Preah Maha Ghosananda - Khmer Rouge Era

Khmer Rouge Era

As the Khmer Rouge seized control of the country, the prospects of Buddhism became increasingly doubtful. Pol Pot, who had once served in a Buddhist monastery, denounced Buddhist monks as useless pariah, and part of the feudalistic power structures of the past. Monks were viewed with suspicion and disdain as part of the intellectual class, and targeted for especially brutal treatment and "reeducation".

As part of the Khmer Rouge's horrific Year Zero campaign, monks were systematically turned out of monasteries and forced to disrobe and become farming peasants, or were tortured and murdered outright. Some monks were forced to violate their vows at gunpoint. By the time the Khmer Rouge reign of terror ended, there were no monks alive in Cambodia, and most temples were in rubble.

Meanwhile, refugees began to filter out of Cambodia and congregate in refugee camps along the Thai border, bringing with them tales of unbelievable, apocalyptic horrors.

In 1978, Maha Ghosananda left his forest hermitage in Thailand, and went down to the refugee camps near the Thai-Cambodian border to begin ministering to the first refugees who filtered across the border.

Maha Ghosananda's appearance in the refugee camps raised a stir among the refugees who had not seen a monk for years. The Cambodian refugees openly wept as Maha Ghosananda chanted the ancient and familiar sutras that had been the bedrock of traditional Cambodian culture before Year Zero. He distributed photocopied Buddhist scriptures among the refugees, as protection and inspiration for the battered people.

His entire family, and countless friends and disciples, were massacred by the Khmer Rouge.