However during his interrogation in 1935, Srivichai himself avowed that he was following the teachings of the Buddha. Rather than adjudge Srivichai’s arrests as a misunderstanding, this essay seeks to reconstruct the religious beliefs of Srivichai by considering the popular texts shaping the Lanna Buddhist imaginaire during his lifetime and analyzing the surviving hints of his religious praxis, including the religious texts most closely associated with him, his rejection of apotropaic practices, and his numerous temple restorations and construction projects.

The current narrative of Khruba Srivichai as a “forest monk” elides his radical rejection of secular authorities as an engaged Buddhist.