The Idea of Ancient India, page 52
7. The praśasti of Devapāla and his lineage covers at least 21 lines and 14 verses; that of the Śailendra king and his lineage consists of 10 lines and 8 verses.
8. According to F. Kielhorn, ‘The Mungir Copper-Plate Grant of Devapaladeva’, Indian Antiquary 21, 1892, pp. 253–258, fn. 54, there is double entendre in the invocation, and it praises both the Buddha and Devapāla. This is a debatable point. Although reference to the lord of the earth and benefitting the prajā could apply to both, ‘Sugata’ could not apply to the king. On the other hand, line 17 does give the analogy of the Pāla king inheriting his father’s kingdom in the manner in which a bodhisattva attains the status of a Sugata, i.e., the Buddha. This is balanced by an analogy between Bālaputra and Siddhārtha, the son of Śuddhodana, in verse 31.
9. These two aspects need to be differentiated, although they did overlap; patronage policy was often much more broad-based than the personal religious inclinations of a ruler.
10. Shwesandaw Pagoda Inscription, Epigraphia Birmanica 1, (8), p. 163.
11. Janice Stargardt, ‘Burma’s Economic and Diplomatic Relations with India and China from Early Medieval Sources’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 14 (1), 1971, pp. 38–62, has pointed out that the material, especially bricks, and the labour would no doubt have been obtained on the spot, and that Indian bricks were much admired and were even imported into and used in Burma.
12. Alexander Cunningham, Mahâbodhi or The Great Buddhist Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya (London: W. H. Allen, 1892), pp. 76–77; Rajendralala Mitra, Buddha Gaya: The Great Buddhist Temple—The Hermitage of Sakya Muni (New Delhi and Varanasi: Indological Book House, [1878] 1972), pp. 206–207; Taw Sein Ko, ‘Burmese Inscription at Bodh-Gaya’, Epigraphia Indica 11, 1911–1912, pp. 118–120; G. H. Luce, ‘Sources of Early Burma History’, in C. D. Cowan and O. W. Wolters, eds, Southeast Asian History and Historiography: Essays Presented to G. D. E. Hall (Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 1976), pp. 40–42.
13. Ko, ‘Burmese Inscription at Bodh-Gaya’. There are different readings of the dates of the activities mentioned in the inscription—657–660, 667–668, 467–468. Ko sees it as an early 13th century inscription, while others suggest an early 12th century date. However, Luce asserts that the correct readings of the dates are 657 and 660, which correspond to 1295 and 1298 ce.
14. Ko, ‘Burmese Inscription at Bodh-Gaya’, p. 119.
15. Stargardt, ‘Burma’s Economic and Diplomatic Relations with India and China from Early Medieval Sources’, p. 62. Stargardt also points out that the control of Pagan over Arakan was nominal.
16. Luce, G. H. ‘Sources of Early Burma History’, pp. 40–42.
17. A. B. Griswold, ‘The Holy Land Transported: Replicas of the Mahābodhi Shrine in Siam and Elsewhere’, Paranavitana Felicitation Volume (Columbo: M. D. Gunasena, 1965), pp. 173–221.
18. If 218 refers to the era of 544 bce, this would correspond to 236 bce, which would locate the event mentioned here towards the end of Aśoka’s reign (c. 268–232 bce).
19. Griswold, ‘The Holy Land Transported’, pp. 195–200.
20. For the relationship between kingship, Buddhism, the saṅgha and society in Pagan, see Michael Aung Thwin, ‘Kingship, the Saṅgha, and Society in Pagan’, in Kenneth R. Hall and John K. Whitmore, eds, Explorations in Early Southeast Asian History: The Origins of Southeast Asian Statecraft (Ann Arbor: Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, The University of Michigan, 1976), pp. 206–256. The claim by Kyanzittha that he had converted a ‘Coli king’ to the Buddha’s doctrine can also be understood in the context of this relationship and was clearly for home consumption (Shwesandaw Pagoda inscription, Prome, Epigraphica Birmanica 1(8), p. 165).
21. On various Burmese traditions connecting the kings Anawratha and Kyanzittha with Sri Lanka and India, including the tradition of Kyanzittha having married a princess of Vaiśālī see R. C. Majumdar, Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia (Baroda: The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Press, [1955] 1971), p. 59.
22. See Vinod Vihari Vidyavinoda, ‘Two Inscriptions from Bodh Gaya’, Epigraphia Indica 12, 1913–1914, pp. 27–30. Inscription A.
23. For an important contribution in this direction, see Janice Leoshko, ed., Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 1988).
24. See Stargardt, ‘Burma’s Economic and Diplomatic Relations with India and China from Early Medieval Sources’, for a good discussion of these aspects. Burma was also important because the overland route between northeast India and China (often referred to as the southern silk route) passed through here.
25. Benimadhab Barua, Gayā and Buddha Gayā. Vol. 2: Old Shrines at Buddha-Gayā (Varanasi: Bhartiya Publishing House, [1934] 1975), p. 42.
26. Cunningham, Mahâbodhi or The Great Buddhist Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya, pp. 67–74.
27. Benimadhab Barua, Gayā and Buddha—Gayā [Early History of the Holy Land], Vol. 1. (Varanasi: Bhartiya Publishing House, [1931] 1975), pp. 206–212.
28. Barua (Gayā and Buddha Gayā, Vol. 2, pp. 43–45). Barua does point out, however, that the style of the Mahābodhi temple does not seem to have had a major impact on the architectural style of Burmese temples.
29. Mitra, Buddha Gaya, pp. 211–227.
30. There is uncertainty about the precise event that this era marks.
31. Mitra, Buddha Gaya, pp. 227–228
32. For a discussion of the ‘Hindu mode of encompassment’ of the Bodh Gayā remains, see Alan Trevithick, ‘British Archaeologists, Hindu Abbots, and Burmese Buddhists: The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, 1811–1877’, Modern Asian Studies 33 (3), 1999, pp. 635–656. By this time, a mahant had established himself in this place. But this Buddhist inscription is inscribed on an already existing Śaiva image, which amounts to a Buddhist encompassment of a Hindu image. Perhaps both kinds of encompassment were going on simultaneously. On other aspects of the modern history of Bodh Gayā, see Nayanjot Lahiri, ‘Bodh-Gaya: An Ancient Buddhist Shrine and its Modern History (1891–1904)’, in Timothy Insoll, ed., Case Studies in Archaeology and Religion (Oxford: Archaeo Press, 1999), pp. 33–44.
33. Mitra, Buddha Gaya, pp. 227–228.
34. Upinder Singh, The Discovery of Ancient India: Early Archaeologists and the Beginnings of Archaeology (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004), pp. 220–221.
35. The 19th century sketches, on the other hand, show a hint of dilapidation, but a better over-all condition than the photograph does.
36. This is just part of the story. That there is a need to investigate the larger range of religious interactions between Burma and India is suggested by a 13th century Sanskrit–Tamil inscription recording a gift made to a Viṣṇu temple at Pagan by a person named Kulaśekhara Nambi, evidently a native of Malabar (E. Hultzsch, ‘A Vaishnava Inscription at Pagan’, Epigraphia Indica 7, 1902–1903, pp. 197–198).
37. The Tirukkadaiyur inscription of Rājendra I, inscribed on the base of the central shrine of the Amṛtaghaṭeśvara temple in Thanjavur district, is dated in the 15th regnal year of Rājendra I (i.e., 1027) and describes the expedition of the Cōl̠a army against Kaḍāram. There is a reference in the Perumbur inscription of Vīrarājendra to the conquest of Kaḍāram by Vīrarājendra; it is dated in this king’s seventh year, i.e., 1070. For these inscriptions, see Noboru Karashima and Y. Subbarayalu, ‘Ancient and Medieval Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions Related to Southeast Asia and China’, in Hermann Kulke, K. Kesavapany and Vijay Sakhuja, eds, Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia, pp. 271–291. For various aspects of the Cōl̠a expeditions, see Kulke, ‘The Naval Expeditions of the Cholas in the Context of Asian History’.
38. K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer, ‘The Larger Leiden Plates (of Rajaraja I)’, EpigraphiaIndica 22, 1933–1934, pp. 213–268.
39. K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer, ‘The Smaller Leiden Plates (of Kullotunga I)’, EpigraphiaIndica 22, 1933–1934, pp. 267–281.
40. On the identity and relationship between Kaḍāram, Śrīvijaya and the Śailendras, see Pierre-Yves Manguin, Tan Sri Dato and Mubin Sheppard, Sriwijaya: History, Religion & Language of an Early Malay Polity: Collected Studies by Georges Coedès and Louis-Charles Damais (Kuala Lampur: Monograph of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1992), pp. 15, 99, 105.
41. It is not, however, the longest. The Karandai plates of Rājendra consist of 2,628 lines inscribed on 57 plates and the Thiruvindalur grant of his son are even longer (Y. Subbarayalu, personal communication).
42. On Nāgapaṭṭinam, see Gokul Seshadri, ‘New Perspectives on Nagapattinam: The Medieval Port City in the Context of Political, Religious, and Commercial Exchanges between South India, Southeast Asia and China’, in Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia, eds., Hermann Kulke, K. Kesavapany and Vijay Sakhuja, pp. 102–134.
43. See Georges Cœdès in Manguin, Dato and Sheppard Sriwijaya: History, Religion & Language.
44. See Cœdès in Manguin, Dato and Sheppard, Sriwijaya: History, Religion & Language, p. 43.
45. On Śrīvijayan kingship, see Kenneth Hall, ‘State and Statecraft in Early Srivijaya’, in Kenneth Hall and John K. Whitmore, eds, Explorations in Early Southeast Asian History: The Origins of Southeast Asia Statecraft (Ann Arbor: Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 1976), pp. 61–106.
46. See Karashima and Subbarayalu, ‘Ancient and Medieval Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions Related to Southeast Asia and China’, pp. 275–278.
47. For the possible identification of this vihāra with the ‘Chinese pagoda,’ see Seshadri, ‘New Perspectives on Nagapattinam’, pp. 109–118.
48. See Karashima and Subbarayalu, ‘Ancient and Medieval Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions Related to Southeast Asia and China’, pp. 278–279, 283.
49. However, we do see some instances of joint donations of paramount and subordinate rulers.
50. It should be noted, however, that Kālidāsa’s Abhijñānaśākuntala does refer to a prophecy that Bharata’s chariots will roll unimpeded over all the oceans.
51. For the various references, see Aiyer ‘The Larger Leiden Plates (of Rajaraja I)’, p. 224; and Kulke, ‘The Naval Expeditions of the Cholas in the Context of Asian History’, pp. 279–280.
52. See Lionel D. Barnett, ‘Inscriptions at Narendra’, Epigraphia Indica 13, 1915–1916, pp. 298–326.
53. See Ramaranjan Mukherji and Sachindra Kumar Maity, Corpus of Bengal Inscriptions Bearing on History and Civilization of Bengal (Kolkata: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1967), pp. 170, 253, 251, 342–343, 383.
* * *
*This chapter was previously published in Upinder Singh and Parul Pandya Dhar, eds, Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014).
13
Politics, Piety, and
Patronage: The
Burmese Engagement
with Bodhgayā
Trans-regional pilgrimage and patronage have had enduring importance in Asian religious interactions from ancient times till the present. In the context of Buddhism, over the centuries, political elites played an important role in forging links with India, the Buddhist homeland. While kings of Java and Śrīvijaya made religious endowments to monasteries at Nālandā and Nāgapaṭṭinam, Burmese rulers had especially close associations with Bodhgayā.1 This chapter will survey the evidence of long-term Burmese connections with Bodhgayā and will highlight how certain Buddhapādas (‘Buddha footprints’) found at the site add significantly to our understanding of these connections. The larger context of this discussion includes the configurations of kingship and the state in Burma in the Pagan and post-Pagan periods and the importance attached to links with India, especially its Buddhist heritage.
These connections were established through a series of interactions, associations, and transpositions. For instance, Tapussa and Bhallika, the two merchants from Utkala, described in the Vinayapiṭaka and Mahāvagga as the first lay followers of the Buddha, were transformed in 15th century Mon mythology into merchants from Lower Burma who symbolized the ideal lay devotees. The New Pagan Chronicle, the Glass Palace Chronicle, and the Egyin (historical ballads) assert that the kings of Burma were descendants of the solar dynasty of the Sākiyas (i.e., Śākyas).2 The chronicles tell us that Alaungsithu (1112–1168) visited Mahābodhi; whether he actually did or not, is beside the point. Connections are also claimed with Aśoka—the Mon saṅgha was believed to have descended from missionaries sent by this king. Further, several ancient payas (pagodas) in Pagan and elsewhere are ascribed to Aśoka in inscriptions ranging from the 11th to 14th centuries.3 An inscription of the 15th century king Dhammacetī of Bago describes his desire to imitate the pious kings of ancient times such as Aśokadhammarāja.4 The base of thrones in palaces of Burma’s last ruling house, the Konbaung dynasty, was made from earth from several great Indian cities.5 Apart from the political aspect, monastic and pilgrimage networks also played important roles in knitting together various parts of the Buddhist world.
Mahābodhi Re-creations and
Representations
A Kalyani inscription of Dharmmacetī mentions a mahāthera named Prānadassi who lived at Sudhammapura and who, through his supernatural powers, transported himself every morning to Uruvela. Here, he swept the courtyard of the Mahābodhi tree and then returned home to beg for alms.6 For those who did not have such powers, there were other ways of establishing connections with the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
The importance of the Mahābodhi temple (Figure 13.1) in Burma/Myanmar is reflected in the building of ‘replicas’, representations of the temple within Paya complexes, temple models, and depictions on seals, sealings, and plaques. A. B. Griswold urges us to think about the nature and function of ‘copying’ in early Buddhist art, and points out that it actually involved an interpretation of what was essential and the deliberate and selective appropriations of and departures from the ‘original’.7 ‘Replicas’ should, therefore, be understood as ‘re-creations’ rather than ‘copies’.8 There are two known ‘replicas’ of the Mahābodhi temple in Myanmar. One is the intact Mahābodhi Paya (built in the first half of the 13th century) in Pagan (Figure 13.2). The second is the Shwegugyi Paya in Bago (c. 1460–1470), built during the reign of Dhammacetī, which today lies in ruins. The chronicles tell us that this king had sent artisans to Bodhgayā to make accurate plans and models of Mahābodhi.9 Whether or not these two temples were actually based on detailed information obtained from Mahābodhi is a matter of debate. Yet they both show deliberate departures from the original, although the Pagan one is quite faithful to it in basic plan. Both appear to have a symbolic representation of the seven stations, marking events during the seven weeks immediately after the Buddha’s enlightenment.10 However, it is doubtful that the seven stations visible today at the Pagan temple belong to the same time as the foundation of the temple.11 And although Griswold has correlated the location of the seven stations at Mahābodhi, Chiang Mai, and Shwegugyi, Stadtner has pointed out that some of the features that were identified by Griswold at Shwegugyi as ‘stations’ are actually newer shrines.12
Figure 13.1
Mahābodhi temple, Bodhgayā
Source: Author
It has been pointed out by Tilman Frasch that apart from the re-creations of the Bodhgayā temple, the square, pyramidal tower of the Mahābodhi type can be seen in various Pagan temples such as Wetkyi in Kubyaukkyi. It can also be seen in temples that chronologically predate and follow the Pagan Mahābodhi, as well in those that are roughly contemporaneous to it.13 Frasch suggests that the Mahābodhi temple at Pagan was perhaps built because monks fleeing from eastern India to Burma in the wake of the Turkish invasion may have brought with them the distressing news that the Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā was under siege and in ruins. The decision to build a new imperial temple on Mahābodhi lines was a statement that Pagan had taken over as the new sacred centre of Buddhism.14 This suggestion is persuasive. But we can also note the long-standing tradition in Myanmar of building re-creations and models of temples. For instance, in the Kuthodaw Paya in Mandalay, the Mahalokamarazein stūpa is modelled on the Shwezigon Paya. There is a model of the Shwedagon Paya within the Shwedagon complex in Yangon. In Bago, the Mahazedi Paya contains a ‘replica’ of the Ānanda Paya of Pagan. And more recently, we have the example of the Uppatasanti pagoda in Nay Pyi Taw, the Myanmar capital, whose towering golden form evokes the Shwedagon in Yangon.15 We also encounter ‘replicas’ of relics.16 ‘Replicas’ of Payas and relics, and temple models were part of an elaborate network of symbolic association through which shrines connected themselves with others, lending and borrowing eminence and sacrality.
Mention should be made of the Mahābodhi Shwegu in the kingdom of Mrauk U, located near Sittwe in Rakhine province. This is a small 16th/17th century temple on a hilltop; its tunnel-like entrance boring towards the centre is lined on both sides with relief carvings. This Mahābodhi bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one at Bodhgayā. Perhaps it just wears the name as a badge of prestige.
Figure 13.2
Mahābodhi Paya, Pagan
Source: Author
We can also note the presence of modest representations of the Mahābodhi temple in various Payas, most of them fairly recent. For instance, in the Shwedagon in Yangon, huge photographs of Bodhgayā and Sārnāth printed on cloth are mounted on the wall of the Greatest Prosperity Meditation Hall. A ‘replica’ of the Mahābodhi temple within the Shwedagon complex, built by a printing press owner some time before 1920, has on its śikhara various scenes from the life of the Buddha. Such representations of Mahābodhi are found in other Payas as well (for instance, the Shwezigon in Pagan has such structures located in the north, south, and west), and we can note that the spire in these cases generally takes the form of a generic curvilinear Nāgara-style śikhara rather than the distinctive straight-lined profile of Mahābodhi.
