinois University 2007). I wish to express special thanks to James Ockey for his
guidance and direction in this project. Thanks also go to Philips Vermonte and the
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Any mistakes are my own.

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2

Thongchai (1994) gives a wonderful examination of these ancient maps and their
treatment of cosmographic space in the rst chapter of his book. Cosmographic space was
mapped as relative to centres of spiritual power. Kings or temples were often at the centre
and they were linked to other spiritual locations, with geographic space and distance
mattering little. The ancient cosmography of Buddhism, linked through spiritual symbols
(primarily temples) rather than geographic planes, is especially signicant in the
consideration of the method which Phibun used to centre the religion within national
boundaries as detailed below.
3
In 190102, millennial Buddhist tales often recited in temples spurred an uprising of
thousands in Northeastern Thailand. In the Northern region, monks under the leadership of
Phra Sriwichai gathered thousands of supporters to build a road up Doi Suthep Mountain to
reach the temple at the summit. The project kept three to four thousand workers on site for
ve months in 1934; a time when the government struggled to assert itself in the region.
4
It should be noted here that Phibuns motives were many. This brief treatment only
highlights a few of them. For a more detailed account of the context in which Phibun
worked see Kobkuas (1995) book on Phibun cited in the bibliography.
5
Important rituals which the government uses for the incorporation of the geo-soul include
the ploughing ceremony, the clothing of the Emerald Buddha, and the kathin (robe
bestowing) ceremony. These rituals and others are important to the development of the
Thai geo-soul, and their effect merits further research.
6
Anderson (1973: 61) wrote of monuments signicance in the Indonesian context, noting
that it is useful to think about monuments as ways of mediating between particular types of
pasts and futures. In using a monument as a method of political communication, the builder
establishes a message of permanence stretching in both temporal directions.
7
The Thai geo-body is composed of four regions evidencing distinct historical, political,
geographic, and linguistic characteristics: the Central Plains, the North, the Northeast, and
the South. This categorisation of regions became an important part of the state-building
process. For a more detailed discussion of how these distinctions affected the regional
integration into the Thai state, see Vickery (1970).
8
Other border temples have also been subject to national interest. Wat Chon Thara Singhe
on the banks of the Tak Bai River was used as evidence of Thai sovereignty during the
negotiations with the British over the southern border in 1909. Khao Phra Wihan, in the
northeast, was the source of a decades-long border dispute between Thailand and
Cambodia, which was decided by the World Court in 1962 in favour of Cambodia.
9
The history produced by the monks at Phra That Phanom contains an interesting
commentary on the celebrations at that time. Although the Thai government sponsored the
event, Buddhists from both sides of the Mekong attended the event. The record (translated
into English by one of the monks) distinguishes those attending along religio-nationalist
lines: from the left bank . . . Laotian Buddhism, from the right bank . . . Thai Buddhism
(Phra Thepratanamolee 2004: 67). The original Thai version makes less of a distinction
(Phra Thepratanamolee 2004: 54 Thai pagination).
10
For a more detailed treatment of the link between museums and national identity see
Anderson (1991: 178184).
11
Somdej Mahaveeravongse presided at all three upcountry tree-planting ceremonies. His
presence was signicant in that he symbolised the supremacy of the Bangkok-based Sangha over
the local monastic hierarchy. Only an ofcially sanctioned monk was sacred enough to preside
over the planting of such a holy tree. This was also a reinforcement of the governments efforts to
nationalise the monastic order (see Tambiah 1976: 241252). Today the Sangha leaders visit is
commemorated through a prominent plaque near each of the trees.

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12

A local saying in Chiang Mai states, going to Chiang Mai without paying homage to
Phra That Doi Suthep is like never going to Chiang Mai at all. See Prawit 2004: 23.

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Jacob I. Ricks is a PhD student in Political Science at

Emory University. He holds an MA in Political Science
from Northern Illinois University with a concentration in
Southeast Asian Studies. His interests include nationalism
and identity, democratisation, and statesociety relations.

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