Thai Buddhist council severs ties with Perth monastery over women

Dec 22, 2009, 8:24 GMT

Bangkok - Thailand's Sangha Supreme Council which governs the country's Buddhist monkhood has severed all ties with and Australian monastery for ordaining two female monks, media reports said Tuesday.

'The expulsion took effect Monday after the council had ruled to cancel the monastery's status as a branch of Wat Nongpapong in Ubon Ratchathani province,' The Nation online news site reported.

While the expulsion means the Bodhinyana monastery in Perth can no longer claim to be 'sanctified' by links with the famed Forest Temple in Ubon Ratchathani it does not mean its temple status in Australia has been revoked.

The Perth monastery was established by British-born Phra (monk) Bhramavanso Mahathera, who graduated from Cambridge College in theoretical physics and studied Buddhism under renowned Thai monk Luang Por Chah for years before setting up his own temple.

Phra Bhramabvanco recently allowed two bhikkhuni, or female monks, be ordained in Perth although the Theravada sect of Buddhism arguably forbids such a practice.

The Thai Sangha had initially threatened to excommunicate the British-born monk, but instead decided to sever ties with his monastery as a warning against more bhikkhuni ordinations, The Nation said.

'Women can be ordained only in the Mahayana Buddhist sect, but in Theravada, we don't have bhikkhuni,' Somdej Phra Phutthacharn, a chief adviser to the Sangha, said.

There are two main sects in Buddhism - Theravada (the little wheel) and Mahayana (the big wheel) - with the former claiming to adhere closer to the Buddha's teachings.

Whether the Buddha, who ascended to nirvana 2,552 years ago, forbid or allowed women to become monks has always been a hotly disputed religious question but has become more so as many Westerners, male and female, have been drawn to the Eastern religion in recent years.