ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 31, 2024
Buddhism and the State: Rājadhamma after the Sattelzeit
Lajos Brons
Rājadhamma is a list of ten royal virtues or duties that occurs in the jātaka tales and that has been influential in Southeast Asian Buddhist political thought. Like pre-modern political thought in Europe—that is, thought before the Sattelzeit—Buddhist political thought lacks a concept of the “state” and is concerned with kings and similar rulers. Here I propose a modernized interpretation of rājadhamma as virtues/duties of the state. Read article
For those curious about this topic, I found Eugénie Meireau’s paper on the rajadhamma very interesting.It can be found on her website. Other articles in the same vein are also useful.
Bruno Liber: Which paper do you mean? Are you referring to “Buddhist Constitutionalism in Thailand, When Rajadhamma Supersedes the Constitution” or is there another paper on the topic by Meireau?
Hi Lajos. Yes, it is that one; the pdf is available on https://eugeniemerieau.com/publications-2/. She refers to them indirectly in other papers about Sacred Kingship: the one about “Constitutional Ethnography of Monarchy” and on “Thai Lèse-Majesté Laws.”