Bangkok

The Bangkok Centre, Thailand

Head : Gregory Kourilsky
Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Center
20 Borommaratchachonnani Road
Bangkok 10170, Thailand
Tel. +66 2 433 12 68
Fax +66 2 880 93 32
gregory.kourilsky@efeo.net

The EFEO Center in Bangkok, opened in 1997, is housed within the Sirindhorn Anthropology Center, a research institute under the Thai Ministry of Culture. This institute, founded by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, possesses a large library, including all the publications of the EFEO. The Center complements this with a photo library holding more than a thousand digitized photos and silver prints covering religions of the region (especially Buddhism and Hinduism) and illustrating architecture, archaeology, and ethnology.

Research by EFEO members at the Bangkok Center is concerned mostly with studies on local and regional Buddhism. The Center also participates in other EFEO programs, especially in the archaeology and epigraphy of the Khmer world, through expeditions to northeastern Thailand. An important project is the inventorying and digitization of the body of Buddhist manuscripts connected with the tradition of tamman religious chronicles. This work is being carried on in cooperation with the Siam Society.

Current research program:

• History and historiography of Southeast Asian Buddhism
• Research on the architecture of Buddhist monasteries
• Study of Pali codices
• Research on Buddhism among the Mon people
• Thai inscriptions concerning the Khmer world

EFEO scholars regularly teach at Chulalongkorn University and at Silpakorn University. In addition, the Center each year welcomes students, doctoral candidates, and scholarship holders to Bangkok.

In collaboration with the Sirindhorn Center, the EFEO Bangkok Center publishes the journal Aséanie, a bilingual English/French publication dedicated to research in the humanities and social sciences in Southeast Asia. Its editorial office also publishes scholarly works in the fields of Buddhist studies, archaeology, and anthropology. These are printed in Bangkok and included in the general catalog of EFEO publications.