Religion in Mirrors: Literature, Ritual, and Interfaith Encounters in Thailand

This collection of essays is a first published outcome of a lecture series organized by the Hamburger Gesellschaft für Thaiistik (Hamburg Society for Thai Studies). Founded in 2011 by Volker Grabowsky, the society aims to make the results of research on contemporary and traditional Thailand available to the public in order to increase knowledge of Thai culture in Germany. The lecture series is the most frequent event organized since the early years of the society, held at the Asia-Africa-Institute of the University of Hamburg. Scholars of Thai Studies from various academic disciplines have given lectures on a wide range of topics, from medicine to Asian philology; and from history and literature to manuscript studies, anthropology, and contemporary Thai politics. Not a few lectures were devoted to themes related to religion in Thai society, broadly understood, covering Buddhist literature and art, religious ritual as well as the past and present of religious encounters in Thailand. We therefore decided to publish a selection of these contributions in a separate volume. Even if our choice of essays cannot claim to be representative of Thai Religious Studies as a whole, we believe it demonstrates not only the continuing interest in Buddhism and other Asian religions in Western countries, but also the great importance of Buddhism for research in the humanities and social sciences in Thailand.