______

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 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 ...... 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 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 , 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 ‘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 top of a deserted hill Field of Theravada Studies: A Perspective in the Karen State, Thamanya Hill, in order from Burma / Myanmar.‖ Frank Reynolds to remove himself from the world and to (Emeritus Professor, University of Chicago practice meditation. Thamanya is located in Divinity School) provided a closing keynote the heart of an area devastated by warfare address, ―Theravada: Now and Beyond,‖ in between government troops and Karen which he suggested that one or more of the rebels. institutions of higher learning in Southeast Asia itself could and perhaps should become The secluded existence of this monk, the international center(s) for the academic hereinafter known as the Thamanya study of Theravada Buddhism. Hsayadaw, does not last long. First hundreds, then thousands, of the faithful, -Jake Carbine hearing stories of his spiritual perfection, ______come from the surrounding area, and eventually from all over the country, to pay Renunciation and Power in him homage. Armed with his success and Burmese Buddhism the enormous gifts he receives, the old monk ______turns out to be a formidable entrepreneur. Religious structures and pilgrims‘ shelters Scheduled to appear in September, soon cover the hill and its surroundings. Guillaume Rozenberg’s forthcoming book certainly promises to be a worthy successor At the end of the 1980s, Thamanya to the work of Spiro, Mendelson, and others. Hsayadaw sets up a twenty-five square It documents the phenomenon of a kilometer territory around the hill, an charismatic and powerful monk and the enclave under the authority of neither the many laypeople whose allegiance he has Burmese government nor the Karen won. Guillaume has done us the favor of National Union (the region‘s principal rebel providing the following summary of its group). Here the great monk exercises sole contents. dominion, and, inspired by Buddhist principles, he places his domain under the Renoncement et puissance. La quête de la sign of non-violence and Buddhist virtue. sainteté dans la Birmanie contemporaine. The peace and liberty he establishes soon Geneva: Editions Olizane, 2005. draw inhabitants of the region fleeing the

4 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group violence of war. In a few years, surrounding Thamanya monk were, due to regional the once deserted hill there sprouts a city of circumstances, in some respects unusual, about fifteen thousand inhabitants. The great they were by no means unprecedented in monk baptizes it Thayawaddy, Pleasantville. type. In fact, they illustrate the major, although not the sole, path to Buddhist It was late 1997, while I was studying the sainthood in contemporary Burma. My great Buddhist pilgrimage site of forthcoming book, which gathers together a Kyaikhtiyo, that I discovered Thamanya. certain number of articles I have published Renunciation of the world, removing oneself elsewhere, in addition to unpublished from the affairs of society, has long been portions of my dissertation, seeks to noted as the signal trait of the Buddhist describe and analyze precisely this path to saint, who is the exemplary incarnation of sainthood. what Max Weber called the contemplative mystic. But Thamanya Hsayadaw To make sense of the process by which represented a saint whose absolute sainthood is produced in contemporary renunciation proved indissociable from a Burmese society is thus to make sense of the powerful investment in the world. It was not paradox that the Thamanya phenomenon simply, as Weber suggested concerning immediately presents: how the aspiring saint certain religious movements, that the great combines a maximal detachment with a monk combined both mystical and ascetic politics of power. The book investigates this traits, or that, essentially a mystic, he had paradox of the dual face of sainthood in given up his passive withdrawal from the three principal respects. world in order to transform himself into a ―mystagogue,‖ a personage whose state of I first examine the constituent elements of grace is transformed, out of a sense of Burmese Buddhist ideology concerning mission sustained by a limitless love and sainthood. Two terms come up repeatedly in goodness, to assure others‘ salvation. With Burmese Buddhist discourse about the respect at least to the quest for salvation in person of the saint: taw htwet and weikza, the context of Burmese Buddhism, the great meaning ‗[the monk] gone to the forest,‘ Thamanya monk demonstrated rather that and, for want of a better gloss, ‗superman.‘ contemplation and action were intrinsically These two terms define the value system linked, that the two orientations were not so encompassing the ideology of sainthood and much contradictory and mutually antithetical express its two complementary bases, as instead mutually implicated and complete renunciation and supernatural complementary, in short, that the mystic and power. They imply a certain number of the ascetic were joined in one person. Who practices (living in the forest, ascetic rigors, then was this sort of man who resisted the meditation, alchemy, etc.), but these are not Weberian logic? analyzed in and of themselves. The emphasis falls instead on the whole that they My interest aroused, my attention was then constitute, on the particular impression of drawn to other figures considered to be sainthood that they convey, and on saints. It soon became apparent that while sainthood‘s place in Burmese Buddhism. the trajectory and works of the great My point then is not to describe these

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 5 practices ethnographically but rather to unambiguous. These monks are well aware reconstruct and represent the Burmese of the risk that too great a proximity to Buddhist conception of sainthood that they political power poses to perceptions of them, take up. To reveal, that is, the qualities that a proximity seen in a certain regard as show an individual to be a legitimate polluting. The veneration the most powerful aspirant to sainthood. men of the country show them, the honors and gifts that the monks receive from those The book then takes up three types of men—precisely those things most likely to activities—predicting lottery numbers, generate desire and longing—are capable of building religious structures, and harming their image of detachment. The redistributing gifts—by means of which a faithful are even given to labeling such monastic figure demonstrates both the high monks with the pejorative phrase degree of spiritual accomplishment he has ―government monks,‖ which denotes a attained and his power. These are what certain dependence upon the state for a enable him to display his sainthood, to monk‘s advancements in his monastic inscribe it on the social and even physical career. In such cases, even those monks landscape. Analyzing these activities, which benefiting most directly from government operate as both the means of production for support are at pains to maintain, by some and the certification of sainthood, points up symbolic gesture, their distance, and to the various relations that develop among the make some show of their indifference to aspiring saint, the faithful, and other official honors, such as by refusing some religious persons. It reveals the dynamics by honorific title proffered by the state, or by which belief in a figure‘s exceptional making their scorn for the state‘s official spiritual accomplishment gathers force. So I cult publicly known. In short, if the state am concerned to approach from three fosters sainthood, too much of the state kills different angles the functioning—with all its sainthood. workings and its participants—of the great social machinery of sainthood. So no matter from what angle it is observed, the phenomenon of sainthood in the The third and last part of the book is devoted Burmese context reveals a dominant to an analysis of the particular relationship principle: the complementarity and mutual that binds together the state and aspiring articulation—not without tension and saints. This relationship, ordinarily marked contradiction—between world renunciation by a certain complementarity, usually also and involvement in the world, between entails a certain ambivalence, the holy man detachment and power, the manner in which tending, as Stanley J. Tambiah has the aspiring saint remains at once at the emphasized and the Thamanya Hsayadaw heart of his society‘s affairs and above them. well illustrates, to assimilate in his person The paradox of sainthood‘s two faces turns the theoretically distinct figures of the monk out, on closer scrutiny, to be more apparent and the sovereign. If, furthermore, forest than real. monks have benefited greatly by the state‘s embrace of the Buddhist religion since 1988, Nevertheless, no matter how fervent the their attitude toward the authorities is never veneration he enjoys, no matter how

6 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group numerous the faithful who see in him the the question of how to assure the ultimate incarnation of the Buddhist ideal of perpetuation and vitality of their faith-based spiritual perfection, the forest monk remains communities long before Christians did, and condemned, tragically enough, to the status our assistant editor, Jake Carbine, made this of aspiring saint. The verification and problem of continuity, and challenges to it, the focal point of his dissertation. Jake definitive affirmation of a living person‘s provides us with the following summary of saintly status constitute a problematic that work. question, if not an irresolvable one, in Burmese Buddhism. From a doctrinal point An Ethic of Continuity: Shwegyin Monks of view, there exists no positive criterion and the Sasana in Contemporary Burma/ making it possible to establish beyond any Myanmar (University of Chicago, 2004). possible contestation a person‘s spiritual perfection. In theory, only a Buddha or an My dissertation focuses on what I call an accomplished saint is capable of making ―ethic of continuity‖ among a sect of such a pronouncement irrefutably. But the contemporary Burmese monks, the lack of any line of saints that can be traced Shwegyin. I invoke the phrase in order to back to the time of the Buddha, and whose analyze how Shwegyin monks, and others contemporary representatives would thus be like them (e.g. other Theravada monks), in a position to pass judgment on claims to situate themselves, in their thoughts and sainthood, makes this principle moot. The practices, in relation to the Gotama Buddha process of producing saints can never be (ca. 6th-4th centuries BCE), the Sasana (P. definitively completed; it can never reach its Dispensation), and the Buddha‘s revered true goal, which is the universal monastic successors, including the founder acknowledgement of a person‘s spiritual of the Shwegyin sect. I show how perfection. No one in Burmese society ever Shwegyin, and arguably other Theravada quite makes it to sainthood. monks, take part in the working out of Sasana-oriented ideas, interpretations, and -Tr. Ward Keeler practices in communal interaction over ______sustained periods of time. In other words, as an interpretive rubric, an ethic of An Ethic of Continuity continuity enables me to explore Buddhist ______social ethics, as exemplified by Shwegyin monks. Guillaume’s book demonstrates how a great religious virtuoso becomes the focal point of a large and powerful movement. But as In reflecting on an ethic of continuity among Weber taught us long ago, charismatic Shwegyin (and other Theravada) monks, I figures cannot guarantee the viability of draw attention to the relationship between their legacy when they have passed from the embodiment of the Sasana on the one hand scene. As a matter of fact, the recent death and textualization of the Sasana on the of a pope gave us all a crash course in the other. For Shwegyin monks, and for many drama and excitement that surrounds other monks like them, the human body is, moments of transition in large religious clearly, an important repository of memories institutions. Buddhists started wrestling with

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 7 concerning the Buddha, other monastic wider Theravada orbit. As narratives of exemplars, and the Sasana-based lifestyle Sasana decline and discontinuity suggest, for which they advocated. In wearing the when and if the teachings of a Buddha robes, in shaving their heads, in holding become both thoroughly disembodied (i.e. community transactions (P. samghakamma) no human beings—or any beings anywhere such as the higher ordination (P. for that matter—are capable of embodying upasampada), in adhering to the Discipline any part of the Sasana), as well as (P. Vinaya), in teaching the Fundamental thoroughly detextualized (i.e. the Law (P. Abhidhamma), and in doing many (re)production of all Sasana-texts stops), a other monastic things, monks in their minds Sasana has run its course, and it vanishes. and on their bodies sustain memories of the Thus, through their collective efforts, many Buddha, other exemplars, and the Sasana Shwegyin monks and others try to facilitate, itself. As such, monastic life is, especially in the day-to-day contexts of communal but not only according to the Shwegyin interaction, the back and forth movement of material, intended to be a collective embodying and textualizing the Sasana, so embodiment of the kind of world depicted that it does not vanish. That back and forth above all in the ―Sasana as it is studied‖ (P. movement constitutes the focal point of my pariyatti Sasana). study and provides a basis for my use of the term ethic of continuity. Nevertheless, I also discuss how, over and against any kind of embodiment of the I should point out that my study of an ethic Sasana, it is essential to recognize the of continuity is inspired by yet seeks to steer significance of the continual clear of structuralist / functionalist studies (re)textualization of the Sasana as another that address continuity in terms of different component of monastic memory and kinds of stasis and repetition that take place practice. From the perspective of the on sociological and other levels. For continuity of the Sasana, the (re)production example, for Shwegyin monks and others of a non-embodied, textual corpus is crucial. like them, there are certain structures of law Even if Shwegyin and other monks fail to (both Discipline and Fundamental Law) that embody the Sasana in their daily actions, condition their lives. Any analysis of an they can still assist in the process of ethic of continuity among Shwegyin monks retaining in the world textual repositories of and other Theravada Buddhists should what the Buddha and others have taught vis- consider these and other structures. Yet à-vis the transmission of the various texts of notions of structure and function, and of the Sasana itself. stasis and repetition, do not capture the overall dynamic I explore. As an Investigating an ethic of continuity among interpretive rubric, the ethic of continuity Shwegyin monks requires me to focus not presumes that there is an inherent difficulty only on embodiment and textualization of in the maintenance of any and all patterns of the Sasana but also on narratives about the socio-religious continuity, regardless of how decline of the Sasana – narratives which are static and repetitive they may seem. central to the Shwegyin ethos, as well as to the socio-religious ethos of many within the

8 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Each chapter of the dissertation focuses on individual progress on the religious path, on select thematic evidence from the Shwegyin the one hand, and the promotion of milieu. Chapter 1, ―The Shwegyin Nikaya,‖ collective life in the Sasana, on the other. examines links made in Shwegyin thought Though they may overlap, the two goals and practice between leadership and may at times be in very significant tension, administrative structures and practices, on and I show how and why members of the the one hand, and the socio-historical Shwegyin sect have often given a priority to continuity of the Shwegyin nikaya (P. sect), communal life in the Sasana at the expense on the other. I describe some of the specific of emphasizing the importance of individual ways in which Shwegyin leaders and soteriological attainment. administrators (e.g. Sasana Proprietors, Executive Officers) have drawn on parts of Chapter 3, ―The Higher Ordination,‖ details the Sasana to frame their sectarian activities, the ritual of ordination as a major legal and focusing particularly on ―All Shwegyin ritual strand in the ethic of continuity. Meetings Concerning the Sasana.‖ The According to monastic law, the higher point of the chapter is to discuss an ethic of ordination is necessary for monastic sons of continuity in terms of the ways in which the Buddha (e.g. P. Sakyaputtiya) to be fully Shwegyin leaders and administrators try to ordained; its proper implementation assures nurture Shwegyin monks as an embodiment a Buddhist form of apostolic succession (P. of the Sasana. parampara). Focusing on a specific Shwegyin higher ordination performed in Chapter 2, ―Lineage and Disciple-Sons of April 2001, I discuss how monastic legal the Buddha,‖ examines how monastic and ritual specialists ensure that men are histories and biographies of Shwegyin properly established in the Sasana, which monks are used pedagogically to gather they are to live in as Arahants-in-training. monks into socially and historically (An arahant is a spiritually and morally continuous communities purportedly dating perfected being.) In doing so, they back to the time of the Buddha – participate in the sect‘s ethic of continuity. communities whose members are responsible for the work of embodying and Chapter 4, ―The Patthana and Arahant- textualizing the Sasana. To develop this ship,‖ highlights the role of specialists of point about the educational use of texts in Fundamental Law in sustaining the creating and sustaining monastic communal Shwegyin ethic of continuity. I illustrate the identity and practice, I lay out a theoretical importance of their role by looking at a and literary account of the genre of Buddhist specific ―carrier of the Sasana,‖ Ashin monastic histories and biographies, in and Janakabhivamsa (1900-1977), and in beyond Burma / Myanmar. I then explore particular some of his sermons to monks and representative Shwegyin historical and lay people about the Patthana (P. biographical material. One of my major Conditional Relations). These sermons objectives is to discuss a very important exemplify Janakabhivamsa's efforts to help Shwegyin solution to a classic conflict in his fellow sons and daughters of the Buddha, Theravada notions of Sasana-oriented both monastic and lay, to comprehend the continuity. That conflict is between Patthana and to ―shine bright with the light

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 9 of wisdom.‖ My goal is to show how of California Press, 2000), ―Yaktovil: The fostering an experience of wisdom and light, Role of the Buddha and Dhamma,‖ in Life of as Abhidhamma specialists like Buddhism; ―Burmese, Buddhist Literature Janakabhivamsa do, is integral to the ethic in,‖ in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, editor-in- of continuity. chief Robert Buswell (Macmillan, 2003); ―Sangha,‖ in Encyclopedia of Monasticism, The various themes I raise (e.g. leadership edited by William Johnston (Fitzroy and administration, notions of lineage and Dearborn Publishers, 2000); and several son-ship, legal rituals, and philosophical articles in progress. Under agreement with efforts), and the various thoughts and the Pali Text Society, Jake is also working practices that pertain to these themes, cannot on a translation project on the Kalyani be rigorously distinguished and then Inscriptions. assigned to separate chapters. For instance, ______a full member of the Shwegyin nikaya (chapter 1) must receive a higher ordination Notes Toward the Study of Dhammathat (chapter 3), usually but not always from Manuscripts from Medieval and Early qualified Shwegyin monks; this makes him Modern Myanmar part of a monastic lineage (chapter 2). ______Moreover, living in the Sasana as a monk may lead an individual to become a revered Any textual tradition as diverse and preacher of the Fundamental Law (chapter historically deep as that of Theravada 4), or a high-ranking leader in the Shwegyin Buddhism in Southeast Asia poses great hierarchy (again, chapter 1). Nevertheless, opportunities and great challenges to the each of the four themes provides a way to scholar who would delve seriously into its examine overlapping and interrelated often esoteric, but real, riches. Three aspects of Shwegyin thought and practice scholars, Christian Lammerts, Erik Bruan, inasmuch as they contribute to Shwegyin and Patrick Pranke, whose work we get a continuity through time, as well as the glimpse of here, focus on Burmese Buddhist continuity of the Sasana. texts of various kinds.

-Jake Carbine Christian Lammerts, a doctoral student in Asian Studies at Cornell, proposes in his Jake is currently preparing a book research prospectus to look into historical manuscript based on his dissertation. linguistics, manuscript culture, and literacy, During the 2005-06 academic year he will all from the angle of a particular corpus of be a visiting assistant professor in the texts. Department of Religion at Amherst College where he will teach various courses on Dhammathats are ethical and legal texts that Buddhism, including a team-taught course have been known in Myanmar since at least on Buddhism and Christianity, and a the thirteenth century. For the student of seminar on Buddhism and politics. His Southeastern Asian Buddhism, literature, publications include The Life of Buddhism, and history, the large and varied corpus of co-edited with Frank Reynolds (University extant dhammathats in Burmese, Mon, Pāli,

10 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group and bilingual nissaya style provides an understandings of ethics, literacy, and the important point of entry for thinking about a law at work in the dhammathats. number of topics: multilingual literary cultures and practices, manuscript In conjunction with this project I am production and circulation, historical working on several substantial critical linguistics and philology, ‗non-standard‘ translations of dhammathat manuscripts and Pāli, and the Pāli-vernacular nexus. When of the entire Dhammavilāsa Dhammathat read in dialogue with other legal, gnomic, or (the first part of which was published as part normative texts, dhammathats offer unique of my M.A. thesis). I am also preparing, insights into the complex interplay of with Kyaw Zaw Naing, a bilingual Sanskrit, Pāli, and vernacular textual and (Burmese-English) integrated catalog of ethical cultures in western mainland dhammathat-related manuscripts in Theravāda Southeast Asia. Myanmar which will include a number of hitherto unpublished dhammathat Through a close reading of selected bibliographies from palm-leaf. The catalog dhammathat manuscripts my research is to be published by the Fragile Palm explores the place of dhammathats within Leaves Society. Buddhist literary and ethical practice in medieval and early modern Myanmar. This -Christian Lammerts involves close attention to critical and editorial problems with dating, attributing, Christian studied philosophy, classics, and and establishing dhammathat texts, to their religion at Williams College, where he intertextual and bilingual compositional received his B.A. in 1997. After living for styles, and to their commentarial and several years in East and Southeast Asia, in ancillary literatures. I also attempt to 2002 he was awarded an M.A. in Southeast reconstruct the intellectual and literary Asian History by the School of Oriental and networks of exchange within the African Studies, University of London. In Southeastern Asian region which served as 2005 he earned an M.A. in Southeast Asian circuits for the transmission of dhammathat Studies from Cornell University, where he is knowledge, and to establish the historical currently a Ph.D. student in Asian Religions and textual relationships between working under the supervision of Anne dhammathats and the Sanskrit dharmaśāstric Blackburn and Christopher Minkowski. His literature, and among regional vernacular contact details are as follows: Department of (e.g. Thai, Mon, Burmese) dhammathats. Asian Studies, 350 Rockefeller Hall, Cornell Another aspect of my research examines University, Ithaca, NY 14853. Email: epigraphic and manuscript evidence [email protected]. concerning the changing role and status of dhammathats within legal, textual, and ethical culture in 13th through 19th century Myanmar, and investigates the reading contexts within which dhammathats would have functioned. This entails a critique of the cosmologies, epistemologies, and

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 11 ______Newspapers in both Mandalay and Rangoon published debates on the matter. Ledi Sayadaw and a Controversial Pali Text The issue that intrigues me most about this ______controversy concerns tradition and change. Ledi Sayadaw's conception of the sasana Whereas Christian Lammerts intends to look and his place in it allowed him to produce at an entire genre of Burmese Buddhist what seems from a historical perspective to writings, Erik Braun is embarked on the be an unorthodox work. As someone study of a specific Burmese Buddhist text, training to be a professor of religion and one that, like any good commentary, caused Buddhist studies, I am interested in the way an uproar on its appearance. and the degree to which the Ledi's work represents a real change in the understanding My dissertation concerns the widely known of tradition. Or rather than a sign of change, and highly regarded monk Ledi Sayadaw, could the Paramatthadipani instead reveal a who lived from 1846 to 1923. I have spent tradition of critique and contestation present the last six months in Burma, investigating in the Burmese, and perhaps wider his life and work. In the course of my Theravada, tradition, albeit a relatively research, I have become particularly unnoticed one? interested in one of his Pali works, the Paramatthadipani. To answer such questions about change and tradition, and to better explore the nature of The Paramatthadipani is a commentary on a the Paramatthadipani itself, it's important foundational Abhidhamma treatise, called that I understand the corpus of Ledi the Abhidhammatthasangaha (the AS, for Sayadaw in its context. So I continue to short). A pithy introductory text popular read Ledi's works and all the materials, in throughout Southeast Asia, the AS was Burmese and English, I can find about Ledi immensely famous in Ledi Sayadaw‘s Sayadaw and his writings. In addition to lifetime, and it remains so to this day. Ledi working at the Yangon University library, I Sayadaw's Paramatthadipani, published in have also read parts of the 1897, incited much controversy because of Paramatthadipani with a monk-scholar in its author‘s willingness to criticize and Sagaing who specializes in Ledi's books. I correct other august commentaries on the will spend the rest of this academic year AS. To identify imperfections in (and summer) in London, examining commentaries considered nearly canonical colonial sources and improving my appears unheard of. Yet Ledi Sayadaw did it Burmese. boldly, over 250 times in his book, often using the Pali words "tam na sundaram," or -Erik Braun "that is not good." Monks responded to his challenge with over forty Pali and Burmese Erik is a doctoral candidate in the books challenging Ledi Sayadaw's critiques. Committee on the Study of Religion at Meetings of angry monks were held all over Harvard University. He anticipates finishing Burma to call the Ledi to account.

12 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group his degree in 2007. His email address is and legal precedents stretching back to the [email protected]. lifetime of the Buddha. ______The Vamsadipani is of particular interest Monastic Reform and the Writing of because it is the first of a series of Buddhist Buddhist History ecclesiastical chronicles or thathanawin ______written during the Konbaung dynasty (1754- 1885), Burma‘s last royal era before British If reading esoteric texts proves difficult but conquest, and one noteworthy for the rewarding, translating them ups the ante in production of this style of historical writing. both respects. Patrick Pranke has risen to All Konbaung-era thathanawin are similar the challenge with his annotated edition of a in that they purport to trace the history of the late eighteenth-century text. (If I might add a Buddha‘s religion, or more precisely, the personal note: those of us who first met him Theravada Sangha, from its inception in in Rangoon in the late 80s know that no one ancient , through cycles of decline and could be better suited to the task of restoration in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma, explicating the arcane than Patrick, since he up to its contemporary condition in the is, like any truly erudite scholar of religion, Konbaung kingdom. All were also written an astonishingly contradictory combination from the same perspective, that of the of ascetic, hedonistic, and scholastic influential Sudhamma Council, a royally passions.) appointed ecclesiastical body charged with governing the Buddhist Sangha of the realm. The ‗Treatise on the Lineage of Elders‘ Collectively, these chronicles summarize the (Vamsadipani): Monastic Reform and the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century world- Writing of Buddhist History in Eighteenth- view of Burma‘s elite monastic colleges and Century Burma (University of Michigan, royal court, a world-view that in the 2004). twentieth century significantly influenced modern Burmese notions of Buddhist My dissertation examines the history and national identity through the dissemination historiography of Burmese Buddhism during of published editions of the Vamsadipani the early modern period. It consists of a and related thathanawin texts. critical study and annotated translation of the Vamsadipani, a Burmese Buddhist In my analysis of the Vamsadipani I show chronicle written c. 1799 during a state- that it belongs to a genre of juridical and sponsored reform of the Burmese Theravada historical writing called sasana-katikavata Sangha known as the Sudhamma and as such represents a continuation of a Reformation. To justify that reformist Buddhist literary tradition traceable to the agenda, the chronicle, which is attributed to 12th- and 13th-century reforms of Theravada the Vinaya jurist, Mehti Sayadaw, Buddhism in Sri Lanka when the first of documents the implementation of reform in such texts were written. I further show that the Burmese kingdom within the broad the Sudhamma Reformation was the context of Buddhist history, as conceived by culmination of a related historical trend that the Theravada, citing legendary, historical began in the same period; namely, the

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 13 gradual ascendancy in Burma of reformed Buddhist Identity, Religious Powers and Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism, which was Transmission in Burmese Religions, Hiroko first introduced into the Burmese kingdom c. Kawanami, ed., Singapore: NIAS & Institute 1181. Having described its provenance and of Southeast Asian Studies, National antecedents, I then compare the University of Singapore, (forthcoming); On Vamsadipani with three later thathanawin of Becoming a Buddhist Wizard, Buddhism in the Konbaung period and show how, on the Practice, Donald S. Lopez, ed., Princeton: basis of their commonalities, they can be Princeton University Press. 1995; a review regarded as constituting a new genre of of Myth & History in the Historiography of Burmese Buddhist historical writing, one Early Burma, by Michael A. Aung-Thwin, whose evolving perspectives anticipate Asian Perspectives, December, 2001; and developments in Burmese Buddhism in the numerous entries in two dictionaries of twentieth century. Text critical issues are Buddhism, the forthcoming Dictionary of discussed in the notes that accompany the Buddhism, Donald S. Lopez, ed., New York: translation. Here I describe in detail the Doubleday, and Encyclopedia of Buddhism, origins and evolution of the Vamsadipani’s Robert E. Buswell, ed., New York: episodes through classical, medieval, and Macmillan Reference USA. 2004. early-modern sources. In addition, I identify ______the specific authorities, the method of composition, and narrative strategies used Buddhist Organizations and Buddhist by Mehti Sayadaw to construct his history of Revival in Colonial Burma Buddhism and fashion it into an apologia for ______the Sudhamma Reformation. To speak of religion is to speak of religious My current research concerns contemporary reform: even a religion that asserts its Burmese Buddhist hagiography and the allegiance to the ways of the “elders” historiography of the modern vipassana provides grounds on which to criticize the meditation movement. These are related ways of recent elders in favor of those of popular literatures emerging out of the older elders, at least as imagined by the vipassana movement; in terms of content local equivalent of young Turks. In Burma, and perspective they are both greatly certainly, religious reform has proved an influenced by the thathanawin of the extremely potent force at many points in its Konbaung period. history. As the above makes clear, Patrick Pranke’s work reveals a reformist -Patrick Pranke movement’s textual traces, ones that we can read two hundred years after the exercise of Patrick is at present Adjunct Assistant their polemical intent. Alicia Turner, a Professor in the Department of Philosophy doctoral student at the University of and Religious Studies at Hofstra University. Chicago, is conducting research on the role His email address is: [email protected] religious reform played in twentieth century Burmese history. Patrick‘s publications include: Sasana Purification and the Formation of Burmese

14 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group My dissertation project studies Buddhist ______organizations and Buddhist revival in colonial Burma at the turn of the twentieth Little Yangon in Tokyo century. In this period, a variety of new ______Buddhist associations and leaders emerged that sought to revive and thus reform Jet planes and politics have conspired to Buddhist practice. These organizations took send many Burmese far away from their advantage of recently introduced places of origin. Among the things many of technologies (newspapers, journals, printed them take along, and that mean the most to books) as well as developments in Burmese them, are their religious ideas and practices. social structure and sources of authority. Two scholars make these diasporic Burmese They created movements to promote such the subject of their research and inquire into changes as monastic preaching reform, the ways that Buddhism continues to matter modern Buddhist education, the to people when they are living overseas. appointment of a Thathanabaing, renovation Naoko Kumada studies inhabitants of “Little of religious sites and the preservation of Yangon” in Tokyo, and Joseph Cheah relics, and individual philosophical Burmese Buddhists in the U.S.’s Bay Area. reflection and meditation by the laity. While Buddhist organizations are best known for Naoko Kumada, after extensive fieldwork in laying the foundation for Burmese Burma, now proposes to turn her attention nationalism, I am interested in their broader to the Burmese living in , and to ask influences on colonial Burmese society and how their Buddhist commitments inflect the ways in which language, education and their experience of life in that country. morality became sites of conflict among differing groups. Through the history of this I first became interested in Burma when I Theravadin Buddhist revival I will explore traveled to Southeast Asia as a tourist in the two issues: the creation of new discourses of late 1980s. I was fortunate to be able to Burmese identity, Buddhism and modernity; return to Burma under the Asian Studies and how Buddhist reform became the Scholarship Program, sponsored by the vehicle for these changes. Japanese government. I embarked upon three-and-a-half years of fieldwork, during -Alicia Turner which I had the rare opportunity of living in a village in Magwe Division, Upper Burma, Alicia is a Ph. D. candidate in the History of for over a year. Based on the fieldwork, I Religions in the Divinity School at the completed my dissertation, ―In the World of University of Chicago. She is currently Rebirth: Politics, Economy and Society of conducting dissertation research in Burma Burmese Buddhists,‖ at the University of on a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship. She can Cambridge, U.K. My dissertation examined be contacted at amturner@midway. how religion, especially Theravada uchicago.edu. Buddhism, shapes, and is shaped by, the cultural, economic, and political contexts in Burmese society.

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 15 In May 2004, I organized a conference undergoing as it adapts to the new world entitled ‗Burmese Buddhism and the Spirit economy have been the subject of a vast Cult Revisited,‘ hosted by the Stanford literature by social and political scientists. Center for Buddhist Studies and co- A number of these works point out the sponsored by the Toyota Foundation, the increasing visibility of migrant workers in Asian Religions and Cultures Initiative, and Japan since the 1980s. The emergence of the Southeast Asia Forum. The aim was to Tokyo as a global city led to the new re-examine old themes and explore new (especially illegal) immigration flow, trends. There is no need to explain to the particularly from parts of Asia where Japan readers of the Bulletin that our knowledge of has a strong and convoluted past coupled Burmese society is still limited, due to the with a growing economic presence. fact that Burma has long been inaccessible to foreign scholars. Furthermore, recent Of particular interest is the way that the transformations the country has been Buddhist practices of the Burmese undergoing since the introduction of a immigrants in Japan are embedded in the market economy raise a number of questions formation of similar social, political, and for our understanding of Burmese society economic processes in newly emerging and culture. global cities (like Tokyo and Los Angeles), and in the historical and cultural specificities Based on this background, my current of Japan-Southeast Asia relations. It is research looks at the lives of Burmese estimated that there are about 10,000 Buddhists in a Burmese community called Burmese in Japan. My goal is to present a Little Yangon in my native city of Tokyo. It detailed ethnography on religion and deals with the role religion played and globalization, in which ordinary Burmese continues to play in the formation of (including ‗illegal‘ immigrants) emerge as regions, communities, histories, and active historical agents. identities. This role will be explored through examination of contemporary Rather than view the regions we call Southeast Asian (particularly Burmese) ‗Southeast Asia‘ and ‗Asia‘ as given and migration to Japan in its historical context. permanent, I am interested in the way that My interest is in the influence of the past on regions are perceived and created. The today‘s migration and the influence of the Japanese once called Southeast Asia present on our constructions of the past. ‗Nanyō‘ (meaning the ‗southern seas‘), but the term ‗Tōnan ajia‘ (a translation of the Over the last few decades, Southeast Asia English term ‗Southeast Asia‘) was adopted has become one of the world‘s leading after World War II. In the U.S., ‗Southeast producers of immigrants. The significance Asia‘ became the accepted term during of labor migration flows is most evident in World War II. The transformation of Asia Japan, a country that has strong ideas about since the end of the Cold War has racial homogeneity and whose immigration encouraged Asianists to seek alternative history is not as long as those of the U.S. ways of talking about Asia. Today, we find and European countries. The political, Burmese monasteries in Silicon Valley and economic, and social changes that Japan is Southeast Asian communities in Tokyo.

16 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Many scholars now argue that the term Asia, The operative word in my dissertation is that as defined by the Western ‗other,‘ or the of ―white supremacy.‖ I use this term in ideas of areas formed during the Cold War, reference not primarily to the more virulent no longer fits the Asia of today. Taking forms of white dominance over non-whites these debates into account, my question will (e.g., slavery), but to a more generic way of be: How do the Burmese immigrants in describing a hegemonic understanding, on Japan conceive of Southeast Asia or Asia, if the part of both whites and non-whites: that they think in these terms at all (and how Euro-American culture, values, attitudes, does their Buddhist identity shape their beliefs, and practices have become the norm thinking)? Through this research, I want to according to which other cultures and social ask how the contemporary transformation of practices are judged. My study investigates Asia encourages us to rethink the way we the ways in which racial ideology of white perceive, study, and write about Asia. supremacy has been operative both in the American adaptation of Burmese meditation -Naoko Kumada practices and in the Americanization of Burmese immigrant Buddhist themselves. I Naoko Kumada is a Research Fellow at the argue that the adaptations of Burmese Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies, vipassana meditation in the American Stanford University. Her email address is: context have been rearticulated by some [email protected] American meditation teachers in specific but ______deliberately chosen forms that help preserve the racial ideology of white supremacy. Burmese Buddhism in California Secondly, I illustrate that this ideology has ______been operative in the Americanization of Burmese Buddhists and their cultural The field of Asian-American studies is practices. attracting ever growing scholarly interest. It is all the more welcome therefore to learn -Joseph Cheah that Joseph Cheah has recently completed a dissertation at the Graduate Theological Joe is working on an article tentatively Union on the subject of Burmese Buddhism entitled, ―An Invisible Diaspora: Burmese in the U.S. He provides us the following Buddhism in Northern California.‖ It will abstract of his dissertation. examine the presence of a Burmese diaspora in the Bay Area of San Francisco, and the Negotiating Race and Religion in American function of Burmese Buddhist monastic and Buddhism: Burmese Buddhism in California domestic settings in the preservation, (Graduate Theological Union, 2004) production and transmission of an already changing Burmese American culture and My dissertation seeks to address some of the identity. Joe is also working with an editor shortcomings caused by a neglect of religion from Oxford Press to turn parts of his in ethnic studies on the one hand, and an dissertation into a book. Combining under-theorization of race in the field of new Buddhism and ethnic studies approaches, it immigrant Buddhist Studies on the other. is an interdisciplinary study of the influence

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group May 2005 / 17 that Burmese Buddhist specialists (Burmese With this exhibit a series of five lectures Buddhist monks and lay meditation leaders) were offered by Catherine Raymond, have had on both the development of the Director of The Center for Burma Studies. American vipassana movement and the These lectures explored several topics establishment of Burmese Buddhist including: Manuscripts and Tapestry, monasteries in the United States. It will Burmese Buddha Images, Donors and examine the different ways in which Protectors and Treasures from the Court of Burmese Buddhist practices are adapted by Mandalay. both American Buddhist sympathizers and Burmese immigrant Buddhists and what To date we have welcome over 3000 those adaptations reveal about racism in visitors. The visitors have included American Buddhism and the agency of students, faculty, community members, local Burmese American Buddhists. schoolchildren and international scholars.

Joe has accepted the position of Assistant Due to its‘ success we have agreed to Professor in Comparative Theology at Saint display part of this exhibit at the NIU Art Joseph College in West Hartford, Museum in Chicago, Illinois in conjunction Connecticut, a post he will take up in the with Denison University opening September fall. 9, 2005.

______www.vpa.niu.edu/museum

The World of Burmese Buddhism Exhibit ______at Northern Illinois University ______

In conjunction with the International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois University in October, 2004 the Center for Burma Studies presented a new exhibition entitled ―The World of Burmese Buddhism‖ from October, 2005 thru June, 2005.

The exhibit was divided into seven sections exploring the diversity and complexity of the Art of Burmese Buddhism.

18 / May 2005 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group