Buddhist modernist movements transformed the religious practice and social engagement of one of the world's principal faiths in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These movements produced diverse effects on Asian societies which, despite generic similarities, are best understood in particular socio-historical contexts. This article examines the work of a group of young Thai monks and laymen who had an ambitious aim to morally improve and empower people; and the practical adaptation of this impulse in a society in transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional democracy in the 1930s. Like many modernist movements, their work was innovative. But it also was an inheritance of religious and political history, and the Thai modernist case thus shows a contradiction between novelty and custom that was resolved in a way that blunted the movement's reformist energy.

中文翻译：

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泰国佛教现代主义的世俗妥协

佛教现代主义运动改变了 19 世纪和 20 世纪世界主要信仰之一的宗教实践和社会参与。这些运动对亚洲社会产生了不同的影响，尽管它们有相似之处，但在特定的社会历史背景下得到了最好的理解。本文考察了一群年轻的泰国僧人和外行人的工作，他们的雄心勃勃的目标是在道德上提高和增强人们的能力；以及在 1930 年代从绝对君主制向宪政民主过渡的社会中对这种冲动的实际适应。像许多现代主义运动一样，他们的作品具有创新性。但它也是宗教和政治历史的遗产，