The Crown, the Buddha and the Making of Burmese Buddhist Nationalism

Spring 2018

Abstract:

" 'Buddhism proved not as a fixed truth to be preserved or a hegemonic conservative force but a pragmatic and fluid means of resisting other impositions and inventing new Burmese realities. It proved a fair way of sidestepping the colonial forces that were coming to impinge on Burmese lives, but more than that it created means for Burmese to continually reimagine and reinvent their world.'

––Alicia Turner, Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma.

The progression of religious arts of 19th century Burma are rarely coordinated with its sociopolitical happenings during the period in question. Such a comparison has either been ignored or overwhelmed by a pervasive misconception of religion and religious arts being completely unrelated to the bloodshed and politics. Perhaps because Burma is such an unstable and ever so politically charged country, people prefer to at least leave out the beautiful temples and crowned Buddhas away from the darker historical contexts. 

From the mid 19thcentury onwards, the struggle to preserve Theravada Buddhism became one of the main driving forces that encouraged religious and political movements. The early seeds of such religious nationalism, in a way, had influenced the making of the Mandalay style. The Mandalay style—the style of the Crowned and Bejeweled Buddha—is considered to be one of the last styles of the Buddha figure developed before the fall of the last Burmese empire in 1885.Therefore, the Mandalay style Buddhas, such as our object in question, became icons of the golden past when Buddhism had proper patronage from the monarchy and the religion or sasana was safe—the glorious times that had been lost but which Burmese Buddhists aspire to achieve again in the future."

For full-length dissertation and citations, please contact me through email: thtwe@artic.edu, thet2nh@gmail.com