Buddha’s irresistible maroon army

Times of London Online
Michael W. Charney
Mon 17 Dec 2007

The military junta in Burma came under fierce pressure from the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, and from the White House, in the unusual guise of Laura Bush this week. While the US First Lady was telling the generals to introduce democratic reforms or to step aside, the All-Burma Monks Alliance was agitating for a UN commission to establish how many monks were killed in the September protests and how many are still imprisoned.

The presence of monks in the anti-government marches may have confused those who assumed that Buddhist monks do not involve themselves in such secular affairs, but in fact the monastic role in Burmese politics goes back centuries.

Theravada Buddhism is primarily practised today in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. This school of Buddhism reached South-East Asia in the 11th century. Among the stories about its introduction is that of King Anawrahta (r. 1044-77) of the Kingdom of Pagan, who conquered the Kingdom of Thaton in the southeast corner of present-day Burma. He brought back to his capital of Pagan on the Irrawaddy River the three core collections of texts (the Tipitika) of the Pali Buddhist canon.

Thereafter Burmese courts patronised Theravada Buddhism. Villagers, however, continued to venerate local spirits, many of which were gradually absorbed into Buddhism via the work of monks in a landscape increasingly populated by monasteries. In time monks circulating between South-East Asia and Sri Lanka pursued greater reliance on orthodox texts and practices and urged the court to launch religious reforms based on them. The most complete reform of Buddhism in Burma was launched under King Bodawhpaya (r. 1782-1819). It established the main monastic sect in the country today, the Thudhamma monks. Most Buddhist kings in SouthEast Asia strove to uphold their responsibilities as dhamma-rajas (kings of the Buddhist law), in ensuring monastic unity and thus the wellbeing of Buddhism within their domains. They discouraged monks from involvement in mundane politics as stipulated by the rules of the Vinaya, the monastic code.

As most patronage came from these rulers, monks restricted themselves to studying Buddhist texts, meditating, and providing for the survival of the religion so that the populace could accrue merit through good works.

The role of monks changed as a result of the introduction of colonial rule in the 19th century. The British, unable to provide officials to locally administer villages, turned to the village headman. In the past the headman had worked for both the State and the villagers, collecting revenue, manpower and agricultural resources when the court required it and voicing complaints of villagers up through the hierarchy. The headman was thus an important intermediary who helped to ensure local social stability, protecting as much as administering. Under the British the headman became a paid agent of the State, who owed no obligations to the people under his charge. This removed the protection against state demands and the means for peacefully resolving local complaints. So the people turned to the only remaining pre-colonial institution, the monastery, and monks now came to provide community leadership.

Throughout British rule, but especially from the 1920s, the so-called “political monks” played an important role in mobilising opposition to colonial excesses and forcing the administration to pay closer attention to local complaints.

Even before British rule there had been a strong monastic contribution to Burmese secular intellectual life. Important late-18th-century monks, especially a clique from the Lower Chindwin River area in the northwest, played a key role in shaping the standard texts still influencing Burmese understandings of history today and introducing new strands of Indian thought into Burma. This intellectual vigour persisted under British rule. Shin Ottama, for example, introduced the anti-colonial thinking that emerged out of the Indian National Congress, as well as information on modernisation in Japan after the First World War.

Buddhist communalism also grew out of the fear that the combination of the British reluctance to patronise Buddhism, the introduction of thousands of immigrants, and the political incorporation of animist and Christian converts in the minority hill areas would challenge the place of Buddhism in Burmese society and as part of the Burmese national identity. Thus, monastic organisations pushed Burma’s postwar nationalist leaders to make Buddhism the state religion. After independence this struggle continued until the legislation was finally passed in 1962. At about the same time the monastic order was mobilised in a nationwide anti-communist campaign.

Burma has been under military rule since 1962, formally or informally, and in this time the relationship between the State and monks has been tense. Attempts by the dictator General Ne Win in the 1960s and mid-1970s to bring Buddhism under tighter government regulation met fierce resistance. During the pro-democracy demonstrations that saw the rise of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, monks were involved in anti-government protests.

Since 1988 the military has ruthlessly kept monastic involvement in politics to a minimum. So the role of the monks at the head of the recent protests in Burma took many, including the Government, by surprise. Predictably, the State’s reaction was delayed but harsh when it finally came. Monks were defrocked, interrogated and beaten. The regime has since closed monastic colleges and sent member monks back to their respective villages.

Although it may appear that the State has successfully cowed the monks into submission, they have survived perhaps more serious episodes of state persecution in the past. Given their importance in Burmese society and their resilience in past periods of political turmoil, it would be foolish to assume that they will not rebound from current setbacks.

Dr Michael W. Charney teaches in the Department of History, SOAS