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The Uses of Religious Scepticism in Modern Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

E. Michael Mendelson
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Anyone who has had any dealings with Burma and its religion will know the difficulties involved in the definition of the word nat. My own views will, I hope, become clearer in the course of this paper. At the start, however, I should perhaps stress two principal meanings. In the first place, nat refers to beings superior to humans who live very long lives in a number of refined abodes situated above the earth. Many of these nats are recognizable as Hindu deities who have remained in the Buddhist adaptation of Hindu cosmology and the Hindu pantheon. The word nat also refers to certain historical spirits, that is human beings, often but not exclusively Burmese, who—usually after a violent or unpleasant death—have assumed a superhuman status and are still held to play a role in the affairs of men. These nats are usually referred to as the “37 nats” though there are many more than 37 and this principal list of 37 only represents a particular case of a general process whereby certain human beings are still held today to become nats after their death.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 11 , Issue 41 , March 1963 , pp. 94 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © 1963 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 The locus classicus is H. L. Eales, Report on the Census of Burma for 1891. Discussions of nuances can be found, for example, in Scott and Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, I, 2, ch. 10 and in W. C. B. Purser and K. J. Saunders, Modern Buddhism in Burma, Rangoon, 1914.

2 I have worked from L. Dumont, "Le renoncement dans les religions de l'Inde," Archives de Sociologie des Religions, No. 7, Paris, 1959.

3 E. M. Mendelson, "Mondes Africains," Critique, No. 93, February 1955 and "De l'Olympe à la Guinée," Critique, No. 133, Paris, June 1958.

4 E. M. Mendelson, "Religion and Authority in Modern Burma," The World Today, March 1960, Oxford University Press.

5 J. Brohm, Burmese Religion and the Burmese Religious Revival, Ph. D. Thesis, Cornell University, 1957 (microfilm).

6 N. Yalman, The Ascetic Buddhist Monks of Ceylon (mimeographed), 1961.

7 For an example of the latter, see R. Grant Brown, "The Pre-Buddhist Religion of the Burmese," Folklore, XXXII, 1921.

8 E. G. Paul Mus, Cultes indiens et indigènes au Champa, Hanoï, 1934.

9 Sangermano, A Description of the Burmese Empire, Rangoon, 1924, p. 61; E. M. Mendelson, "A Buddhist Messianic Association in Upper Burma," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, Oct. 1961, and "The King of the Weaving Mountain," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, London, Oct. 1961.

10 G. E. Harvey, History of Burma, London, 1925, p. 249.

11 E. Leach, "The Frontiers of Burma," Comparative Studies in Society and History, III, 1, Oct. 1960.

12 I refer here to the whole question of hereditary officials of the myothugyi type who protected their people against the royal myowuns, see J. F. Cady, A History of Modern Burma, Cornell, 1958, p. 29.

13 I have also avoided discussion of increased stress on religious purity in modern Burma due to 1) the identification of Buddhism with what was best in Burmese nationalism and 2) the influence of Western scholars and missionaries in their Buddhism—"inferior" Animism distinction. This stress emerges well from the Natkadawloka book.

14 We are eagerly awaiting ethnological studies like those of M. Nash, K. Lehman, M. Spiro who have recently had occasion to work in new areas, as a result of which we may look forward to a renewal of Burmese ethnography.