Invoking the source: Nissaya manuscripts, pedagogy and sermon-making in northern Thai and Lao Buddhism

Nissaya texts are some of the oldest bi-lingual Buddhist texts in Burma, Northern Thailand and Laos. I examine nissaya manuscripts from Northern Thailand and Laos, which have heretofore never been cursorily or systematically studied by local or foreign scholars. I prove that instead of merely translations nissaya texts are actually idiosyncratic vernacular lecture notes composed and used by Buddhist monks between the 16th and early 20th centuries. After establishing this thesis, I discuss some ways nissayas can illuminate our understanding of the role of the Buddhist canon, Pali language, pedagogy, translation and homiletics in pre-modern and modern Thailand and Laos. The first section of the dissertation defines categories of analysis and questions some basic assumptions held by scholars in the field. It also provides an overview of the socio-historical context in which these manuscripts were composed and the possible reasons for their popularity and function in the intellectual life of regional monasteries. The second section is a close reading of six nissayas and their related voharas and saddas. This reading, with a particular emphasis on rhetorical style, orthography, commentarial services, choice of source texts and physical features, reveals the relationship nissaya authors had with the classical (i.e. originally composed in Pali) scripture of Theravada Buddhism, as well as with their intended audience. It also reveals their use in an aural/oral educational context. This narrow focus on the texts themselves is balanced with a wide-ranging survey of nissayas from monastic libraries scattered throughout the region in the third section. This wider perspective affords us certain understandings of Northern Thai and Lao notions of authorship, textual authenticity, the potentiality and teaching of source texts and the practice of sermon-making. The combination of a close philological/codicological and wide intellectual/educational historical study defines for the first time the early development of a Buddhist curricula and pedagogical techniques in the region. I demonstrate that "curriculum" is a more useful category of analysis of the organization, instruction and dissemination of Buddhist texts than the normative parameters of the Pali Canon. A detailed study of the pedagogical methods used in these texts allows us to describe the nature of Buddhist belief and practice with much greater precision. Then I offer some suggestions on how modern pedagogical, translation and homiletic practices in Thailand and Laos can be traced to the textual practices evinced by nissayas. From there I trace how nissayas shifted from genre to modal entity in modern Thai and Lao didactic literature and homiletics.