Religion plays a peculiar and predominant role in the new nations of Southeast Asia. Fairly unanimous in their hopes for the development of their societies, these nations all strive to build modern states and economies, to provide widespread educational and welfare services, and to develop and enrich a cultural heritage with a distinctive symbolic cast. In this drive for modernization and national consolidation religion comes to be the locus of the attempt to build a national identity and cultural viability. Religious symbols condense the most pervasive of collective symbols, for religion is the belief system felt to be most indigenous and valuable-continuous with the precolonial past and something greater than the cultural possessions of the developed modern nations. In southeast Asia, then, religion is inextricably intertwined with national identity, cultural creativity, and the craving for modernization in a distinctive Asian style.
The place of religion in the social system of a nation like Burma. raises important theoretical and empirical issues for social science and for those who want to understand the cataclysmic and often convulsive changes involved in the modernization of Southeast Asia. The most interesting problem is: In what we can religion et or hinder the process of modernization? To break this question down into empirically relevant phrasing and scale is almost to advance a theory of religion and society. In the case of which I use as a model for mainland Southeast Asia because of my firsthand knowledge of its society and culture the question may be slightly rephrased to ask: What is the role of Theravada Buddhism in the course of social change in Burma? For several reason Burma is an especially suitable place to investigate the place of Buddhism in the process of modernization: Theravada is the religion of 80 percent of the Burmese population; under the leadership of former premier U Nu, Burma deliberately undertook to recapture the place it once held as world leader of Theravada Buddhism; in 1961 Buddhism was made the official state religion; and, finally a secular military regime has recently come to power. There has thus occurred a set of historical shifts and involvements with religion that make Burma a virtual laboratory for the study of the role of religion in Southeast Asia.
The history of Buddhism in Burma is coterminous with the forging of the ethnic identity of the Burmese. Under Anawrahta in 1044 Theravada Buddhism became the official religion of king and court. The establishment of Buddhism as the legitimating symbol system for a monarch more than nine hundred years ago gave rise to features that still persist in Burmese Buddhism and in the political life of Burma. In the course of his struggle with a cult of"Ari" monks, apparently a decayed form of Mahayana Buddhism, Ana- wrahta codified a series of disparate animistic beings and forces into an official list of 37 nats, and varieties of this nat propitiation have persisted and grown. From the beginning, therefore, Theravada Buddhism in Burma contained Mahayana elements, incorporated animistic elements, and was associated with a charismatic royal charter. Buddhism was institutionally rooted in the king, the court, and the sangha(brotherhood of monks). All the monarchs of Burma aspired to the role of Cakkavatin, an idealized universal ruler who was at the least a defender of faith and on occasion even the Buddha-to-be, in accordanee with the messianic vision in Buddhism Mendelson, 1961). A group of monks maintained the and the reigning mon sacred paraphernalia of royalty at the courarch undertook a generalized support of the monkhood in exchange for the symbolic stamp by the sangha that aspirations to Cakkavatin were legitimate. outside the sacred precincts of the walled palace, the monarch demonstrated his magico-religious claims by the rite of plowing and harvesting that ensured the fertility of the land and hence the prosperity of the peasantry. The chief concern of the monarch was to obtain Buddhist sanction for the royal, hereditary, and charismatic power, while the sangha for its part sought royal support and patronage. Although in the time of the monarchy the court appointed a thathanabaing (head of the sangha) and various subsidiary gainggyok, or bishops, the essential structure of Buddhist organization in Burma was, and is, acephaleous and confined to a single kyaung(monastic building) or a small group of them under an eminent saya daw or senior monk(Mendelson, 1960, 1961). The court- appointed officials mediated religious disputes via the ecclesiastical courts and intervened in instances of pongyi involvement with secular authority, but they did not form a true hierarchy of authority with levels of command and real power to sanction either positively or negatively. Then, as now, the social structure of the sangha was a loose federation of sects, with such authority as ex isted vested in the head of a single monastery, or at most of a cluster of monasteries The concern of the sangha is of course the teaching of the dham ma and the individual search for salvation. Over the course of Burmese history the sangha has been neither theologically innovative nor exceedingly active in missionary work among animists, pagans or non-Buddhists. Most of the sangha's effort has gone into teaching at the village level and into a study of the Vinaya rules for monastic discipline. The sects that now make up Burmese Buddhism are differentiated only by minor variations as to how the Vinaya rules are to be interpreted. Such rules make little difference to the laity.
ln a real sense Buddhism is religion of the virtuoso and centered on the monk. The functions of the laity are to provide material support for the sangha, to honor them, and to learn the dhamma from them. To the question of whether a householder can reach salvation, there is no fitting answer, ror the layman who is seriously interested in salvation will become a monk. One social process that has kept the mon trom further isolation from the laity is the permeability of the boundary between pongyi and lay man. Until the British oecupation, every male spent some months as a monk, and more recently it has been reported that at any given time about one of every ten males in Burma may be in a monastery(Tinker, 1959). As late as 1960-61, villagers around Saigning and Mandalny frequently spent the traditional year and a half as a pongyi, and every male participated in the shinbyu, the monastic initiation. So all rural Burma ese men, at least, have worn the saffron robe and tasted monastic life. Now, as in the past, the ngha is a loose church with little treasure, much honor, and a great capacity to sanction power but not to hold, lead, or capture When the British finally toppled the Peacock throne in 1886, they did not directly undercut the status of Buddhism or the monk- hood, but their policy of minimal interference with indigenous re ligion set in motion some processes which weakened Buddhism. The colonial administration failed to support Buddhism and did not appoint the usual court oflicers of sangha head and bishops, The denial of government-granted privileges to monks dimmed some of the symbolic sheen of the pongyi, nnd the establishment of secular, Englishstyle education in the cities and some towns led to the downgrading of traditional education by the small, Western- oriented Burmese elite During the colonial period Buddhism still exercised an unshak able hold on the mind of the villager, but npparently some deterioration had set in among the monkhood. The novel T Pongyi, which appeared in 1985, excoriated the false and idle monk, and in the early 1900s the expression Khit pongyi was used in the Mandalny aren for what U Nu called in the delta the"rogue in yellow robes” Buddhism continued for a time to be the hallsmark of Burmese ethnieity and traditional national aspirations. The rebellion of Saya San in 1931 probably marked the end of religious, troditional nationalism as a social movement. From the charismatic, Buddhist magical diseontent of Saya San, the went to the secular wing of the Dobama associstion, to the Thakins, and finally to the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League ooali- tion which under the leadership of Aung Ean secured independence in 1948 In the years following independence there was a revival in Burmese Buddhism. Brohm (1957) has described part of this renewed interest and activity in the countryside. other aspects of the re- vival were the convening of the sixth world council of Buddhism in 1954-56, and the building of the Kaba Aye peace pagoda In the mid-1950s legions of monks from all the Theravada countries gath- ered in the great cave of Maha Pasana Gula, which could seat 10,000 persons, to recopy and issue an authorized version of the Tripitaka, the Pali canon All these activities testify to the renew interest in Buddhism, and indeed its magnitude was such ts to merit the use of the term revitalization movement to deseribe i why the spurt in Buddhism? What explanntion can be given for the resurgence of religious activity in the 1950s and early 1960s? There seem to be three obvious reasons: first, the renewed essocia tion of Buddhism with Burmese nationalism and its cultivation as the unique, precious flowering of Burma's contribution to world eulture; second, the renewal of government patronnge to the san- gha; and third, the special qualities of U Nu, who led snd stimu- lated the revitalization movement. (t should be kept in mind, of course, that the revival movement rested on the belief system of the ordinary Burmese Buddhist and was fed by the symbol system at the village level, including all the elements of supernaturalism-the nat propitiation, astrology, alchemy, ghost beliefs, and de- mons and ogres[Spiro, 19071.) under the secular leader. More recently, since Burma has come sh
ศาสนามีบทบาทแปลก และกันในชาติใหม่ของเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ ค่อนข้างเป็นเอกฉันท์ในความหวังของพวกเขาสำหรับการพัฒนาของสังคมของพวกเขา ประชาชาติเหล่านี้ทั้งหมดที่มุ่งมั่นในการสร้างรัฐสมัยใหม่และเศรษฐกิจ การบริการอย่างแพร่หลายเพื่อการศึกษาและสวัสดิการ และเพื่อพัฒนา และเพิ่มคุณค่ามรดกทางวัฒนธรรม ด้วยหล่อสัญลักษณ์โดดเด่น ไดรฟ์นี้มาตลอดและรวมชาติ ศาสนามาเป็น โลกัสโพลของความพยายามในการสร้างเอกลักษณ์ประจำชาติและชีวิตวัฒนธรรม สัญลักษณ์ทางศาสนาบีบที่สุดชุมชนที่แพร่หลายรวมสัญลักษณ์ ศาสนาเป็น ระบบความเชื่อบางสิ่งบางอย่างมากกว่าทรัพย์สินทางวัฒนธรรมของประเทศที่ทันสมัยพัฒนา และสักหลาดพื้นมากที่สุด และค่ะเนื่อง ด้วยผ่านมาไม่ ในเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ แล้ว ศาสนาเป็น inextricably เจอกับเอกลักษณ์ประจำชาติ วัฒนธรรมความคิดสร้างสรรค์ และความทันสมัยในสไตล์เอเชียที่โดดเด่นที่อยาก สถานที่ของศาสนาในระบบสังคมของประเทศเช่นพม่า เพิ่มผล และทฤษฎีประเด็นสำคัญ สำหรับสังคมศาสตร์ และ สำหรับผู้ที่ต้องการเข้าใจการ cataclysmic ตัวมักจะเปลี่ยนแปลง และเกี่ยวข้องกับนวัตกรรมของเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ ปัญหาน่าสนใจที่สุด: ในสิ่งเราสามารถศาสนาร้อยเอ็ด หรือขัดขวางนวัตกรรมกระบวนการ การแบ่งคำถามนี้ลง เกี่ยวข้อง empirically ใช้วลีและขนาดได้เกือบล่วงหน้าทฤษฎีสังคมและศาสนา ในกรณีที่ ใช้เป็นแบบสำหรับแผ่นดินใหญ่เอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้เนื่องจากความรู้ของฉันโดยตรงของสังคมและวัฒนธรรมคำถามอาจจะเล็กน้อย rephrased ถาม: บทบาทของพระพุทธศาสนาเถรวาทในหลักสูตรการเปลี่ยนแปลงทางสังคมในพม่าคืออะไร สำหรับหลาย ๆ เหตุผลพม่า เป็นสถานที่ที่เหมาะกับการตรวจสอบสถานที่ศาสนาพุทธกำลังทันสมัย: เถรวาทเป็นศาสนาร้อยละ 80 ของประชากรพม่า ภายใต้การนำของอดีตพรีเมียร์ U Nu พม่าโดยเจตนา undertook รังสรรค์ที่ได้เคยจัดเป็นผู้นำโลกของพุทธศาสนาเถรวาท 1961 พุทธทำศาสนาสถานะทาง ก ในที่สุด ระบอบทหารทางโลกเพิ่งมามีอำนาจ เกิดมีดังกะประวัติศาสตร์และ involvements กับศาสนาที่ทำให้พม่าห้องปฏิบัติการเสมือนจริงสำหรับการศึกษาบทบาทของศาสนาในเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ The history of Buddhism in Burma is coterminous with the forging of the ethnic identity of the Burmese. Under Anawrahta in 1044 Theravada Buddhism became the official religion of king and court. The establishment of Buddhism as the legitimating symbol system for a monarch more than nine hundred years ago gave rise to features that still persist in Burmese Buddhism and in the political life of Burma. In the course of his struggle with a cult of"Ari" monks, apparently a decayed form of Mahayana Buddhism, Ana- wrahta codified a series of disparate animistic beings and forces into an official list of 37 nats, and varieties of this nat propitiation have persisted and grown. From the beginning, therefore, Theravada Buddhism in Burma contained Mahayana elements, incorporated animistic elements, and was associated with a charismatic royal charter. Buddhism was institutionally rooted in the king, the court, and the sangha(brotherhood of monks). All the monarchs of Burma aspired to the role of Cakkavatin, an idealized universal ruler who was at the least a defender of faith and on occasion even the Buddha-to-be, in accordanee with the messianic vision in Buddhism Mendelson, 1961). A group of monks maintained the and the reigning mon sacred paraphernalia of royalty at the courarch undertook a generalized support of the monkhood in exchange for the symbolic stamp by the sangha that aspirations to Cakkavatin were legitimate. outside the sacred precincts of the walled palace, the monarch demonstrated his magico-religious claims by the rite of plowing and harvesting that ensured the fertility of the land and hence the prosperity of the peasantry. The chief concern of the monarch was to obtain Buddhist sanction for the royal, hereditary, and charismatic power, while the sangha for its part sought royal support and patronage. Although in the time of the monarchy the court appointed a thathanabaing (head of the sangha) and various subsidiary gainggyok, or bishops, the essential structure of Buddhist organization in Burma was, and is, acephaleous and confined to a single kyaung(monastic building) or a small group of them under an eminent saya daw or senior monk(Mendelson, 1960, 1961). The court- appointed officials mediated religious disputes via the ecclesiastical courts and intervened in instances of pongyi involvement with secular authority, but they did not form a true hierarchy of authority with levels of command and real power to sanction either positively or negatively. Then, as now, the social structure of the sangha was a loose federation of sects, with such authority as ex isted vested in the head of a single monastery, or at most of a cluster of monasteries The concern of the sangha is of course the teaching of the dham ma and the individual search for salvation. Over the course of Burmese history the sangha has been neither theologically innovative nor exceedingly active in missionary work among animists, pagans or non-Buddhists. Most of the sangha's effort has gone into teaching at the village level and into a study of the Vinaya rules for monastic discipline. The sects that now make up Burmese Buddhism are differentiated only by minor variations as to how the Vinaya rules are to be interpreted. Such rules make little difference to the laity.ln a real sense Buddhism is religion of the virtuoso and centered on the monk. The functions of the laity are to provide material support for the sangha, to honor them, and to learn the dhamma from them. To the question of whether a householder can reach salvation, there is no fitting answer, ror the layman who is seriously interested in salvation will become a monk. One social process that has kept the mon trom further isolation from the laity is the permeability of the boundary between pongyi and lay man. Until the British oecupation, every male spent some months as a monk, and more recently it has been reported that at any given time about one of every ten males in Burma may be in a monastery(Tinker, 1959). As late as 1960-61, villagers around Saigning and Mandalny frequently spent the traditional year and a half as a pongyi, and every male participated in the shinbyu, the monastic initiation. So all rural Burma ese men, at least, have worn the saffron robe and tasted monastic life. Now, as in the past, the ngha is a loose church with little treasure, much honor, and a great capacity to sanction power but not to hold, lead, or capture When the British finally toppled the Peacock throne in 1886, they did not directly undercut the status of Buddhism or the monk- hood, but their policy of minimal interference with indigenous re ligion set in motion some processes which weakened Buddhism. The colonial administration failed to support Buddhism and did not appoint the usual court oflicers of sangha head and bishops, The denial of government-granted privileges to monks dimmed some of the symbolic sheen of the pongyi, nnd the establishment of secular, Englishstyle education in the cities and some towns led to the downgrading of traditional education by the small, Western- oriented Burmese elite During the colonial period Buddhism still exercised an unshak able hold on the mind of the villager, but npparently some deterioration had set in among the monkhood. The novel T Pongyi, which appeared in 1985, excoriated the false and idle monk, and in the early 1900s the expression Khit pongyi was used in the Mandalny aren for what U Nu called in the delta the"rogue in yellow robes” Buddhism continued for a time to be the hallsmark of Burmese ethnieity and traditional national aspirations. The rebellion of Saya San in 1931 probably marked the end of religious, troditional nationalism as a social movement. From the charismatic, Buddhist magical diseontent of Saya San, the went to the secular wing of the Dobama associstion, to the Thakins, and finally to the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League ooali- tion which under the leadership of Aung Ean secured independence in 1948 In the years following independence there was a revival in Burmese Buddhism. Brohm (1957) has described part of this renewed interest and activity in the countryside. other aspects of the re- vival were the convening of the sixth world council of Buddhism in 1954-56, and the building of the Kaba Aye peace pagoda In the mid-1950s legions of monks from all the Theravada countries gath- ered in the great cave of Maha Pasana Gula, which could seat 10,000 persons, to recopy and issue an authorized version of the Tripitaka, the Pali canon All these activities testify to the renew interest in Buddhism, and indeed its magnitude was such ts to merit the use of the term revitalization movement to deseribe i why the spurt in Buddhism? What explanntion can be given for the resurgence of religious activity in the 1950s and early 1960s? There seem to be three obvious reasons: first, the renewed essocia tion of Buddhism with Burmese nationalism and its cultivation as the unique, precious flowering of Burma's contribution to world eulture; second, the renewal of government patronnge to the san- gha; and third, the special qualities of U Nu, who led snd stimu- lated the revitalization movement. (t should be kept in mind, of course, that the revival movement rested on the belief system of the ordinary Burmese Buddhist and was fed by the symbol system at the village level, including all the elements of supernaturalism-the nat propitiation, astrology, alchemy, ghost beliefs, and de- mons and ogres[Spiro, 19071.) under the secular leader. More recently, since Burma has come sh
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