Amnart Buasiri, director of the secretariat of the Sangha Supreme Council - the ruling body of Thailand's Buddhist monkhood, said the instruction was issued after his office received complaints about newly-ordained monks messaging on their BlackBerry smartphones in public.

'The secretariat has sent circulars to all levels of monastic chiefs to instruct and ensure that Buddhist monks and novices under their supervision will not act improperly in terms of technology usage,' Amnart told The Nation newspaper.

Buddhism is the professed religion of about 90 per cent of Thailand's population of 65 million.