PATHUM THANI, Thailand: An embezzlement charge against a powerful Buddhist abbot has unleashed his super-rich temple’s PR machine, with Twitter-using Thai monks orchestrating his defence over a scandal that has opened a bitter rupture at the heart of the nation’s faith.
“There has never been a temple of this size in Thai history,” orange-robed Phra Pasura Dantamano says as he gestures towards Dhammakaya temple’s pristine, 1,000-acre compound north of Bangkok where peacocks roam the lawns and white-clad devotees meditate.
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