This book will gain a place among those works making a crucial contribution to the relationship between religious and political power in Theravada Buddhism, because it provides the first systematic survey of monastic education, its curricula and supervision published so far. The book presents its findings in a simple chronological and geographical format: two chapters each deal with Burma/Myanmar and Thailand, distinguishing the seventeenth/eighteenth and the nineteenth/twentieth centuries respectively. The seventeenth century serves as a starting point as it was then that monastic examinations were introduced, possibly for the first time, in both countries, namely the pathama-pyan in Myanmar and an early form of what came to be known as parian in Thailand. As chapter 2 shows, the strong rulers of Myanmar, who introduced formal monastic exams in the seventeenth (Thalun) and eighteenth (Bodawpaya) centuries did so in response to demographic pressure, needing to find more recruits to fulfil their military ambitions. Thalun ordered the monks to study properly or turn laymen again (pp. 36–7). King Bodawpaya elaborated this system of examination, known henceforth as pathama-pyan, by adding a few carrots to the stick through rewards offered to successful candidates (p. 45). He also introduced various degree grades, which required monks to attain knowledge of different kinds of texts according to their standing. Most of all, the monks had to demonstrate that they knew the Vinaya rules, and the king not only removed the monks who failed from the sangha but also the teachers under whom they had studied. This inevitably brought the sangha into conflict with the king – a conflict which outlasted the king. In the mid-nineteenth century, Mindon Min poured oil onto the fire by supporting the fraternity he deemed “purest”, while at the same time the British annexation of Lower Burma restricted his capacity to control the sangha outside his realm. Still, he attempted to regulate the monastic exams again, with the texts he prescribed for study indicating a move away from canonical texts (the Suttas and Jatakas or grammatical treatises) to auxiliary and summative works (pp. 72–3).

The following two chapters provide the evidence for the corresponding developments in Siam, where the first attempts to reform monastic education came under king Narai (1656–88), but had to be repeated after the Burmese sacked the capital Ayutthaya in 1767. Rama I, who came to the throne in 1782, proclaimed the ten laws as part of his attempt to restore the Thai kingdom. The king provided the monks with a code of conduct and also kept a register of those who had entered the sangha. This royal intervention paved the way for Rama II's introduction of the exam system known as the parian, which created nine “passages” (prayog) that monks could undergo successively. However, the sangharaja, whose position this king also had also re-established, played a crucial role in the swift modification of the parian exams, which brought the initial nine levels or grades down to three. Royal supervision further increased under king Chulalongkorn (1868–1910), who appointed his half-brother Wachirayan to oversee the national education system, including monastic education. This reform culminated in the founding of two new monastic colleges, one under the tutelage of the Dhammayut fraternity (which had been instituted by Chulalongkorn's father Mongkut to drive monastic reform), the other affiliated to the Mahanikaya. Parallel to this, a system of primary education for regional schools was rolled out, which relied heavily on local monks and monasteries. Besides using Thai as a medium of instruction (and hence spreading the national language), the syllabus required some basic forms of secular education; something the village monks occasionally struggled to deliver. Whilst this reform improved the situation on the level of primary schools, monks residing outside the capital Bangkok still had restricted educational opportunities, an issue that was finally addressed in 1911 when the monastic curriculum was revised again (p. 149).

Judging by the number of pages the author has attributed to the subject, the early development of royal interventionism in monastic education forms the core of Dhammasami's investigation. Still, the remaining chapter, in which the author traces the developments until the twentieth century, provides further interesting information. The challenge posed by the advent of Western secular education in both countries (though obviously more so in Burma), which resulted in a decreasing number of monks sitting (let alone passing) the various exams they were supposed to take, was addressed differently in the two countries, forcing the governing bodies to decide between an idealistic and a pragmatic approach. This refers to the difficulty of establishing an education system which involved monks and monasteries, whose foremost purpose of acquiring knowledge would have been directed towards a non-worldly aim (i.e. achieving nibban), while they were given the duty to equip young people with skills and competences that would enable them to navigate in the modern world. The U Nu government of independent Burma selected and supported certain monasteries across the country to increase their outreach, giving them a free hand in choosing the subjects they taught. Ne Win tried to return to the former tradition of all schools having to teach secular subjects, but found few monastic schools willing to oblige as he also abolished the state subsidies. Comparable attempts were made in Thailand. As secularization and Westernization progressed, monks in both countries began to recognize that their inherited approach to education became less and less attractive to students. At the same time, new institutions of higher education – or Buddhist universities – were established, which offered academic degrees to monks in subjects such as education, Buddhist studies, anthropology, and humanities – without, however, caring about the career prospects of their graduates. The somewhat sad consequence of this development was that those institutions tended to become breeding grounds for disgruntled young men, while at the same time they could not prevent the decline in Buddhist and Pali studies, as evidenced by poor examination results in these areas.

Dhammasami's study breaks new ground by investigating systematically Buddhist monastic learning and its curricula over several centuries and in two Buddhist countries. As the author shows, this topic was not an internal affair of the sangha alone but a crucial element of its complex and sometimes fraught relationship with kings or secular authorities more generally. His investigation into the forms, motives and results of royal interference in monastic learning provides a well-documented addition to the debate concerning the sangha-state affairs, which is usually focussed on the issue of “purity” and “purification” of the sangha and the canon.