Southeast Asia Collection Blog

Holt, John. Spirits of the place : Buddhism and Lao religious culture. Honolulu : University of Hawai’i Press, c2009.

Here John Holt, a well-known scholar of Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist history and culture, enters previously uncharted territory with a study of religious culture in Laos. A newcomer to the study of Lao Buddhism (a relative newcomer, that is, since two of his mentors, Stanley Tambiah and Frank Reynolds, are seasoned mainland Southeast Asianists), Holt brings a fresh perspective and genuine enthusiasm to the subject.

The narrative opens with a discussion of the cross-fertilization of Buddhist notions of polity and power and the political culture of Laos from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Because this process did not occur in isolation but in relation to happenings elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the author briefly explores the nature of Burmese, Thai and Vietnamese relations with the religious polity of Laos, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries. Holt then turns to the profound changes that took place in Lao Buddhism and political culture during the French colonial period. The impact of the Vietnamese and Lao revolutionary movements and the second Indochina war on Lao Buddhism is the subject of the third chapter. The remainder of Holt’s study examines Lao religious culture since the end of the American war.