vii GUEST EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: BUDDHIST LEGAL PLURALISM? LOOKING AGAIN AT MONASTIC GOVERNANCE IN MODERN SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 1 BEN SCHONTHAL Abstract: Contrary to popular stereotypes, Buddhist monks do not live in separate, cloistered worlds sealed off from domestic and international lawmaking, courts and politics. Buddhist monks (like most people) live in a complex situation of legal pluralism. They act as agents and subjects in multiple regulatory regimes: from monastic tribunals, to constitutional law, to transnational legal bodies. This article, which introduces a special issue of Buddhism, Law & Society, identifies several foci of inquiry that may orient current and future scholarship on the legal pluralism of Buddhist monastic life in contemporary Southern Asia. These include: the prevalence of “hybrid” laws that merge together monastic and state authority; the participation of monks in lawmaking and adjudication; the significance of monasticism as a legal status; the reproduction of legal authority through ordination and lineage; the multiplicity of monastic disciplinary ‘texts’ beyond the Vinaya Piṭaka; and the transformations (and endurances) of legal pluralism over time. Keywords: Southeast Asia, legal pluralism, Buddhism, monk, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia Just during the month of June 2018, the following events occurred: (1) The Thai government arrested some the country’s most senior Buddhist monks on charges of embezzlement, robbery and fraud 2 ; (2) Buddhist monks in 1 Thanks to Petra Kieffer-Pülz, Joshua Coene, Rebecca French, Thomas Borchert and Jianlin Chen for their feedback. Where it is unclear from the context, the lan- guage of non-English words is marked as follows: S=Sinhala, P=Pali, T=Thai. 2 George Styllis, “Thai Crackdown Targets Buddhist Monks amid Accusations of Embezzlement and Fraud,” Washington Post, June 24, 2018, https://www.washington post.com/world/asia_pacific/thai-crackdown-targets-buddhist-monks-amid- accusations-of-embezzlement-and-fraud/2018/06/24/67847242-7000-11e8-bd50- b80389a4e569_story.html.