We use the concepts of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ to organize knowledge – for example, ‘sacred’ art as opposed to ‘secular’ art.
For thousands of years, these two concepts have been instrumental in our understanding of the world and organisation of public life. This same classification of reality into two categories is common to Christians and Muslims, Hindus and Apache Indians, the Inuit Eskimos and the Aborigines of Australia, and also Buddhists.
In many places during your trip, you will find something that announces you are entering a holy place, that women have no access to a particular site or that you should avoid physical contact with certain people.
The daily life of the Thai people and other peoples living in the region has traditionally been organised and regulated on the basis of the ‘sacred‘ and the ‘profane‘.