New Burmese Language Materials from John Okell
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
________________________ BULLETIN OF THE BURMA STUDIES GROUP ________________________ Sitting for exams, Kya Khet Wain monaster, Pegu. Photo by Jake Carbine Number 75 March 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Southeast Asia Council Association for Asian Studies Number 75, May 2005 Editor Ward Keeler Department of Anthropology University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712 email: [email protected] Assistant Editor CONTENTS Jake Carbine ____________________________________ College of the Holy Cross email: [email protected] Recent Contributions to the Study of Burmese Buddhism ..................................... 2 Book Review Editor Leedom Lefferts Exploring Theravada Studies ..................... 3 Department of Anthropology Drew University Renunciation and Power in Burmese Madison, NJ 07940-4000 Buddhism .................................................... 4 email: [email protected] An Ethic of Continuity ................................ 7 Subscription Manager Catherine Raymond Notes Toward the Study of Dhammathat The Center for Burma Studies Maunscripts ............................................... 10 Northern Illinois University DeKalb, 60115-2853 Ledi Sayadaw and a Controversial Pali office: (815) 753-0512 Text ........................................................... 12 fax: (815) 753-1776 email: [email protected] Monastic Reform and the Writing of web: www.grad.niu.edu/burma Buddhist History ....................................... 13 Subscriptions Buddhist Organizations and Buddhist Individuals and Institutions: $25 Revival in Colonial Burma ....................... 14 (Includes Journal of Burma Studies) Send checks, payable to The Center for Little Yangon in Tokyo ............................. 15 Burma Studies, or email Beth Bjorneby at [email protected] (Visa and Mastercard Burmese Buddhism in California.............. 17 accepted only). Next Issue September 2005 (Submissions due August 2005) ____________________________________ in which to paddle, perhaps aimlessly but certainly securely. Recent Contributions to the study of Burmese Buddhism Fortunately, many scholars approach ____________________________________ religious discourse much more open- mindedly than I do, and as a result, they are Let me introduce this issue of the Bulletin able to gather fascinating insights into with a confession. Doing research in people‘s understandings of the world and Indonesia and Burma alike, I have come to their place in it. The trick, of course, is to dread moments in any conversation when direct the flow of conversation away from the topic turns to religion. I know full well the obvious to the particular. It is a pleasure that religion means a great deal to many of to report that many younger scholars are the people I meet in these societies and that, finding ways to do just this and to make of as an anthropologist, I should share their the subject of Burmese Buddhism an excellent terrain on which to learn a great interest. But rather than arouse curiosity, the first mention of religious ideas fills me with deal that is new, important, and intriguing. dread. This response, akin to an allergic The purpose of this issue of the Bulletin is to reaction to even tiny traces of some allergen, acquaint our readers with some of the work stems from having listened for many a long that these people are doing. hour to worthy people give expression to incontestably moral sentiments and It was learning from Jake Carbine that he unimpeachably pious platitudes, recitations and Guillaume Rozenberg had organized a that drive me ever deeper into a kind of conference on the subject of Theravada submissive catatonia. Buddhism last August in Singapore, and that only a few months later Jake was going to In trying to analyze my irrational and defend his dissertation, that gave me the idea regrettable reaction to these turns in of devoting this issue to the study of conversation, I have come to understand that Buddhism. Jake has provided me the names what makes me so bewail the broaching of of several younger scholars whose work religious discourse is precisely what makes deserves attention in this regard, and readers it so attractive to many of my interlocutors. will find accounts, some shorter, some Speaking to people one barely knows carries longer, of their work in the following pages. a certain risk in any society. Speaking to There are no doubt other scholars whose people from very far away (such as an work I am not yet aware of. I hope that they American anthropologist), whose aural will make their projects known to me, so comprehension is doubtful, cognitive habits that we can include mention of them in unclear, and actual motives open to future issues. question, can only put many people on edge. In such situations, repeating obvious and To my delight, Frank Reynolds has agreed universally accepted phrases on a subject, to write a follow-up to this issue in the form morality itself, that everyone acknowledges of a state-of-the-field essay on Theravada to be important but uncontroversial, is to Buddhist studies. This will appear in the take the high road to safe ground. So what next issue (the so-called ―September‖ issue, looks to me like the flat expanse of the although I am not always able to fulfill my conversational doldrums looks to my editorial duties as promptly as I would like). interlocutors like a smooth and elevated lake As a venerable hsaya, Frank provides a 2 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group scholarly link to the period that brought us position included funding for a workshop such classic works on Buddhism in and/or conference on a particular theme of Southeast Asia as Spiro‘s Buddhism and his choice. Society, Mendelson‘s Sangha and State in Burma, and Tambiah‘s World Conqueror, After many email exchanges, we decided World Renouncer. By continuing to work in that the conference‘s theme would be the region, and training students, however, Frank keeps very much in touch with ―Exploring Theravada Studies: Intellectual ongoing developments in the field, ones that Trends and the Future of a Field of Study.‖ promise us a whole new generation of The conference was designed to afford scholarship. Gustaaf Houtman‘s Mental collaborative scholarly reflection on Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics may well methods, theories, and subjects of inquiry in constitute the first major contribution in this the study of Theravada Buddhism across new wave in Buddhist studies, at least in various Asian and other contexts. The reference specifically to Burma. But herein primary objective was to bring together an follows a preview of several studies, in a interdisciplinary and international body of great range of fields, that will greatly expand scholars to present genealogical and other our understanding of Buddhism, in Burma reflections on the field of Theravada Studies and beyond it, over the next few years. broadly conceived. In light of this objective, The Editor we asked that individual papers address ____________________________________ intellectual trends in the study of Theravada Buddhism, and/or offer original case studies Exploring Theravada Studies suggesting innovative paths for current and ____________________________________ future research on Theravada Buddhism. We were also particularly interested in Jake Carbine provides the following short papers and discussions that examined the account of the conference on Theravada implications of using the term ―Theravada,‖ Buddhism that he and Guillaume Rozenberg welcoming perspectives that deconstructed organized last year. While the conference this usage among scholars of Buddhism. covered both South and Southeast Asia, Burma-related papers comprised a Eighteen individual papers were presented at significant part of the program. If nothing the conference, which was held on August else, the conference conveyed the complex 12-14, 2004. In his opening keynote nature of Theravada Buddhism, and the address, ―Theravada: Now and Then,‖ John great range of approaches its study invites. Holt (Bowdoin College) set the conference against the backdrop of historical and In November 2003, Guillaume Rozenberg contemporary developments in the academic approached me with an idea for an study of Buddhism; describing the nature international conference dealing with and status of Theravada / Southeast Asian scholarly approaches to Buddhist studies. At Buddhist studies in institutions of higher the time, Guillaume held a post-doctoral learning in the US and Europe. Theravada fellowship at the Asia Research Institute, developments in Burma were discussed in National University of Singapore. His the following papers: Hiroko Kawanami‘s ―Contemporary Position of Buddhist Nuns Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 3 in Burma: The Politics of Sasana-pyu;‖ [Renunciation and power: the quest for Jacques Leider‘s ―Text, Lineage, and sainthood in contemporary Burma.] By Tradition: The Struggle for Norms and Guillaume Rozenberg. Religious Legitimacy under King Bodawphaya (1782-1819);‖ Guy Lubeigt‘s On the first of March 1980, first day of the ―Theravada Buddhism and Money: The waning moon of Dabaung 1342 of the Myanmar‘s Paradigm;‖ Guillaume Burmese era, a sixty-seven years old Rozenberg‘s ―Anthropology and the Buddhist monk, giving up supervision of the Buddhological Imagination: Reconstructing two village monasteries of which he has the Invisible Life of Texts;‖ and Jason served as the abbot, leaves for the forest. He Carbine‘s ―The Role of Abhidhamma in the sets himself up on the