Buddhism and Written Law: Dhammasattha Manuscripts and Texts in Premodern Burma
BUDDHISM AND WRITTEN LAW: DHAMMASATTHA MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS IN PREMODERN BURMA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Dietrich Christian Lammerts May 2010 2010 Dietrich Christian Lammerts BUDDHISM AND WRITTEN LAW: DHAMMASATTHA MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS IN PREMODERN BURMA Dietrich Christian Lammerts, Ph.D. Cornell University 2010 This dissertation examines the regional and local histories of dhammasattha, the preeminent Pali, bilingual, and vernacular genre of Buddhist legal literature transmitted in premodern Burma and Southeast Asia. It provides the first critical analysis of the dating, content, form, and function of surviving dhammasattha texts based on a careful study of hitherto unexamined Burmese and Pali manuscripts. It underscores the importance for Buddhist and Southeast Asian Studies of paying careful attention to complex manuscript traditions, multilingual post- and para- canonical literatures, commentarial strategies, and the regional South-Southeast Asian literary, historical, and religious context of the development of local legal and textual practices. Part One traces the genesis of dhammasattha during the first and early second millennia C.E. through inscriptions and literary texts from India, Cambodia, Campå, Java, Lakå, and Burma and investigates its historical and legal-theoretical relationships with the Sanskrit Bråhmaˆical dharmaßåstra tradition and Pali Buddhist literature. It argues that during this period aspects of this genre of written law, akin to other disciplines such as alchemy or medicine, functioned in both Buddhist and Bråhmaˆical contexts, and that this ecumenical legal culture persisted in certain areas such as Burma and Java well into the early modern period.
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