Among those Phis who are not ghosts of the dead the most important is the Phi ruen or guardian spirit of each house.  Frequently a little shrine is erected for him at the top of a pole.  There are also innumerable Phis in the jungle mostly malevolent and capable of appearing either in human form or as a dangerous animal.  But the tree spirits are generally benevolent and when their trees are cut down they protect the houses that are made of them.

Thus the Buddhism of Siam, like that of Burma, has a certain admixture of Brahmanism and animism.  The Brahmanism is perhaps more striking than in Burma on account of the Court ceremonies:  the belief in spirits, though almost universal, seems to be more retiring and less conspicuous.  Yet the inscription of Rama Komheng mentioned above asserts emphatically that the prosperity of the Empire depends on due honour being shown to a certain mountain spirit.[239]

It is pretty clear that the first introduction of Hinayanist Buddhism into Siam was from Southern Burma and Pegu, but that somewhat later Ceylon was accepted as the standard of orthodoxy.  A learned thera who knew the Sinhalese Tipitaka was imported thence, as well as a branch of the Bo-tree.  But Siamese patriotism flattered itself by imagining that the national religion was due to personal contact with the Buddha, although not even early legends can be cited in support of such traditions.  In 1602 a mark in the rocks, now known as the Phra:  Bat, was discovered in the hills north of Ayuthia and identified as a footprint of the Buddha similar to that found on Adam’s Peak and in other places.  Burma and Ceylon both claim the honour of a visit from the Buddha but the Siamese go further, for it is popularly believed that he died at Praten, a little to the north of Phra Pathom, on a spot marked by a slab of rock under great trees.[240] For this reason when the Government of India presented the king of Siam with the relics found in the Piprava vase, the gift though received with honour, aroused little enthusiasm and was placed in a somewhat secluded shrine.[241]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 188:  The principal sources for information about Siamese Buddhism are:  Journal of Siam Society, 1904, and onwards.

L. Fournereau, Le Siam Ancien, 2 vols. 1895 and 1908 in Annales du Musee Guimet.  Cited here as Fournereau.

Mission Pavie II, Histoire du Laos, du Cambodge et du Siam, 1898.

Gerini, Researches on Ptolemy’s Geography of Eastern Asia, 1909.  Cited here as Gerini, Ptolemy.

Gerini, Chulakantamangala or Tonsure Ceremony, 1893.

H. Alabaster, The Wheel of the Law, 1871.

P.A.  Thompson, Lotus Land, 1906.

W.A.  Graham, Siam, 1912.

Petithuguenin, “Notes critiques pour servir a l’histoire du Siam,” B.E.F.E.O. 1916, No. 3.