[pipitous]

Yes,
The brownish robes are used by forestmonks, they dye them by themselves using jackfruit tree and that's why brown colour varies.
Citymonks use factory dyed robes?

[fenter1]

I attempted to ask my private student what the difference in colors of a monk's robes meant. He responded that they are all orange. He said if there are different colors it is because the factory that the robes were made at used a different orange dye. He adamently claims there are no varying colors.

I have seen Orange/Orangish, Marroon and Brown. Unless they are colorblind at the robe factory, I'm sure Marroon is not anything like Orange.

I'm curious to the meaning behind the different colored robes. My student went into great detail (he loves repeating Thai history in English and I love hearing it) about the first monk robes and people leaving new robes in the forest for the forest monks (these were yellow?), but he was unable to tell me the difference in colors.

Any help?

(btw I love this forum! I've been lurking for a month or so and I have learned a lot. Always helpful responses and thoroughly researched as well. Great job!)

[Saduyre9de]

i was told that the different robe colours sometimes act as a "code" to show which district the monks are from. i've seen flourescent orange in northern thailand and yellow in southern thailand.

the other way to differentiate dhammayut nikaya (forest) monks and mahanikaya (academic) monks is the presence of the belt during formal events.

i know the outer robe is called the jee-won...i'm interested to know what the inner robes are called.

[kylsq0Ln]

I'm sure someone can give you a much more detailed description, but the two colours that the Thai or Thai-trained monks I know wear are orange and brown(ish). The ones in brown are Forest Monks (e.g. from Ajahn Chah's lineage), the ones in orange "city" monks.