Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Online ISSN : 2424-1377
Print ISSN : 0563-8682
ISSN-L : 0563-8682
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Volume 53, Issue 1
Displaying 1-14 of 14 articles from this issue
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Special Focus
Contemporary Southeast Asian Religions in Boundary-Crossing: Case Studies from Thailand and Myanmar
  • Introduction
    Tatsuki Kataoka
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 3-8
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_3
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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     This special issue focuses on religious boundary-crossing in contemporary Thailand and Myanmar. These two countries have long inspired scholars of frontier studies as well as religious studies of Southeast Asia. Recent developments in trans-border mobility between Thailand and Myanmar have also contributed to greater interest among scholars in Thai and Myanmar studies, for example in boundary-crossing religions. In this special issue, we use the term “boundary” in three dimensions: national boundary, ethnic boundary, and boundary of institutionalized religions.
     We start our discussion with an optimistic expectation of increased resistance from peripheries against nation-states, state-sanctioned ethnic categories, and religions institutionalized by such states. However, discussions based on each field reveal more complex realities. In some cases, the Buddhism practiced by multi-ethnic local populations has recently undergone categorization according to ethnicity due to the increased mobility of religious leaders. Many charismatic monks are enthusiastically worshipped by marginalized ethnic minorities along the frontiers of nation-states. However, we find that they are by no means antagonistic to existing state power. Missionary Buddhism is supposed to be a typical form of religious boundary-crossing. Nevertheless, through this activity, the very concept of Buddhism is questioned when missionary monks are forced to observe their precepts in an environment without lay support.
     Essays in this special issue are reflections from our struggle to understand and explain the complex situations faced by contemporary Southeast Asian religions. Needless to say, our conclusions are not definitive answers to these questions. Rather, we would like to invite readers to join the ongoing discussion on these challenging topics.
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  • The Migration of Palaung Buddhists and the Uniqueness of Their Religious Practices:
    A Case Study from Namhsan, Northern Shan State, Myanmar
    Takahiro Kojima
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 9-43
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_9
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    This paper will explore the relationship between the migration of Palaung Buddhists and the construction of their own practices in Namhsan, northern Shan State, Myanmar. The Palaung are uplanders of this area, while the Shan are rulers of the valleys. Previous studies concluded that the Palaung simply imitated Shan Buddhist practices, citing how the Palaung would typically deliver teachings in the Shan language and use texts written in the Shan script. However, conducting fieldwork in Namhsan, I found that the Palaung have recently begun to translate Buddhist texts using the Palaung script and to deliver dharma teachings in the Palaung language. One factor of this phenomenon is that the social contacts between Burmese and Palaung people have become more intense, on account of the increasing of migration. As a result, influence from Burmese Buddhism has become stronger. Yet elite monks try to make their own style of practice and create a “Palaung sect.” These developments demonstrate how the Palaung have exercised their own cultural agency and remade the ethnic connectedness in the articulation of Buddhist practices. Nonetheless we must exercise caution in assessing the reality of the “Palaung sect.” Owing to the great differences in language among the Palaung sub-groups, the Buddhist texts composed in Samlong language are difficult to understand for other sub-groups. Therefore, there is great diversity in the Palaung texts of each sub-group. This means that these sub-groups of Palaung still maintain a micro-regional community by remaking and reinforcing connectedness within the groups.
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  • The Birth of “Pa-O Buddhism”?:
    Buddhism and Identity of the Pa-O in the Shan State of Myanmar
    Tadayoshi Murakami
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 44-67
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_44
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    In this paper, I consider the Buddhist practices of the Pa-O in the Shan State after the independence of Myanmar (the Union of Burma). The Pa-O, a group of Karen speakers, is an ethnic minority living in Myanmar. Most of them are Theravada Buddhists and could be considered as a Buddhist minority in Myanmar. Generally speaking, the Buddhism of ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asian countries is regarded as resulting from the diffusion of Buddhist traditions from powerful majorities. It is deemed to have an assimilation effect on minorities into the Buddhist majority of each country. As for the Pa-O, it is said that their Buddhist practices have been influenced by neighboring Buddhist majorities: Mon, Burmese, and Shan. From this diffusionist point of view, the Pa-O have been described as passive actors who received a foreign religion under the cultural and political influence of majorities.
     However, this paper will argue that we should not view the Pa-O as merely an ethnic minority but also as “Buddhists.” We demonstrate the endeavors of Pa-O Buddhists to construct their own Buddhist tradition by creating sacred place through the renovation of ancient pagodas, organizing monks and monasteries, and advancing Buddhist education for lay people.
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  • Pagoda Construction and Saintly Charisma:
    Religious Movements in the Thai-Myanmar Border Region
    Yoko Hayami
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 68-99
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_68
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    U Thuzana is a Karen monk from Myanmar who has been constructing many pagodas on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border. His pagoda construction is made possible by donations from political, economic, and military leaders, on the one hand, and through the labor and devotion by local followers, especially among the Karen, on the other. This paper analyzes the dynamic process of this saintly leadership, followers' devotion, and pagoda construction, which must be understood in the context of the layered religious practices found in this cross-border region since the nineteenth century. In Myanmar, U Thuzana has become involved in ethnic politics even as he claims to maintain political neutrality. In Thailand, he is entering into a terrain where the khruba tradition is still alive with expectant followers.
    The paper examines three issues: firstly, it questions foregoing discussion that understands millennialistic religious movements and saintly monks enterprises as resistance to the state, and reexamines categorical understanding such as non-Buddhist versus Buddhist, hill versus valley, or resistance versus accommodation. Rather than explain the movements in relation to states, as in previous studies, this paper will look at these movements from its own logic. Secondly, it examines the dynamics that constitute charismatic power of the saints through pagoda construction by focusing on the relationship between the saintly figures and their followers, of which there are two major types: the donors and the devotees. Thirdly, it situates this process in the construction of sacred space in the modern state territory.
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  • The Bunchum Worship Movement on the Hills:
    A Theravadin Charismatic Monk and the Lahu
    Tatsuki Kataoka
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 100-136
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_100
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    This paper examines the recent development of cross-national and cross-ethnic movement of worshipping Khruba Bunchum, a charismatic Theravada monk who has been working along the Thai-Burmese borderlands, from the viewpoint of the highlanders and their relationship with modern nation states. Khruba Bunchum has become famous among the Lahu on the hills of Thailand and Myanmar since the 1990s when a Lahu “man-god” assisted his meditation. After that some cults of the Lahu joined the Bunchum movement and discovered that he is a reincarnation of the past saints of their prophetic tradition. The Lahu legend narrates that these past saints used miraculous power to defend their theocracies against the modern states of China and Burma. In this context, for the Lahu, the Bunchum movement articulates their longing for redemption of “lost kingdoms.” The Bunchum movement itself also shows some aspects of “state evasion,” in terms that Bunchum has been active outside state control of the Sangha. However, at the same time, from another perspective, the Bunchum movement among the upland minorities is equally viewed as a showcase of Buddhist propagation program initiated by both governments of Thailand and Burma. The nature of the Bunchum movement is still ambivalent, for such contradicting functions of the movement in regard to nation-states are working at the same time and at the same field. However, it is this contradiction which contributes to the multi-dimensional aspect of the Bunchum movement, which has gained a wide range of supporters from both the centers and peripheries of the state.
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  • Pagoda Construction and “Propagation of Sasana”:
    Thathana pyu in Myanmar
    Keiko Tosa
    2015 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 137-164
    Published: July 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 31, 2017
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.20495/tak.53.1_137
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    This article considers Theravada Buddhist practices referred to as thathana pyu (making or doing religion) in Myanmar. Thathana pyu may refer to different acts in different contexts: propagating the teachings of Buddha in the world; constructing pagodas; undertaking missions intended to convert others to Buddhism; engaging in welfare activities; pursuing personal spiritual enlightenment, etc.
     I examine thathana pyu activities motivated at the national and local levels: initiatives by government agencies and undertakings by religious communities, including pagoda-building initiatives by charismatic monks—with several questions in mind. What do the actors do to promote Buddhism at the periphery of the Buddhist world? When involved in thathana pyu, how do the actors conceive what they are trying to do? In other words, what kind of targets are they working on? What difficulties do missionary monks encounter after being detached from the support of laypersons? In Theravada Buddhist societies, a complementary relationship between monks and laypersons has been recognized as a common basic scheme: laypersons accrue merit by materially supporting monks in the form of donations. Working at the periphery, monks who do missionary work forego the everyday support of laypersons. I reflect on the nature of this Buddhism and explore how the Vinaya (precepts monks should strictly adhere to) are reinterpreted by missionary monks.
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