Chuon Nath

Chuon Nath (ជួន ណាត) was a Cambodian Buddhist monk and scholar who compiled the Khmer dictionary (វចនានុក្រមខ្មែរ). He was a patriarch of the Buddhist clergy and one of the best-known Khmer language scholars of his time.

Chuon Nath, from Souverains et notabilités d'Indochine (1943). Public domain

Historical figure details
Khmer name	ជួន ណាត
Also known as	Samdech Preah Sangharaja Chuon Nath
Roles	Buddhist monk; Pali and Khmer scholar; compiler of the Khmer dictionary
Born	March 1883, Kong Pisei district, Kampong Speu province
Died	September 25, 1969
Country	Cambodia
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; Language & Literacy; History & Remembrance

Early life

Chuon Nath was born in March 1883 in Kong Pisei (គងពិសី) district, Kampong Speu (កំពង់ស្ពឺ) province, to a farming family. He became a novice monk in 1897, and two years later went to study the Buddhist scriptures at Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh. In 1904, at 21, he was ordained a monk at Wat Po Proek (វត្តពោធិព្រឹក្ស) in Kandal (កណ្ដាល) province.

Scholar and teacher

By about 1910 he was known among students of Pali as a monk of unusual skill in the language. In 1913 he passed four levels of the Pali examination held at the Silver Pagoda, the highest level offered at that time. In 1915 he was named a teacher at the Higher Pali School, now the Suramarit Buddhist High School (ពុទ្ធិកវិទ្យាល័យ សុរាម្រឹត). He later went to Hanoi to study Sanskrit and the reading of inscriptions at the French School of the Far East, then headed by Louis Finot. The Cambodia Daily wrote that he was the first monk to found a school of Pali grammar for monks.

From 1927 he sat on the committee of the Royal Library, the body known today as the Buddhist Institute (វិទ្យាស្ថានពុទ្ធសាសនបណ្ឌិត្យ). He was also deputy head of the Higher Pali School, served on the committee that worked on the Khmer Tipitaka (ត្រៃបិដក), and sat on the committees for the Khmer dictionary and for checking spelling in the school's books. In 1935 he taught Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer and Lao to final-year students at Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh. He became abbot of Wat Ounalom and head of the senior council of monks.

Besides Khmer, Pali and Sanskrit, he learned Thai, Lao, French, English and Vietnamese. The literature scholar Khing Hoc Dy called him "a polyglot".

Khmer dictionary

His best-known work is the Khmer dictionary in two volumes, which has been reprinted many times. Khing Hoc Dy told The Cambodia Daily that "prior to that dictionary, our spelling was fluctuating a great deal". Chuon Nath also wrote a two-volume Pali grammar, books on conduct for lay people and on the discipline of novices, and articles for the Buddhist Institute's magazine Kambuja Suriya (កម្ពុជសុរិយា) from 1926.

Later life

From 1961 he led a literary program on national radio every Friday. Khing Hoc Dy remembered listening to his weekly talks on the Khmer language, which went on until his death in 1969. He chaired the committee that set out the meaning of the Khmer national flag, and led delegations to Sri Lanka and Burma for the Sixth Buddhist Council. In 1963 the head of state, Norodom Sihanouk, raised him to the rank of Samdech Preah Sangharaja (សម្ដេចព្រះសង្ឃរាជ), first class. In 1967 the head of state gave him a doctorate in letters in the name of the Royal University's Faculty of Letters and Humanities.

Chuon Nath died on September 25, 1969, at the age of 86. By then he had written about 20 books on Buddhism, as well as writing on Khmer history and language and many poems.

Legacy

In 1999, at the end of three days marking 30 years since his death, a foundation bearing his name opened at the Buddhist Institute. The monk Maha Ghosananda spoke at the ceremony, and the former culture minister Nouth Narang urged Cambodians to follow his teaching of peace and nonviolence. A statue of Chuon Nath stands in Phnom Penh in front of Hun Sen Park and the Buddhist Institute. He and the poet Kram Ngoy are taught in schools to make students aware of their achievements.

References