Santi Asoke founder Samana Bhodirak dies aged 89
Samana Bhodirak, a renowned spiritual leader and the founder of Santi Asoke, an ascetic sect of Theravada Buddhism, has died at the age of 89, it was announced on the Facebook page Boonniyom TV on Thursday.
The page, which is a mouthpiece of Santi Asoke, did not mention the cause of his death other than ‘old age’.
Samana Bhodirak was born Mongkhon Rakphong in 1934 in northeastern Thailand. He was a popular television entertainer specialising in education and children programmes who turned to Buddhism at age 63.
Mongkhon was ordained as a Buddhist monk (sangha) in 1970 and took the monastic name Bodhirak. He was a strict vegetarian and denounced other monks for eating meat and smoking.
Bodhirak was highly critical of monks within the sangha and took his teachings to lay Buddhists where he denounced other monks at monasteries for eating meat, smoking cigarettes and engaging in supernatural rituals. He was denied membership of the sangha upon establishing his own centre in Nakhon Pathom province.
In 1975, he declared independence for Santi Asoke from the Sangha Supreme Council of Thailand.
Since he could no longer be a sangha or use the prefix ‘Phra’, Bodhirak instead adopted the prefix Samana, a name for certain wandering ascetics from the Indian subcontinent, one of whom was Gautama Buddha.
The Santi Asoke has been described as a radical sectarian movement that reflects the forest tradition's ideals of simplicity.
Santi Asoke members are strict vegetarians and live an ascetic life. They desire to help people attain peace without suffering and to lead society back to the basics of Buddhism devoid of superstition.
