After many years of observation I begin to perceive in Siamese religion a wise and generous pattern that accommodates the teachings of the Sage together with Hindu state-craft, and the fertility concerns of rice farmers, without doing violence to any one of them. It is a system that works, and has worked for many centuries, but today it is threatened by a new generation of thinkers, reformers, well-intentioned and well-educated, who have forgotten how symbolism works.

A brief word on how to view Thai religious “syncretism.”