Dhammayut

The Dhammayut is a sect within Thai Buddhism that King Mongkut established in the mid-19th century. Concerned by superstitious practices that had become intertwined with core Theravada teachings, Mongkut aimed to purify Buddhist practice. This new order, the Thammayut, became influential within the Thai monkhood. Mongkut, who had spent 26 years as a monk himself, was a scholar of Pali and Buddhist doctrine. His efforts to reform religious practice were part of a broader engagement with Western ideas and a move towards modernizing Siam, which he ruled from 1851 to 1868.1