Petra Kieffer-Pulz on D. Christian Lammerts: Buddhist Law in Burma: a History of Dhammasattha Texts An
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D. Christian Lammerts. Buddhist Law in Burma: A History of Dhammasattha Texts and Jurisprudence, 1250-1850. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2018. 304 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-7260-1. Reviewed by Petra Kiefer-Pulz (Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz) Published on H-Buddhism (March, 2020) Commissioned by Thomas Borchert (University of Vermont) Buddhist Law in Burma is a brilliant study of The book consists of two parts: “Sources” and the history and development of legal dham‐ “Revisions and Reasons.” The first chapter intro‐ masattha literature in Burma from the thirteenth duces the topic and discusses it against the back‐ to the nineteenth centuries, demonstrating “the ground of previous research. Chapters 2-4 (part 1) centrality of law as a sphere of Buddhist knowl‐ provide a thorough and substantial study of dham‐ edge and literary production in Burma” (p. 1).[1] It masattha literature, starting with traces of dham‐ represents the first scholarly engagement with this masattha between 1250 and 1600 (chapter 2) and topic and is an indispensable tool for anyone in‐ dealing in detail with the two oldest dham‐ terested in the development and character of Bud‐ masattha texts dating from the seventeenth centu‐ dhist law in Burma and beyond. At the same time, ry, the Dhammavilāsa dhammasat (chapter 3) and it can serve as a guide through the wealth of dham‐ the Manusāra dhammasattha (chapter 4). The sec‐ masattha texts in manuscript sources. D. Christian ond part gives an overview of new Lammerts has meticulously investigated these dhammasatthas, produced between 1681 and circa texts, to a large extent unedited and untranslated 1850, their reception of the old dhammasatthas, to date, and uses them as the basis of this study. In and new developments (chapter 5). Chapter 6, doing so, he manages to refute several precon‐ which functions as the conclusion of the book, be‐ ceived notions that have shaped the view of the gins with a summary of the contents of the preced‐ history of law in Burma in the past, such as the pre‐ ing chapters. Lammerts then proceeds to look into conception that Buddhism “gave rise to no law the questions of why the jurists of the eighteenth aside from the vinaya” (p. 1); or that precolonial and nineteenth centuries advocated for the con‐ Burmese legalism was of an unchanging nature; or tinuous production and use of the dhammasatthas, that the Burmese dhammasattha genre was born for whom they were compiled and to what end. out of the Sanskrit dharmaśāstra literature;[2] or The book provides a “Transliteration Table of Old that the Dhammavilāsa dates back to twelfth-cen‐ Burmese, Burmese, Pali and Sanskrit Written in tury Pagan; or that the anonymous Manu kyay or the Burmese Script,” an appendix with four dham‐ Manu raṅḥ akyay (before 1782) was the most au‐ masattha bibliographies bolstered by rich notes, a thoritative Burmese legal treatise of the precolo‐ bibliography, and a general index. nial era, to mention only a few. Precolonial Burma knew a number of forms of law, such as the proceedings of vinaya courts, H-Net Reviews collections of monastic judgments (vinicchaya, fore the seventeenth century testify not to the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries), the Pāli com‐ presence of a corpus of variously authored and ti‐ mentarial legal tradition, transcripts of disputes tled legal texts and commentaries but to the ongo‐ involving laypersons and sometimes monks from ing transmission of a sole authoritative treatise,” the epigraphic and manuscript corpus (twelfth to namely, “a dhammasat in the vernacular and asso‐ nineteenth centuries), the royal legal tradition ciated with a fgure named Manu” (p. 46). since the thirteenth century, and the upade (Pāli Chapter 3 deals with the Dhammavilāsa, the upadesa) legislation by kings Mindon and Thibaw earliest securely dated example of the dham‐ (nineteenth century). It is in the light of this legal masattha genre from Burma and Southeast Asia, diversity that Lammerts studies Buddhist law written in the vernacular by an unknown author mainly as represented in the dhammasatthas, but before 1637-38 (date of the exemplar of a manu‐ also taking into account other witnesses. His two script copy of this text). As shown by Lammerts, objectives are, first, “to map and describe the sig‐ the ascription of this text to twelfth-century Pagan nificance of the production, circulation, and trans‐ goes back to the Monywe Sayadaw Ariyāvaṃsa formation of dhammasattha treatises in precolo‐ Ādiccaraṃsī (1766-1834). The Dhammavilāsa is not nial Burma,” and, second, “to provide an account one of the most commonly transmitted texts and of the genre’s general jurisprudence—the way dif‐ shows more substantial textual variations than ferent treatises represent their authority and func‐ other dhammasatthas, so that it sometimes “be‐ tion, particularly in relation to Buddhism and Bud‐ comes hard even to speak of Dhammavilāsa as a dhist literature—and to examine how and why this single or unified text” (p. 57). Its largely indepen‐ jurisprudence changed over time up until the mid- dent recensions in Arakanese, Mon, and Shan nineteenth century, when British colonial rule be‐ manuscripts hint at an even greater variety. An gan to encroach upon Burmese legal discourse and overview of the contents shows the multiple topics practice” (p. 2). covered: election of Mahāsammata and appoint‐ Although no dhammasattha written before the ment of Manu as his judge; judges; witnesses and seventeenth century has come down to us, the evidence; the biography of Manu; the thirteen many mentions of the dhammasattha in epigraph‐ characteristics of the Dhammasat; and a list of the ic, literary, and legal contexts between the thir‐ eighteen titles of law, including the law of debt, de‐ teenth and early seventeenth centuries indicate posit, sale without ownership, resumption of gifts, that dhammasattha “claimed jurisdiction over slavery, and inheritance. In several manuscripts Buddhists” and that it was considered the final re‐ the subgroupings are each introduced by a Pāli sort for judgments (pp. 43-44). This probably is verse or prose text. The Pāli is followed by a nis‐ based on the fact that (at least in part of the legal saya gloss, that is a work in which each Pāli word is tradition) law was considered of cosmic, not man- translated into Burmese, sometimes also with ad‐ made, origin, “retrieved off the boundary wall of ditional literary or explanatory material (occa‐ the universe (cakkavāḷa)” by the seer Manu (p. 51). sionally this nissaya gloss is also missing). The in‐ Manu was the judge of Mahāsammata, the first tention (adhippāya) is then explained in an entire‐ elected king of the world, and presented the law he ly vernacular passage. The jurisprudence visible in had transcribed from the wall to the king. Even if the Dhammavilāsa is at the same time “resembling this cosmic law is abbreviated, summarized, or dis‐ and differing from figurations preserved in tran‐ torted, its essence was considered to have re‐ sregional Pali literature” (p. 179). mained unchanged throughout its transmission in Chapter 4 examines the Manusāra dham‐ these early times. As Lammerts puts it: “Witnesses masattha written in Pāli and vernacular, and au‐ to the circulation of dhammasattha in Burma be‐ 2 H-Net Reviews thored in 1651-52 by a monastic, the Taungbhila 1733-52). Many of the dhammasatthas written in Sayadaw Tipiṭakālaṅkāra, and a layperson, the the early Konbaung period are retellings or recast‐ judge Kaingza Manurāja. It is the first Burmese law ings of Tipiṭakalaṅkāra’s and Kaingza’s Manusāra. text to differentiate between monastic (corpus Some authors of the eighteenth century, such as vinaya) and lay jurisdictions (corpus dham‐ Letwe Nauratha and Ñāṇālaṅkāra, discussed the masattha). It consists of a Manusārapāṭha written Manu/Mahāsammata story in comparison to in Pāli verse (about 525 stanzas; this is the pāṭha what was handed down in Pāli texts. text), with a nissaya (the pāṭha text seems to not The late eighteenth century sees the import of have been circulated independently). The nissaya Sanskrit dharmaśāstras mostly prominent in Ben‐ in part deviates so much from the pāṭha text that gal with mainly marriage and inheritance law. Lammerts suggests the pāṭha to be a recension of These were transliterated into the Burmese script an independent earlier work. The “Manusāra is the probably under the direction of the monk Ñāṇāb‐ first dhammasattha to include an explicit discus‐ hivaṃsa. But they seem to not have had a lasting sion of laws regulating the inheritance of property impact in Burma. belonging to the saṅgha as a community whose Ariyāvaṃsa, one of the most influential per‐ rules differ from those of nonmonastics” (p. 112). sons in the nineteenth century, like others before These secular laws disagree with the monastic law, him rejected the cosmic origin of the law, declaring a fact referred to by the authors, though no solu‐ it to be made by the first king of the world tion is offered. Lammerts provides us with a de‐ (Mahāsammata) and to be Buddhist law, because tailed and highly welcome biography of one of the it was made by Buddhists. The first dhammasattha authors, namely, of the monk Tipiṭakālaṅkāra, of the Konbaung era, which is not only a reedition who also is the author of the Vinayālaṅkāra, a of an earlier dhammasattha, is Khemācāra’s Vinic‐ commentary on Sāriputta’s twelfth-century chayarāsī (1768 CE). It differs by beginning with Vinayasaṅgaha, important for the monastic legal salutatory Pāli verses taken over from fifth-centu‐ history of seventeenth-century Burma. ry Pāli commentaries and by restricting dham‐ Part 2 (chapter 5) addresses the reception of masattha to laity. It sets out to validate the dham‐ the old dhammasatthas in the dhammasatthas that masattha by comparing it with the “teaching of the originated between 1681 and the middle of the Buddha” (buddhavacana), using the four means nineteenth century and discusses changes in the taught in Pāli commentarial literature: it can be genre.