Buddhism in Myanmar

How Buddhism Came To Myanmar

The popularly accepted tradition is that Buddhism came to Burma through two Talaing merchants, Taposa and Palika, who were converted by the Buddha and to whom he gave eight hairs of his head which he instructed them to deposit in the Theinguttara Hill beside the relics of the three Buddhas who preceded him. They returned to Burma and searched far and wide for Theinguttara Hill, which was finally pointed out to them by the aged Sule nat. Here they enshrined the hairs in a pagoda which came to be later known as the Shwe Dagon, one of the most sacred Buddhist shrines in the East.

A pagoda was later built to commemorate the rat who had pointed out the sacred site ; this is the present Sule Pagoda which stands in the centre of the city of Rangoon. A more probable

tradition is that which states that Buddhism was brought to Burma by two monks, Sona and Uttara, who were sent out by the Third General Council, summoned under the patronage of the great Emperor Asoka, who flourished in India about 250 B.C. After his victorious war against the Kalingas, in which 15o,000 men were killed, Asoka filled with remorse and horror was converted to Buddhism. Shortly afterwards he entered the Sangha and for the rest of his reign ruled on Buddhist and philan­thropic principles.

After the third Buddhist Council

missionaries were sent out to Kashmir, Ceylon, Egypt, Greece, Syria, these places vouched for by Asoka's Stone Edicts, tradition has added Burma and tradition is possibly correct. The monks Sona and Uttara are said to have landed at Thaton, which was then a seaport, though now some twenty miles inland.

Little more is known of the progress of Buddhism in Burma until the 1.th century A.D. when it was so flourishing at Thaton, there were thirty sets of Pali Scriptures in the royal library there. Meanwhile a decadent form of Buddhism had penetrated into Central Burma, probably one of the Tantric magic-working sects which had sprung up in India during the period of Buddhist decline and had entered Burma by the overland route from Tibet. The priests of this degenerate faith were called Ari and indulged in

superstitious and immoral rites. The King of Bagan, Anawrahta, had been greatly influenced by a monk, Shin Arahan, who presented himself at his court and before long became the King's chief religious adviser. At Shin Arahan's suggestion Anawrahta sent to the King of Thaton asking for copies of the Buddhist Scriptures, and when this request was insultingly refused, attacked and sacked Thaton and carried off all the Sacred Books as well as much other booty. It must have been a triumphant pro­cession which returned to Bagan, thirty-two white elephants loaded with thirty sets of the Scriptures as well as many sacred relics. The scriptures or tripitaka were housed in the library, which may still be seen at Bagan. The result of studying them, combined with the pressure of Shin Arahan, was that Anawrahta decided to adopt the pure Buddhism of Thaton as the state religion. The super­stitious Ari were given the choice of joining the orthodox Sangha or of becoming lay officials of government. From that time on Anawrahta became a Burmese Asoka and, ably aided by Shin Arahan, set in motion a whole era of religious reform, temple-building and philanthropic projects. The Bagan period, 1044-1287, was the golden age of both secular and religious golden Myanmar in Burma. Numerous pagodas were built which for architectural design and strength rivalled the Norman cathedrals which were being built at the same time in Europe, and in the opinion of some equalled them in beauty. Even today deserted though it is, Bagan with its sixteen square miles of pagodas and religious buildings is one of the wonders of the world. In 1071, the King of Ceylon, whose country had been ravaged by a bitter Hindu persecution, sent to Anawrahta for a set of the scriptures and for monks to secure a chapter for valid ordination. Anawrahta sent these, and in return asked for the sacred Buddha Tooth, Ceylon's priceless relic. This was not unreasonably re­fused, but his messengers were given a duplicate, for the original Tooth had the faculty of miraculously and con­veniently reproducing itself to provide for the expanding religion. Its arrival at Bagan was the occasion of another triumphant procession : the king himself waded out into the river and bore the sacred relic on his head to be enshrined in the Shwezigon pagoda with other Buddha relics. Anawrahta's action in sending monks to Ceylon was repaid more than once in, the golden Myanmar of Burmese Buddhism, for when the number of genuinely ordained monks became so low as to threaten the true succession, missions were sent from Ceylon to ensure its unbroken continuance. Anawrahta's successors continued his policy of reli­gious patronage and temple-building. His son Kyan­sittha, 1084-1112, was as fortunate as his father in having for the whole of his reign Shin Arahan as Primate and adviser. A mission was sent to India to restore the shrine at Buddha-gaya, where grows the sacred Bo tree under which the Buddha had become enlightened. Kyan-sittha also built the lovely Ananda pagoda, in the Western aisle of which can still be seen two life-size figures of himself and Shin Arahan kneeling at the feet of a gigantic image of the Buddha. Shin Arahan died in 1115 at the age of 71 ; it is to him more than to any other person that we owe the establish­ment of the pure form of Hinayana Buddhism in Burma, and the era of pagoda-building and inscriptions which he inaugurated was the most creative age in Burma's golden Myanmar.

Buddhist Monks in a Buddha Temple in Mandalay Buddhism in Myanmar Buddhism in Myanmar

The Bagan kingdom broke up in 1287,

for years it had been weakening and none of its later kings had been men of any great note, but the immediate cause was the invasion of the Chinese to whom Bagan had been nominally tributary for some time. Harvey in his golden Myanmar of Burma pays the following inspired tribute to this dynasty of temple-builders : 'The legacy of their fleeting sway enriched posterity for ever. It was they who made the sun-scorched wilderness, the solitary plain of Myingyan, to blossom forth into the architectural magnificence of Bagan. . . . To them the world owes in great measure the preservation of Theravada Buddhism, one of the purest faiths mankind has ever known. Brahmanism had strangled it in the land of its birth. In Ceylon its existence was threatened again and again. East of Burma it was not yet free from priestly corruptions. But the Kings of Burma never wavered, and at Bagan the stricken faith found a city of refuge. Vainglorious tyrants build themselves sepulchers, but none of these men has a tomb. . . . These men's magnificence went to glorify their religion, not to deck the tent wherein they camped during this transitory life.'

The break-up of the Bagan kingdom was followed by a period of Shan invasion. These were naturally years of confusion, and Buddhism shared in the general decline. Religion languished, the clergy split up into sects, though pagodas were built none of them could rival even the lesser temples of Bagan. It was not until Dammazedi, 1472-1492, that a revival came. He built some beautiful pagodas at Pegu, modeled on the temple at Buddha gaya to which he sent a mission. But his most important work was the mission of twenty-two monks which he sent to Ceylon in 1475. These monks receive valid ordination from the monks of the ancient Maha-vihara monastery founded in 251 B.C., and on their return they transmitted these orders to the clergy throughout Burma, thus giving some measure of unity to the Sangha as well as reviving religion. Among the monks who went on this mission was Buddhaghosa, who translated the earliest Burmese law-book the Wareru Dhamma-that, based on the laws of Mann brought by Hindu colonists to Burma centuries before. He also wrote various commentaries. Burmese historians have identified him with the famous Buddhaghosa who was born in n0 and translated many of the Scriptures and commentaries from Singalese into Pali, the author of The Path of Purity. But Burmese historians have a naive way of identifying places and personalities mentioned in the Scriptures and commentaries with places and personalities in Burma, without however much real foundation. The truth is that the early golden Myanmar of Buddhism in Burma has been lost, and writers convinced of its long standing in the country have sought to make good the lack.

As the golden Myanmar of Myanmar or Burma

unfolds itself with its continuous internal wars and its periodic invasions of Siam and Arakan, Buddhism still retains its influence. Kings build pagodas, dedicate slaves, endow monasteries with paddy land ; sometimes under the influence of the religion a king will abandon some cruel custom, as when Bayinnaung, 1561-1581, after conquering the Shan States suppressed the custom of slaughtering too each of men and women, too horses and to elephants to be the retinue on his last journey of any sawbwa who died.

With the 16th century came adventurers and traders from the West,

first the Portuguese, then the Dutch, French and English. Captain Alex. Hamilton, who visited Syriam in 17o9, pays a striking tribute to the humanity and hospitality of the old-time priesthood of Burma : 'When shipwrecked mariners come to their Baws, they find a great deal of hospitality, both in food and raiment, and have letters of recommendation from the Priests of one Convent to those of another on the road they design to travel, where they may expect vessels to transport them to Syriam ; and if any be sick or maim'd, the Priests, who are the Peguers chief Physicians, keep them in their Convent, till they are cured, and then furnish them with letters, as is above observed, for they never enquire which way a stranger worships God, but if he is human, he is the object of their charity.

In 1784-5 King Bodawpaya

invaded Arakan and brought away the great Mahamuni image of the Buddha. It was taken on rafts to Sandoway and thence over the Taungup pass to Padaung below Prome, and thence up the Irrawaddy to be enshrined in the Arakan pagoda at Mandalay, a tremendous triumph of transport. Bodaw­paya also acquired what he believed to be the Buddha Tooth from Ceylon. At home he attempted to reform the monks. His religious and secular triumphs evidently turned his brain, for he thought himself destined to be a world conqueror, and not content with this claimed to be the final Buddha. This latter claim however was firmly rejected by the monks.

In 1871 King Mindon

summoned 2,400 clergy to Mandalay to attend the Fifth Buddhist Council. The Fourth had been held in Ceylon nineteen centuries pre­viously. The assembled monks following the custom of the earlier councils, recited the Buddhist Scriptures, and the accepted text was engraved on 729 marble slabs erected in the Kuthodaw pagoda. Although only Burmese clergy had been invited Mindon received the proud title of `Convener of the Fifth Great Synod'. As a memorial of this council King Mindon presented a new spire to the Shwe Dagon pagoda, coated with gold and studded with jewels, costing £62,000.

With the annexation of Upper Burma in 1885 Buddhism ceased to be the state religion of any part of Burma. Harvey in the Cambridge golden Myanmar of India has the following interesting and pungent paragraph : The King was head of the Buddhist Church. His chaplain was a primate who prevented schism, managed church lands, and administered clerical discipline, through an ecclesiastical commission appointed and paid by the King. The primate prepared the annual clergy list, giving parti­culars of age and ordination, district by district, and any person who claimed to be a cleric and was not in the list was punished. A district governor was precluded by benefit of the clergy from passing judgment on a criminous cleric, but he framed the trial record and submitted it to the palace ; the primate passed orders, unfrocking the cleric and handing him over to secular justice. In 1887, the

thirteen bishops met the commander-in­chief, Sir Frederick Roberts, offering to preach submission to the English in every village throughout the land, if their jurisdiction was confirmed.

The staff trained by the English in Lower Burma for two generations included Burmese Buddhist extra commissioners who could have represented the chief commissioner on the primate's board. But English administrators, being citizens of the modern secularist state, did not even consider the primate's proposal ; they merely expressed polite benevolence, and the ecclesiastical commission lapsed. Today schism is rife, any charlatan can dress as a cleric and swindle the faithful, and criminals often wear the robe and live in a monastery to elude the police. As Sir Edward Sladen, one of the few Englishmen who had seen native institutions as they really were, said, the English behavior was not neutrality but interference in religion.