The Mahā Nikāya (literal translation: "great
order
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
...
") is one of the two principal monastic orders, or fraternities, of modern Thai, Laotian and Cambodian Buddhism. The term is used to refer to any Theravada monks not within the
Dhammayuttika Nikaya, the other principal monastic order. The Maha Nikaya is the largest order of
Theravada Buddhism
''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' ( anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or '' Dhamma'' in ...
in Thailand and Cambodia, in Thailand taking up over 90% of the Buddhist monks in the country.
History
After the founding of the
Dhammayuttika Nikāya by the then-monk
Prince Mongkut in 1833, decades later all recognized monks not ordained in the Dhammayuttika order were considered to be part of the ''maha nikāya'', the "great collection" of those outside the new Dhammayuttika fraternity. As such, most monks in Thailand belong to the Maha Nikāya more or less by default; the order itself did not originally establish any particular practices or views that characterized those adhering to its creed. There were in reality hundreds of different Nikayas throughout the Thai areas that were lumped together as the "Maha Nikāya".
In
Cambodia
Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
, a similar situation exists. The Dhammayuttika Nikāya was supposedly imported from Thailand in 1855, and those monks remaining outside the Dhammayuttika order were recognized as being members of the Maha Nikāya (
Khmer: មហានិកាយ ''Mohanikay''). A separate
supreme patriarch for the Dhammayuttika Nikāya was appointed by King
Norodom. The previous national supreme patriarch then became the titular head of the Cambodian Maha Nikāya.
In Thailand, a single
supreme patriarch is recognized as having authority over both the Maha Nikāya and the Dhammayuttika Nikāya. In recent years some Maha Nikāya monks have campaigned for the creation of a separate Maha Nikāya patriarch, as almost all recent Thai supreme patriarchs have invariably been drawn from the royalty-supported Dhammayuttika Nikāya, despite Dhammayuttika Nikāya monks making up only six percent of the monks in Thailand.
See also
*
Dhammayut Order
*
Mahanayaka
*
Nikaya
*
Sangharaja
*
Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia
The Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia (; , ) is the ''de facto'' leader of Buddhism in Cambodia.
Titles
The titles for the Cambodian Supreme Patriarchs are derived from Pali. The full official title of the Supreme Patriarch of the Maha Nikaya is ''S ...
*
Supreme Patriarch of Thailand
__NOTOC__
The Supreme Patriarch of Thailand or Sangharaja () is the head of the order of Buddhism, Buddhist bhikkhu, monks in Thailand. His full title is ''Somdet Phra Saṅgharāja Sakalamahāsaṅghapariṇāyaka'' ().
Ancient history
As ea ...
References
Buddhism in Cambodia
Schools of Buddhism founded in Thailand
Theravada Buddhist orders
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