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- (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 ” (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 dharmaśāstra literature;[2] or The book provides a “Transliteration Table of Old that the Dhammavilāsa dates back to twelfth-cen‐ Burmese, Burmese, 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 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 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 ” (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. The latter resulted mainly from the evalua‐ shown to having been stated in a canonical text tion of dhammasattha law in light of the piṭakat (sutta), or to conforming to what has been stated (Pāli tipiṭaka). In 1681 the court of Ava had enact‐ in a canonical text (suttānuloma), or to belonging ed a royal order to create a catalog of the piṭakat to the opinions of the elders who participated in (Piṭakat samuiṅḥ) implemented by a number of the first joint recitation one year after the Bud‐ monks. With the exception of Uttamasikkhā the dha’s demise (theravāda), or to belonging to “one’s authors of these catalogs excluded the dham‐ own opinion” (attanomati), which covers all state‐ masatthas from the piṭakat. Uttamasikkhā, howev‐ ments of monks different from the elders included er, characterized the dhammasatthas as man- by theravāda. made and as not belonging to the Buddhist sāsana, The dhammasatthas most widely circulated in indeed, even as an obstacle to the path. Other the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were dhammasat texts acknowledged disagreements be‐ the three written by Vaṇṇadhamma Kyaw Htin. tween prior law texts, and therefore doubted the The first of these, Manusāra rhve myañḥ (1769), is a claim of the unaltered essence of the first cosmic revision of the Manusāra pāṭha with a new dhammasattha ( Mahābuddhaṅkura dhammasat,

3 H-Net Reviews nissaya; the second, Vinicchayapakāsanī (1771), is Lammerts thus traces the development of the a “reworking of Kaingza’s Mahārājasat”; and the dhammasattha literature of Burma from the first last, Manuvaṇṇanā (1772), is a nissaya on laws securely datable beginnings to colonial times and transmitted in a variety of dhammasatthas (p. draws a vivid picture of the dynamic changes of 164). Lammerts reveals the innovations in this genre and the law represented in it. He does Vaṇṇadhamma’s treatment of inheritance law this by reading treatises that are for the most part compared with his source texts, indicating that available only in unedited manuscripts. The fact Vaṇṇadhamma made explicit discrepancies be‐ that thereby many ideas established in secondary tween dhammasattha and vinaya law to an unusu‐ literature for decades are proven wrong shows al degree. how important it is on the one side to use this ma‐ The eighteenth century also saw a new devel‐ terial and on the other to make it available to a opment, namely, the production of histories of wider readership through editions and transla‐ dhammasatthas, a kind of bibliography of this tions. In addition to the overarching theme, Lam‐ genre. This resulted from the assumption that merts enriches the book by a wealth of individual dhammasatthas were products of worldly legisla‐ observations scrupulously researched and offers tion and thus needed to be situated in specific tem‐ many avenues for discussion.[3] In the process, he poral contexts. Four such bibliographies (by creates an excellent starting point for further in‐ Khemācāra, Vaṇṇadhamma, Letwe Sundara, and vestigations.[4] This comprehensive study is the Ariyāvaṃsa) are given in the appendix. first to meticulously analyze the dhammasattha treatises and related texts in such depth and Finally, Lammerts looks at the development of breadth. Clearly written and thoroughly well print‐ dhammasattha law in the context of more general ed, this book will certainly have a long-lasting im‐ currents that were crucial for the juridical refor‐ pact and undoubtedly serve as a standard refer‐ mulations, such as concerns of donors who spon‐ ence work for Buddhist law and the dham‐ sored the copying of the piṭakat and wanted to be masattha literature.[5] sure that what was copied was the word of the Bud‐ dha or its authorized commentators, and thus Notes yields . Or the intramonastic competition of [1]. I thank Alastair Gornall (Singapore) for mainly regional saṅghas without direct relations correcting and improving my English. with the Burmese throne, which started “to repre‐ [2]. For some critical thoughts concerning sent themselves as more worthy of patronage than Lammerts’s observations about the relation be‐ others due to their stricter adherence to the letter tween dharmaśāstra and dhammasattha, see the of the vinaya” (p. 176). As the basis for economic reviews of the present book by Donald R. Davis Jr., wealth, the dhammasatthas made merit-making Journal of the American Academy of Religion 87, possible in the frst place. no. 2 (June 2019): 546-49, esp. 548ff, https://doi.org/ Chapter 6 begins with a summary of key find‐ 10.1093/jaarel/lfy053; and Gregory Kourilsky, “De la ings of the preceding chapters and then proceeds ‘dynamique’ du droit bouddhique birman,” Bulletin to examine why dhammasatthas were still pro‐ de l’École française d’Extrȇme-Orient 104 (2018): duced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 377-85, esp. 382ff, https://www.academia.edu/ how, for whom, and to what end. Lammerts singles 40268195/ out judges as the main recipients, and subsequent‐ De_la_dynamique_du_droit_bouddhique_birman. ly he discusses who acted as judges and which kind [3]. The Pāli portions in many dhammasatthas of judges were mentioned in the texts. are often corrupt according to Lammerts, so that he sometimes reconstructs the lines. Some of his

4 H-Net Reviews choices are ones that one might disagree with. For except when a layperson has served as a ‘support‐ example, there is a question whether one should go er of the sick’ (gilanupaṭṭhaka) to a monk prior to even further in the reconstruction by reading his death. Any lay or monastic ‘supporter of the (with the nissaya) dhanaṃ tassa vilumpitvā for sick’ is thus entitled to inherit a certain share of the dhanatassa vilumpitvā. Concerning the presenta‐ deceased monk’s personal (puggalika) property” tion of Pāli one should think whether it would not (p. 75). Lammerts uses the words “Pali vinaya” in be more reader friendly to mark elisions and to the Burmese sense of applying to the entire tradi‐ write ther’ ekaṃ for therekaṃ; labhat’ ekaṃ for tion of monastic law, comprising the root-texts labhatekaṃ; pokkharaṇī c ’ uyyānakaṃ for and commentaries, not, as one could understand, pokkharaṇīcuyyānakaṃ, etc. (pp. 232n80, 244n135). the Vinaya root text only. But in the present con‐ The rendering of sammukhibhūta saṅgha as “the text a diversification could be possible, since the monks resident at the monastery” or as “local Vinaya root text (Vin I 303,27–305,14 = Mahāvagga community” is not completely correct, since this VIII.27.1–5) does not mention laypersons as sup‐ term refers to the community present at a specific porters of a sick but only monks or novices. The moment within a sīmā and thus could also include extension to laypersons occurs only in the com‐ guest monks; pabbajitaparikkhāraṃ is translated mentary to the Vinaya, the Samantapāsādikā (Sp V as “requisites of ordination,” but “requisites of the 1134,1–4.13–15). In examining the Manusāra’s posi‐ ordained” would be closer to the Pāli (pp. 39, 41, tion concerning inheritance law, Lammerts states: 243n121, 112). Perhaps Lammerts here follows the “Manusāra excludes the laity from having any interpretation of the nissaya. share at all in monastic inheritance, even in cases [4]. Let me add a few remarks. In the list of where a layperson may have acted as a supporter manuscripts to be kept by the monastery given in of a sick and dying monk (gilānupatthāka).” He, Sirīsaṅghapāla’s Vinaya Decisions a “Major” and a therefore, concludes that the Manusāra in this re‐ “Minor Vinayasaṅgaha” are listed and discussed gard “prescribes even stronger laws prohibiting by Lammerts (pp. 42, 216n96). Recently I came the lay inheritance of monastic property than does across a Burmese palm leaf manuscript of the vinaya legislation” (p. 114). This from the Burmese Fragile Palm Leaves Collection, no. 3048 (dating point of view is correct, but from the Pāli material from 1866), which contains Sāriputta’s Vinayasaṅ it only hits the point if we do not differentiate be‐ gaha (= Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha, foll. tween the Vinaya root text and its commentary. ka.v–dhaṃ.r) designated among others as Mahāv‐ Otherwise the Manusāra is in perfect agreement inayasaṅgahapakaraṇaṃ (fol. dhaṃ.r10) in the with the Vinaya. text and a Vinayasaṅgahasaṅkhepapakaraṇa (foll. Concerning the Pāli term aṭṭa (variant aḍḍa), dhāḥ.v–bai.r), which is an abbreviated version of Lammerts states that Pāli aṭṭa is occasionally the former created by omitting sentences and glossed in dhammasattha texts as “law” and that paragraphs of the longer version. It could well be its more conventional meaning in Pāli is “lawsuit” that this abbreviated version was considered a (p. 229n33). Here I would like to add a reference to “Minor Vinayasaṅgaha.” Oskar von Hinüber’s article (“Buddhist Law ac‐ In connection with the story of the inheri‐ cording to the Theravāda-Vinaya,” Journal of the tance of a ruby ring Lammerts states: “In the ‘Dis‐ International Association of 18, course on the Property of the Dead’ (Matasan‐ no. 1 (1995): 7-45, esp. 30) who hints at a passage of takakathā) and its commentaries, introduced in the Samantapāsādikā, where aṭṭa is said to refer to chapter 2, the Pali vinaya forbids the inheritance of “a law suit” in secular law, whereas in monastic monastic property by laypersons in all instances law adhikaraṇa is used, and aṭṭa is defined as that

5 H-Net Reviews which is decided by judges (vohārika-vinicchayo, Sp 906,24–25). [5]. Whether hatthapāde (p. 60) in the nissaya instead of hatthapādehi as in the pāṭha is a typo or a fault of the manuscript, is uncertain. The link giv‐ en for Alexey Kirichenko’s documents does not work (p. 247n162). I found the documents at https://www.niu.edu/burma/publications/jbs/ vol15.2/kirichenkodocuments/ kirichenko_atula_biography_appendix.pdf (ac‐ cessed August 11, 2019).

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Citation: Petra Kiefer-Pulz. Review of Lammerts, D. Christian. Buddhist Law in Burma: A History of Dhammasattha Texts and Jurisprudence, 1250-1850. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. March, 2020.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55019

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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