Abstract:This article historicizes the study of initiated female Buddhist devotees (thilashin) in Myanmar through analysis of the 1982 biography of Daw Medhawati (1862–1932), founder of a Buddhist nunnery (khyaung) at the turn of the twentieth century. Attending to rhetorical models of practice that reveal the stakes of the historically specific and local social worlds in which thilashin have sought to establish and maintain institutional footholds, I reconsider the assumed predominance of tropes of renunciatory asceticism in the self-presentation of thilashin and propose a more closely calibrated understanding of thilashin as non-ordained but initiated women unevenly empowered by relationships and practices that enable their advancement on a Buddhist path to liberation. In particular, I focus on two models of practice that demonstrate how Medhawati occupies and navigates the gendered subjectivities of “sister” and “patron.” I argue that the biography's emplacement of its subject within a family system and within a patronage network indicates the meaningful persistence of highly intimate and localized networks of belonging and affiliation amidst the state-driven reorganization of Myanmar Buddhist institutions of the 1980s. Read intertextually with other contemporary, vernacular Burmese literature written by or about thilashin and their male monastic peers, Medhawati's life narrative and other thilashin biographies put forward new ways of thinking about the shifting subjectivities and forms of social relatedness that produce and authorize Buddhist institutions in and beyond contemporary Myanmar.
{"title":"Reconsidering Renunciation: Shifting Subjectivities and Models of Practice in the Biography of a Buddhist Woman","authors":"MK Long","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2023.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2023.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article historicizes the study of initiated female Buddhist devotees (thilashin) in Myanmar through analysis of the 1982 biography of Daw Medhawati (1862–1932), founder of a Buddhist nunnery (khyaung) at the turn of the twentieth century. Attending to rhetorical models of practice that reveal the stakes of the historically specific and local social worlds in which thilashin have sought to establish and maintain institutional footholds, I reconsider the assumed predominance of tropes of renunciatory asceticism in the self-presentation of thilashin and propose a more closely calibrated understanding of thilashin as non-ordained but initiated women unevenly empowered by relationships and practices that enable their advancement on a Buddhist path to liberation. In particular, I focus on two models of practice that demonstrate how Medhawati occupies and navigates the gendered subjectivities of “sister” and “patron.” I argue that the biography's emplacement of its subject within a family system and within a patronage network indicates the meaningful persistence of highly intimate and localized networks of belonging and affiliation amidst the state-driven reorganization of Myanmar Buddhist institutions of the 1980s. Read intertextually with other contemporary, vernacular Burmese literature written by or about thilashin and their male monastic peers, Medhawati's life narrative and other thilashin biographies put forward new ways of thinking about the shifting subjectivities and forms of social relatedness that produce and authorize Buddhist institutions in and beyond contemporary Myanmar.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"101 - 137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41587883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:On 1 February 2021, claiming that the results of the prior November's election were fraudulent, the military staged a coup d'etat. They planned to hold power until a new election was held. This ended a pseudo-democracy under the quasi-civilian government. The coup provoked a nationwide protest also demanding for a modern state which values the information technology knowledge of Generation Z, sees them as active social agents, with new revolutionary ideas, and fosters greater freedom of thought. Traditional groups as well as human rights defenders contested gender norms and stereotypes. In this study of the 2021 revolution, numerous changes in gender attitudes are documented. These include attitudes regarding cultural taboos about women's bodies; dominant masculine ideas about marginalized gender groups; and finally, women's political participation. Many urban youth protesters have been fighting against misogynist ideas and actively acknowledge women's roles in the political and social movements. Yet, in the power struggle between oppressors and oppressed, human dignity and moral principles have been caught in a bind, as women from both groups have been strategically targeted for personal attacks. Although this trend was not as apparent in previous anti-coup protests, this article argues that, despite some flaws, the revolution could be a driving force in changing gender perceptions in general. As such, this study observes how the 2021 revolution both deconstructed and reinforced traditional gender stereotypes and beliefs. With the aim of examining the driving forces and drawbacks of gender attitudes changes, this investigation attempts to understand the gender equality movements, arising with the coup in 2021 and their impact on the landscape of women's participation in politics.
{"title":"Deconstructing and Reinforcing Gender Norms and Cultural Taboos in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution","authors":"A. Tun","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2023.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2023.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:On 1 February 2021, claiming that the results of the prior November's election were fraudulent, the military staged a coup d'etat. They planned to hold power until a new election was held. This ended a pseudo-democracy under the quasi-civilian government. The coup provoked a nationwide protest also demanding for a modern state which values the information technology knowledge of Generation Z, sees them as active social agents, with new revolutionary ideas, and fosters greater freedom of thought. Traditional groups as well as human rights defenders contested gender norms and stereotypes. In this study of the 2021 revolution, numerous changes in gender attitudes are documented. These include attitudes regarding cultural taboos about women's bodies; dominant masculine ideas about marginalized gender groups; and finally, women's political participation. Many urban youth protesters have been fighting against misogynist ideas and actively acknowledge women's roles in the political and social movements. Yet, in the power struggle between oppressors and oppressed, human dignity and moral principles have been caught in a bind, as women from both groups have been strategically targeted for personal attacks. Although this trend was not as apparent in previous anti-coup protests, this article argues that, despite some flaws, the revolution could be a driving force in changing gender perceptions in general. As such, this study observes how the 2021 revolution both deconstructed and reinforced traditional gender stereotypes and beliefs. With the aim of examining the driving forces and drawbacks of gender attitudes changes, this investigation attempts to understand the gender equality movements, arising with the coup in 2021 and their impact on the landscape of women's participation in politics.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"29 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47468227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Since the early days of the 2021 Spring Revolution, young women have been at the center of many of the protests against Myanmar's military coup. Women in Myanmar are traditionally viewed as mothers, carers, and wives whose roles mostly belong to the domestic sphere. However, the political landscape shift since the 1 February 2021 coup has galvanized young women to the forefront of the pro-democracy movement, finding new and creative ways to demand an end to both the military dictatorship and the patriarchy. This article examines the role of young women within Myanmar's Spring Revolution and how this upends traditional views of women as passive and domestic carers. It draws on postcolonial and intersectional theories that question assumptions of women's uniform (disadvantaged) position and asks how gender intersects with age, race, and class to mediate social status. This article also reflects on some of the broader shifts in gendered and generational roles and identities that have taken place in Myanmar over the last ten years, which provide possibilities for solidarity and positive change in a future federal democratic union.
{"title":"Our Htamein, Our Flag, Our Victory: The Role of Young Women in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution","authors":"Marlar, Justine Chambers, Elena","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2023.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2023.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Since the early days of the 2021 Spring Revolution, young women have been at the center of many of the protests against Myanmar's military coup. Women in Myanmar are traditionally viewed as mothers, carers, and wives whose roles mostly belong to the domestic sphere. However, the political landscape shift since the 1 February 2021 coup has galvanized young women to the forefront of the pro-democracy movement, finding new and creative ways to demand an end to both the military dictatorship and the patriarchy. This article examines the role of young women within Myanmar's Spring Revolution and how this upends traditional views of women as passive and domestic carers. It draws on postcolonial and intersectional theories that question assumptions of women's uniform (disadvantaged) position and asks how gender intersects with age, race, and class to mediate social status. This article also reflects on some of the broader shifts in gendered and generational roles and identities that have taken place in Myanmar over the last ten years, which provide possibilities for solidarity and positive change in a future federal democratic union.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"65 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42113400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Grounded in data collected over multiple fieldworks among Buddhist communities living in Rakhine State between 2005 and 2011, this work explores the reasons for the ubiquity of astrology among apotropaic and healing practices employed by these communities. I suggest that it is astrology's mastery of time, its capacity to connect individual and cosmic time that explains its dominant position. It is indeed because of this capacity that astrology allows to see, predict, and manipulate cosmic connections on which individual and cosmic order and wellbeing depend. This article will first elaborate on Burmese astrological theory to show how the practice is part of Buddhist cosmology and how, by virtue of its mastery of time, it holds the key of the grammar it shares with other healing practices. I will then present the case study of a healer to show how these characteristics of astrology provide the basis for its dominant position in the field of health.
{"title":"We Are Made of Time: Astrology and Healing in Rakhine State, Myanmar","authors":"C. Coderey","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2022.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2022.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Grounded in data collected over multiple fieldworks among Buddhist communities living in Rakhine State between 2005 and 2011, this work explores the reasons for the ubiquity of astrology among apotropaic and healing practices employed by these communities. I suggest that it is astrology's mastery of time, its capacity to connect individual and cosmic time that explains its dominant position. It is indeed because of this capacity that astrology allows to see, predict, and manipulate cosmic connections on which individual and cosmic order and wellbeing depend. This article will first elaborate on Burmese astrological theory to show how the practice is part of Buddhist cosmology and how, by virtue of its mastery of time, it holds the key of the grammar it shares with other healing practices. I will then present the case study of a healer to show how these characteristics of astrology provide the basis for its dominant position in the field of health.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"239 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46261941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aurore Candier, J. M. Ferguson, Bénédicte Brac de la Perriére, C. Coderey, C. Guenzi
{"title":"The Journal of Burma Studies","authors":"Aurore Candier, J. M. Ferguson, Bénédicte Brac de la Perriére, C. Coderey, C. Guenzi","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2022.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2022.0014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"i - iii"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44451057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This special issue of The Journal of Burma Studies is part of a collective and multidisciplinary project which explores astrological and divinatory knowledge and practices in Burma. These practices include fortune telling, divinatory, and therapeutic techniques, and they serve a broader system for the interpretation of past, present, and future events. In Burma, as elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia, astrology, and divination rationales are part of social thinking and are also embedded in religious fi elds (Vernant 1974:10; Guenzi 2021:9). The collective aim of these four articles is to investigate the articulation between astrology, divination, religion, power, and discourse in Burma. The articles draw on research from multicultural contacts and consider the coproduction of knowledge through circulations of people, ideas, and systems of meaning across the longue durée (Raj 2007; Pollock 2011; Bala 2012; Fourcade 2013). In doing so, the articles endeavor to fi nd connections and analogies with distant or closer past practices and knowledge in Burma as well as in neighboring countries.
{"title":"Astrological and Divinatory Practices in Burma: Mapping the beidin Category","authors":"Aurore Candier, J. Ferguson","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2022.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2022.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of The Journal of Burma Studies is part of a collective and multidisciplinary project which explores astrological and divinatory knowledge and practices in Burma. These practices include fortune telling, divinatory, and therapeutic techniques, and they serve a broader system for the interpretation of past, present, and future events. In Burma, as elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia, astrology, and divination rationales are part of social thinking and are also embedded in religious fi elds (Vernant 1974:10; Guenzi 2021:9). The collective aim of these four articles is to investigate the articulation between astrology, divination, religion, power, and discourse in Burma. The articles draw on research from multicultural contacts and consider the coproduction of knowledge through circulations of people, ideas, and systems of meaning across the longue durée (Raj 2007; Pollock 2011; Bala 2012; Fourcade 2013). In doing so, the articles endeavor to fi nd connections and analogies with distant or closer past practices and knowledge in Burma as well as in neighboring countries.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"147 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44922407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:At the crossroads of the history of science and knowledge, and the methodologies of intellectual and conceptual history, this article proposes an evaluation of the development in late modern Burma of the beidin category (astrology and divination) through an appraisal of Burmese astrological literature. It will examine some of the earliest Burmese sources dealing with astrology and divination, before assessing a range of past and present collections of beidin-related texts to gauge the changes the category underwent during the "long Burmese nineteenth century," stretching from the 1780s to the mid-1890s, focusing especially on the last two decades of the eighteenth century, a time of military conquest and of intense circulation of people, ideas, texts, objects, and practices. In an attempt to "re-Brahmanize" royal rituals, King Bodawphaya (r. 1782–1819) sent several missions to India to retrieve Sanskrit manuscripts, and then ordered his Head monk Maung Daung Hsayādaw (1753–1833) to translate them into Burmese. Astronomical texts represent a third of the beidin corpus brought from India between 1786 and 1810 and almost half of Maung Daung Hsayadāw's translation work. Royal collections of beidin manuscripts were also updated with classical texts (sixth–twelfth centuries) and "modern" versions and commentaries from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries on horoscopy, catarchic astrology, and divination. This paper concludes by arguing that this transition period laid the foundations for the modern Burmese concept of astrology, both inside and outside the royal court.
{"title":"The Emergence and Evolution of the beidin [inline-graphic 01] Category in Burma: The Transition of the Long Nineteenth Century","authors":"Aurore Candier","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2022.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2022.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:At the crossroads of the history of science and knowledge, and the methodologies of intellectual and conceptual history, this article proposes an evaluation of the development in late modern Burma of the beidin category (astrology and divination) through an appraisal of Burmese astrological literature. It will examine some of the earliest Burmese sources dealing with astrology and divination, before assessing a range of past and present collections of beidin-related texts to gauge the changes the category underwent during the \"long Burmese nineteenth century,\" stretching from the 1780s to the mid-1890s, focusing especially on the last two decades of the eighteenth century, a time of military conquest and of intense circulation of people, ideas, texts, objects, and practices. In an attempt to \"re-Brahmanize\" royal rituals, King Bodawphaya (r. 1782–1819) sent several missions to India to retrieve Sanskrit manuscripts, and then ordered his Head monk Maung Daung Hsayādaw (1753–1833) to translate them into Burmese. Astronomical texts represent a third of the beidin corpus brought from India between 1786 and 1810 and almost half of Maung Daung Hsayadāw's translation work. Royal collections of beidin manuscripts were also updated with classical texts (sixth–twelfth centuries) and \"modern\" versions and commentaries from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries on horoscopy, catarchic astrology, and divination. This paper concludes by arguing that this transition period laid the foundations for the modern Burmese concept of astrology, both inside and outside the royal court.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"161 - 202"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45129780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This paper examines biographical material concerning an outstanding Burmese astrologer, Min Theinhka (1939–2008). His life is remarkable while the biography is also a social product of its time. One of the main astrologer's disciples, Min Theim Hkaing, authored the source used here, which is an example of the Burmese Buddhist biographical genre (attupatti). The analysis shows that the enshrining of Min Theinhka's life in the shape of an attupatti serves the project of his disciples to grant him an elevated spiritual status to that of a quasi-weikza. It also demonstrates how Min Theinhka developed his astrological skills so as to overcome his destiny and political disempowerment under military rule and how he built his career through successive shifts between close fields of practice, astrological, "religious," and spiritual.
{"title":"Min Theinhka: An Astrologer's Career through the Lens of Biography","authors":"Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière","doi":"10.1353/jbs.2022.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2022.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines biographical material concerning an outstanding Burmese astrologer, Min Theinhka (1939–2008). His life is remarkable while the biography is also a social product of its time. One of the main astrologer's disciples, Min Theim Hkaing, authored the source used here, which is an example of the Burmese Buddhist biographical genre (attupatti). The analysis shows that the enshrining of Min Theinhka's life in the shape of an attupatti serves the project of his disciples to grant him an elevated spiritual status to that of a quasi-weikza. It also demonstrates how Min Theinhka developed his astrological skills so as to overcome his destiny and political disempowerment under military rule and how he built his career through successive shifts between close fields of practice, astrological, \"religious,\" and spiritual.","PeriodicalId":53638,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Burma Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"203 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44855009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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