KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM
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the Throne and Buddhism are, today as much as in the nineteenth century, the foundation of society.
In the West we might think that life in a Buddhist monastery was poor training for kingship. Not so in Siam. Prince Mongkut came to know his people as no Palace-dwelling King could ever do. His colleagues in the monastery were peasants, artisans, sons of nobles and merchants. He walked the streets of Bangkok with his begging bowl and saw the homes of his people. Like other monks he travelled across the country from one Wat to another. His father, Rama II, only left the Palace once a year for the ceremonial presentation of robes to monks at the end of each rainy season and his brother maintained the same semi-divine remoteness.
Mongkut's interests were not limited to Buddhism whilst he was in the Order. His intelligence was singular. He had that rare quality in oriental princes — intellectual curiosity, an eagerness to inquire into things. Not far from Wat Bowaniwate there lived a Roman Catholic priest, no less than the able Frenchman, Bishop Pallegoix, from whom we learn a good deal about the Prince. The Bishop and the Abbot became friends and Mongkut invited Pallegoix to preach Christian sermons to his brother monks in the Wat. The sermons and discussions were impressive. Mongkut admired the Christian morals and achievements which the Bishop explained to his yellow-robed congregation, but the Abbot could make nothing of Christian doctrine. With immodest presumption he commented: "What you teach people to do is admirable but what you teach them to believe is foolish."
Bishop Pallegoix learned Pali and a great deal about Buddhism from the royal Abbot and, in exchange, he taught Mongkut some Latin and French. This was the Prince's introduction to the thought of the Western world. He learned about Christianity and the customs of Europeans. He became interested in mathematics and science. Other Christians of a different sort had recently come to Bangkok. These were the American Presbyterian missionaries who brought with them the first printing press, a new kind of Christianity which, to Mongkut's astonishment, included married priests, for they brought their wives and, most precious of all, the English language. Their leader, the Rev. Dr. Beach Bradley, became Mongkut's English tutor. He found in the Abbot a most apt and diligent student who quite quickly acquired a good