Building Thai modernity : the Maha Dhammakaya Cetiya

In the lead up to the completion and consecration of the Dhammakaya Cetiya near Bangkok in May 2000, English language publications from this Thai Buddhist sect's international division promoted it as a gesture for world peace: "In 2000 the world is going to calm down." The claim speaks to the overriding concern of the twenty first century and links the futuristic, hi-tech building with a Buddhist tradition of stupa building dating back to the third century BC stupas of the King Asoka. Great Kings built great stupas for the benefit and protection of the state; here, the people of a modern democracy were building a stupa for the benefit and protection of the world at large. This paper reads the building as a strange statement in the discourses of modern Thai identity in an age of Western dominated globalisation and intra-Asian cultural flows. It aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the enduring Asian problem of how to express its modernity while still retaining cultural integrity, when being modern is popularly assumed to be a matter of measuring up with the West.