Elective Affinities: The Reconstruction of A Forgotten Episode in the shared history of Thai and British Buddhism – Kapilavaḍḍho and Wat Paknam

Abstract

The article discusses the first attempt to establish an independent bhikkhu-saṅgha in England in 1956 and the reasons that this initial attempt failed. The account draws on testimony from George Blake, one of the monks ordained under this initiative. After a short contextualization of the situation in which Blake met with Buddhism in London, there follows a further discussion of two issues on which his evidence sheds fresh light: the falling out of the British monk Kapilavaḍḍho with Luang Por Sodh (Phra Mongkolthepmuni), the abbot of Wat Paknam in Bangkok; and the move away from the teaching of the soḷasakāya meditation at the English Sangha Trust in London.

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Phibul Choompolpaisal, Kate Crosby, Terry Shine and Russell Webb in developing this article.

Notes

 1. Ṭhitavedo is variously spelt Thiṭavedho, Ṭhittavedho, Thiṭavaḍḍho, Thiṭavedo and Thitavedo in sources.

 2. After disrobing in 1957, Purfurst changed his secular name to Richard Randall and his memoir was published posthumously under this new name. Thus, the same historical figure is denominated William/Bill Purfurst, Kapilavaḍḍho and Richard Randall in various parts of this narrative.

 3. A film was made of the ordination and (parts of ?) it can be viewed online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = HS8kZyrrvOg&list = PLBD6E7C3674739EB4&index = 4 (accessed February 10, 2013.). All actors in this narrative can be seen there. On the Mahā Nikāya dimension, see ‘aftermath’ below.

 4. Other sources say nothing at all: e.g. Snelling (1998, 262), Waterhouse (1997, 74) and Exemplary Conduct of the Principal Teachers of Vijja Dhammakaya (2010, 54–55).

 5. What follows is from my record of Blake's recollections. Passages in quotation marks are taken verbatim from the interview.

 6. Kapilavaḍḍho/Randall does not mention any of this event in his memoir. He repeatedly emphasizes his close personal relationship to Ṭhitavedo (Randall 1990, 38, 46, 89, 104, 189).

 7. The Buddhist rhetorical trope of three may be in operation here.

 8. I am indebted to Phibul Choompolpaisal who located this source and translated it for me. The translation here is his.

 9. Other records indicate that all but one disrobed once back in the UK.

10. Purfurst/Randall freely admits the latter qualities in his own memoir (1990, 4, 5, 62), in the pages of which one can also easily detect his personal charisma and candour.

11. Personal communication from the author (September 10, 2012).

12. The commentary was apparently recorded afterwards by Kapilavaḍḍho himself (Shine, personal communication, February 12, 2013)—which means that he was commenting after the falling out had occured. He also does give Sodh's titles and explains that he is head of the monastery but, in this directly comparable descriptive comment, he seems to give greater emphasis to Ṭhitavedo.

13. An unconfirmed accusation of financial irregularities in relation to temple funds on the part of Ṭhitavedo was also reported to the present author by personal communication. Like accusations of sexual irregularities, it is very difficult to assess such easy accusations when they are made against monks. (Also Ṭhitavedo is the only participant in these events who does not speak to posterity with his own voice, and it is easy for him to be cast as the ‘fall guy’ for what, instead, is really a collective failure.) Accusations concerning sex and money are powerful slurs against monks in Asia (the former involving a betrayal of the vinaya and the latter of the donating lay community) and while easily made are almost impossible to disprove. The present author treats both with extreme caution and has ignored them where they have surfaced in other parts of this narrative. An interesting analysis of the rise of the political use of accusations of sexual misconduct against monks in Thailand in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries is outlined in Choompolpaisal (2011, 272).

14. Email to Terry Shine (July 1, 2002). The persuasion that led to their relocation presumably only worked after the confrontation with Sodh.

15. A further consideration is that the formal meeting from which Kapilavaḍḍho walked away was a disciplinary meeting in relation to Ṭhitavedo. Readers wanting to understand better the formal legal underpinnings of these monastic penalties are referred to the Mahāvagga I.27.1-8 (re dismissal) and Cūlavagga I.13-17 (re banishment) of the Pali Vinaya (Rhys Davids and Oldenberg 1885, 165–168 1982, 347ff.).

16. These developments are analysed in Choompolpaisal (2011).

17. These dates are from Shine (2009, 86). Blake recalls Kapilavaḍḍho taking Saddhāvaḍḍho with him.

18. The soḷasakāya meditation is a contemporary survival of pre-reform meditation techniques which can be broadly labelled borān-yogāvacara and are the subject of ongoing research, which is changing our views of the history of Theravāda in Asia. See for example Crosby, Skilton and Gunasena (2012).

19. See Wat Paknam web page, http://www.watpaknam.org/content.php?op=teacher_psodh_pp_0 Accessed 11 December 2012.

20. Personal communication, Terry Shine (January 20, 2013).