Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

POETIC DHAMMA AND THE ZARE : TRADITIONAL STYLES OF TEACHING THERAVADA AMONGST THE SHAN OF NORTHERN THAILAND

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14639941003791568

1476-7953

Kate Crosby, Jotika Khur-Yearn,

Halal products and consumer behavior

Abstract In the Theravada Buddhism of the Shan peoples of northern Burma and Thailand, the main medium for the transmission of complex teachings is an elaborate form of poetry. The scholars who preserve and perform the readings of such teachings are called zare. Mostly they are laymen, although some are women and a few are monks. This article examines how the zare acquire their extraordinary erudition, the challenges confronting the tradition in the face of political suppression, modernity and minority language status, and the ways in which zare culture undermines common preconceptions about Theravada Buddhism. Acknowledgements The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Association of South-East Asian Studies, UK (ASEASUK) for generously funding the project on Shan Buddhism on the borderline: mapping responses to evolving patterns of cross-border sponsorship and hegemony. Their study of zare culture formed a part of this project. They would also like to thank colleague Tadayoshi Murakami, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Research Institute for World Languages at Osaka University, for his shared interest in this project and for pooling financial resources to support the zare interviews. In some of these interviews, the authors were assisted by the anthropologists Nicola Tannenbaum and Nancy Eberhardt, who both describe the recitation of these texts in the context of their accounts of Shan practices and culture in villages near Maehongson (Tannenbaum Citation1995; Eberhardt Citation2006). The authors are enormously grateful to both of them, not only for their groundbreaking and ongoing work on Shan Buddhism and culture in the Maehongson Province over the past four decades, but also for greatly enhancing both the pleasure and the outcomes of this project. The authors also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Zare Saw of Maehongson Province, not only for his generosity in working on this project (see Crosby, Khur-Yearn, and Saw, in preparation), but even more so for his untiring efforts to maintain and encourage the continuation of the zare tradition. On this project, he not only assisted in the related cataloguing project but also took over interviewing, acting as our 'research assistant', when the authors each in turn had to return to London. Finally, none of this would be possible without the kind cooperation and hard work of all the zare working to maintain the tradition, many of whom agreed to be interviewed for this study. Notes 1. We shall throughout be using the English term for this group of peoples. The Shan (like some other Tai ethnic groups) refer to themselves as Tai, while in Thai language the majority ethnic group among the Shan is referred to as Tai Yai. Their homeland is in the Shan State (in north-eastern Myanmar/Burma), northern Thailand, Yunnan Province of southern China and Assam, India. We shall use 'Burma' rather than 'Myanmar' throughout this article. 2. For a discussion of Shan Buddhist sermons that illustrates their more spontaneous nature and the way the preaching monks relate the topic to the occasion and audience, see Tannenbaum (1995, Chapter 6). For the consequences of the differences for Burmese Theravada, see the concluding paragraphs of this article. 3. Our data are based on fieldwork conducted in Maehongson District and in Chiang Mai between July and October 2009. Both areas have longstanding Shan communities and receive Shan emigres from over the border in Shan State, Burma. During our fieldwork we—later joined by Zare Saw, to whom we return below—conducted in-depth interviews with three particularly well-known or distinctive zare in Chiang Mai and the Maehongson area, which helped us contextualise and narrow down our questions for interviews with a further 60 zare in Maehongson District. All but two interviews were conducted in Shan language. All the translations are our own with the exception of the words of Pa Mule, translated by Nicola Tannenbaum who co-interviewed with Crosby on that occasion. 4. At the time of writing, we are still working on a comparative study of zare culture across the border in Burma in the Lashio area. Those poetry readers on the Thai side in Maehongson District who had immigrated from Burma also commented on differences across the border. They held the view that listening to lik long was more popular on the Burma side, but we have yet to confirm this. 5. We will not be examining in this article the effect of the central government army's forced relocation of villagers and burning of villages in this article. For some discussion of this development, see The Shan Human Rights Foundation (Citation1998). However, we note that during our fieldwork we heard several reports of the burning or other destruction of lik long by Burmese or other hostile ethnic groups on both sides of the Thai/Burma border, with reports of large-scale destruction on the Burma side (see Crosby and Khur-Yearn, Citation2009). This was also a frequent reason cited by Shan State-born monks and zare for having come to Thailand, even for those who came several decades ago. We will also not be examining here discussions currently underway on how to enhance the continuity of zare culture. At the time of writing, the authors intend to include this as a major focus of the Second International Conference on Shan Buddhism and Culture, to take place at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. 6. Our familiarity with these issues came firstly through personal connections—Jotika Khur Yearn had been taking into the confidence of one person actively collecting and preserving endangered lik long for posterity. Ven. Dr Khammai Dhammasami helped us with relevant contacts on both sides of the border. We shall report on the state of the physical preservation of lik long at a later date. As we have already observed elsewhere, the relationship between the presence of large manuscript libraries and a thriving haw lik tradition is not straightforward (Crosby and Khur-Yearn Citation2009). 7. Milne (Citation1910, 214). 8. Described by Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (Citation2003, 43). 9. Tannenbaum (Citation1995, 133). Our highlight of the rhyming syllables added to indicate how, even in short rhymes, the relevant syllables may cross over and do not necessarily occur at the end of a phrase. Since our study specifically focused on Buddhist materials, we did not look into the extent to which such competitions are still popular. However, Tannenbaum—referring to fieldwork she conducted in the mid-1980s—notes that at that time the courtship rhymes were familiar only to those in their 50s and above, suggesting that the use of poetry as a form of everyday culture is indeed waning. 10. The dates of Zao Thammatinna, who lived in northern Shan State/southern China, are given by Lung Khun Maha in his biography of the six famous, 'classical' authors of lik long, the Puin Khumo Lik Tai Huk Cav. (Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003, 14-7) provide a useful English summary of the six biographies from this text.) This age of the tradition was also known in zare oral tradition (whether because of Thammatinna's dates or for other reasons also, we did not ascertain at the time) as reported to us during interviews (e.g. Zare Auto, 17 July 2009). The revised version of the Puin Khumo Lik Tai Huk Cav offers a longer list of nine significant poets (zare). However, one of those added, Pannabhoga, is not in fact a zare but an author of traditional commentaries (nissaya) and modern writings, rather than of lik long. He was also important for Shan literature as head/founder of the Shan State Sangha Organisation, which published a Shan version of the tipitaka nissaya in the late 1950s. We are grateful to Khammai Dhammasami for pointing out to us the anomaly of his inclusion in his response to a paper on this subject at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 5 March 2010. 11. Alternative transliterations: care, zaray, tsale, zaley, tsalei. There is as yet no standardised transliteration system for Shan. The transliteration used here is that of Khur-Yearn in Crosby et al. (Citation2009, 1–15). We have revised that system with the following changes: the ja/tsa option, we replace with z; the uo/ua option, we replace with o; the ei/ia option, we replace with e; the aw/au option, we now use only aw; the aw/o/au option, we now use only au; the oe, ur/er, we replace with uea. While we translate Shan terms using this system, we mostly transliterate Pali-based titles using the standard (Pali Text Society/Critical Pali Dictionary) transliteration for Pali, so that their identity is obvious to Theravada scholars more generally. 12. In some areas, such as Laikha, most people with such education were ex-monks and so the honorific zare is used for all ex-monks even though they are not poet-readers. While zare would have been the correct term for addressing poet-readers with great respect in the nineteenth century and earlier, we can see an attempt to be more specific in the twentieth century. In reaction to the broader application of the title zare to refer to those who only recite and do not compose poetry, and the use of the term also for ex-monks in some areas, we find the use of the term khuma lik ('scholar, intellectual') by such authors as Lung Khun Maha (1969/70, 25–33). However, this also creates ambiguity, as can be seen from his inclusion under this category of those who compose other types of literature than lik long (see above comment concerning Pannabhoga's inclusion in this category). 13. The copying of Shan texts is again a specialist skill and very time consuming. Since many texts containing hundreds of folios, it takes several weeks to copy a text (Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai 2003, 22). 14. Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003, 14-6). Cav Muin Ku did not recover from the initial rejection of his request and never married, but became a wandering writer and bookseller. 15. For a general discussion of Lik-long literature and its use, see Crosby and Khur-Yearn (2009). For descriptions of individual texts, see Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003) and Crosby, Khur-Yearn, and Saw (in preparation). 16. Khur-Yearn has identified seven different lik long versions of the Mahāsatipatthāna (see Khur-Yearn, Citation2009). 17. For a study of this text and its practical usage for meditation in Shan Theravada Buddhism, see Khur-Yearn (Citation2010). For a summary of manuscripts of this and related versions of the Mahāsatipatthānasuttanta, see Khur–Yearn (Citation2009). This adoption of Pali literature from the Burmese context is also reflected in the pattern of the technical language at the linguistic level, with Pali loan words coming via Burmese, as noted by Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003, 10). The Burmese influence on Shan literary culture appears to date from at the least the middle of the sixteenth century, reflecting increasing Burmese political and cultural hegemony at the time. We found this pattern continued into the first part of the twentieth century, even in northern Thailand, according to the oral history of Shan library collections in Maehongson. In the more recent history of Shan composition we find the current tensions between Burmese and Shan reflected in a new tendency to avoid Shan loan words. Thus a feature of a new rendering of ten jātaka by Zare Latun (also known as Zare Hai Pa) in honour of Khammai Dhammasami's birthday in 2009 was its composition without Burmese loan words (personal conversation, Khammai Dhammasami, 6 February 2010). Moreover, in 2003 a version of the Shan script adapted in order to be able to represent Pali phonetics without recourse to Burmese script was developed (interview Zao Mueang Kut one of those who developed the script, 25 July 2009). 18. Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai observe 'in Shan villages there exists a series of titles that may be gained by making major religious contributions' (2003, 30), but do not note the title given to someone who sponsors the copying of a book. 19. Indeed, such introductions, which can last many pages, are a useful source of first-hand historical information. For example, on our first day of lik long cataloguing in Mae Taeng, near Chiang Mai, we found detailed information about the Shan founder of Maehongson who had sponsored several of the texts that ended up in the Mae Taeng collection. This is a history already verifiable from other sources. Most of the sponsors are not so well known, yet in these introductions we have some minute details of the activities in which they engaged at certain points in their lives. A separate outcome of the project is a descriptive catalogue of lik long manuscripts in the libraries of several important Shan temples in Chiang Mai and Maehongson Districts and the Shan State (Crosby, Khur-Yearn, and Saw, in preparation). 20. For those more familiar with Burmese and Sri Lankan Pali literature, especially, such wealth of information comes as a welcome surprise. Clearly the use of paper rather than palm leaf allows for greater scribal writings, although the amount of information provided clearly increased both with time and with region. Lanna scribal information is also relatively informative, although placed in the colophon (see Hundius, Citation1990; von Hinüber, Citation1993, Citation1996; Veidlinger, Citation2006, Chapter 4). By way of contrast, see, in the context of the development of authorial and scribal openings for texts of Pali literature composed from the earliest period to the twelfth century, and the difficulty in distinguishing the two, CitationCrosby (1999, Chapter 2). There Crosby writes: '… the Pe akopadesa is one of the earliest explicitly authored texts preserved by the Theravāda tradition, [and] of interest as the earliest example of such authorial opening homages. It is a far cry from the elaborate kāvya style of authorial openings of texts composed in the 12-13th centuries, or even from the fairly developed style of the opening verses attributed to Buddhaghosa. Other than this, I know of no elaborate opening which has been attributed to the scribe of a manuscript, in marked contrast to the range of length and style found in the scribal colophons'. Even the elaborate twelfth century openings and the scribal colophons mentioned are spartan compared with Shan authorial and scribal introductions. 21. Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai observe, in the context of discussing the use of Burmese and Burmese script usage in Shan tattoos and magical diagrams, that the pronunciation of Burmese by Shan is not usually intelligible to Burmese. Some zare know Burmese as well as Shan and many recognise Burmese loan words, but, as Zare Saw commented, 'People in this area [Maehongson] are familiar with Burmese terms. Most people assume the Burmese words are Shan words' (interviews, 22, 23 and 24 July 2009). 22. While Shan and Burmese script are used for lik long in the central areas, in the East, around Kengtung, Tai Khuen script is used to represent both Shan and Pali. In their catalogues of Shan manuscripts in German, Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai therefore exclude manuscripts in Tai Khuen script from the designation Shan, noting also Egerod's observation that 'Khuen-speakers prefer to borrow new vocabulary from Siamese rather than from Burmese, Shan, or English'. Egerod (Citation1959, 123) cited Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003, 10). In our study we were not confronted by this issue. The SOAS Theravada Group hopes to extend the study to the Kengtung region and, while recognising the usefulness of Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai distinctions, will then include Tai Khuen under the designation Shan, since the focus of our study is primarily cultural. We are particularly interested to see how the important distinction observed by Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai that, whereas most Shan 'received their Indianisation via the Burmese', the Tai Khuen are amongst 'those Tais whose Indianization (much literary inspiration and vocabulary enrichment) took place via the Cambodian tradition' (11) has affected zare culture and the range of lik long in the region. 23. Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai note the fashion for using a marker to note high tone at the end of the nineteenth century, which can be a helpful indicator of date, although its use was not universal (Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai 2003, 13). 24. Mostly, lik long remain available only in manuscript form. However, there are printed versions of particularly popular texts as well as some publications sponsored as death commemorations. The main place of publication is Taunggyi. Thus, when we observed temple-sleepers listening to Zare Saw reading the Cintāma on 22 July 2009, he used a printed text. He mentioned other texts that are printed because of their popularity, since copying a new one takes a zare a few weeks to complete. These included the Suttanibbāna, a text popular at memorial services—this text is not the same as or based on the canonical Nibbānasutta (for details of this text and its use, see Khur-Yearn, Citation2008)—and the Jinatthappakāsinī, which may be used on different occasions but we noted during our fieldwork had been read in full by Zare Saw at an elaborate funeral for a senior monk earlier in the year. Amat Long's lik long version of the Mahāsatipa hāna, an important temple-sleeper text, was printed as early as 1969 (see Khur-Yearn Citation2010). Zare Saw commented that in fact the manuscript versions are far easier to read: they are larger format, with stronger background-ink contrast (interview, 22 July 2009). 25. A key to understanding the cipher code is apparently given in manuscript 143 ( = Cod.birm. 179 München) of Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai's catalogue (2003, 145). 26. Eberhardt (Citation2006, 185, note 1). 27. This is no mean feat. Even members of our team who were highly educated in Pali, Burmese and Shan literature (all mother-tongue Shan) struggled with the rhyming systems. Even those familiar with some of the rhyming systems could not follow or identify those they had not come across before. Had we not been able to recruit highly qualified zare, we would not have been able to complete our descriptive catalogue (Crosby, Khur-Yearn, and Saw, in preparation). 28. Temple-sleepers interviewed during wan sin, holy day observance, at Huoi Suea Thao (22 July 2009) and Huoi Pha (24 July 2009) told us they gradually acquired the ability to understand the texts through their ongoing practice of listening. 29. This was the reading conducted by Zare Saw at Huoi Suea Thao, Maehongson Province, before the lunch that would end the temple-sleeping period on 22 July 2009 (see previous). This is an interesting village since the originally Shan-dominated village has now only about 10 Shan houses and is dominated by Padaung ('Long Neck Karen'), originally from the Burmese side of the border. The Padaung are Christian but have very positive relations with the Buddhist temple. Meanwhile the Shan community is so small that there were no local temple-sleepers, so the temple-sleepers were all invitees from other Shan communities. On the practice and function of exchange invitations between Shan communities, see Tannenbaum (Citation1995, Chapter 2). 30. See Zare Auto's description of the reading that gave him his nom de plume below. 31. While in the discussion of Sanskrit and Pali manuscript culture there is a tendency to make a strong distinction between the educational level required for composing in contrast to copying because of the extent of scribal error found in some manuscripts when copied without attention to content, Veidlinger notices an interesting passage in the Sāsanava sa that 'reveals some very different expectations with respect to a scribe' that specifically relates content to writing (2006, 125). 32. Terwiel and Khamdaengyodtai (2003, 21) and Crosby/Khur-Yearn zare interviews, July 2009. 33. For a description of the place of haw lik (or rather thaum lik 'listening to literature') in the overall practices at funerals, based on research conducted near Maehongson in 1979-81 and 1990-91, see Eberhardt (Citation2006, Chapter 3, esp. 56ff). On the significance of setting up a new home, which traditionally occurs a few years after marriage, Tannenbaum writes: 'Once the couple establishes their own household, they become full members of the community, responsible for making contributions to village festivals, cooperating with villagewide work projects, and attending village meetings. They receive the respect accorded to male and female household heads'. She then continues to describe new house construction (Tannenbaum Citation1995, 137). On the practice of 'temple-sleeping', see Tannenbaum (Citation1995, 139–43). 34. Interview, 21 July 2009. 35. Sometimes this is specified in the introduction to the text. Thus Zare Saw explained to us the specifics of different enclosures, showing us photographs of each (interview, 22 July 2009). For a discussion of the use of canopies and fences to mark out sacred space, including for zare recitation, see Tannenbaum (Citation1995, 159–64). 36. This was reported to us by the abbot at all the temples where we conducted interviews (the four in the lik long cataloguing project plus two others). For a discussion of this issue in the context of ordination and disrobing practices, see (Crosby Citation2009a). 37. It is interesting to note that at a number of temples the expertise that head monks pass on to the novices is in craftsmanship, for example wood-carving. One such example is the temple in Huoi Pha. Our thanks to Nancy Eberhardt, and her Shan family, for their hospitality, guide to the Huoi Pha temple and help with interviews and information concerning local, zare, lik long and temple-sleepers. 38. Zare Auto, interview, 17 July 2009. 39. Tannenbaum (Citation1995, 77). 40. We have also come across the ordination of women without hair-shaving among the Cakma of Rangamati Hill District in Bangladesh (fieldwork, Crosby and Nagasena, February 2009), recognition of the significance in society both of the role of temporary ordination and of long hair on women. 41. Interview, Pa Mule, 23 July 2009. 42. Zare Auto identified this as a text only available in Shan State, not in Thailand. 43. Zare Auto, interview, 17 July 2009. 44. Different sets of five precepts are found in other forms of Theravada. Thus yog vacara traditions refer to a set that has the kamma hāna (meditation exercises) and meditation teachers as fourth and fifth refuges (see Crosby Citation2000). 45. Interview, 17 July 2009. 46. When we had recovered from our surprise at this particular precept, we entered into a debate with Nancy Eberhardt and Nicola Tannenbaum, who were co-interviewing Zare Auto with us, regarding the reasons for this particular prohibition on, presumably, buffalo placenta, speculating about the issue of essentially female body parts and clothing have the ability to undermine male power. Tannenbaum also notes food restrictions for tattooists when engaged in tattooing to ensure the power of the tattoo (1995, 80–1). For concepts of power and female ability to detract from male power in Shan culture, see Tannenbaum (1995, Chapter 5). 47. See Tannenbaum (1995, 89-91) on the protection invoked through precept taking and, for example, page 67 on partial and temporary precept-keeping. While I have come across partial precept taking among different Tai groups, I have not come across this practice in Thailand or Cambodia. See Tannenbaum (1995, 150-151) and Eberhardt (2006, 64ff) for Shan beliefs about violent death. 48. Interview, 17 July 2009. 49. Tannenbaum (1995, 76). 50. On the offering bowl presented to zare and others worthy of offerings, see Tannenbaum (1995, 12, 31). The 20–30 baht noted by Tannenbaum has inflated 10-fold, and now stands at an average of 200-300 baht. We did hear of offerings of 500 baht. 51. For an example of the overlap between the role of zare and sara and necessary skills in common, see Eberhardt (2006, 101). 52. We heard that Wat Tiyasatthan, a temple at Mae Taeng village between Chiang Mai and the border, which was originally established by Shan traders over a century ago but now caters to a predominantly Tai Yuan village and central Thai visitors, received up to 100 temple-sleepers for wan sin (Buddhist holy day) last year. This number is unprecedented in recent history. 53. See Choompolpaisal (Citation2010) for a discussion of the 'rational' versus 'irrational' analysis and its routes in Weber, in relation to studies of Central Thai Buddhism. 54. Milne (1910, xx). Milne recounts entertaining anecdotes about misunderstandings in this area. 55. For the continued presence of yog vacara in Thailand, beyond the well-known Dhammakaya movement temples, see Newell (Citation2008). 56. See Crosby (Citation2000, Citation2009b). Our thanks to William Bodeford for his comments about similar processes at work in changes to Japanese religion in the modern period (verbal response to paper delivered 20 February 2009). Further analysis on the links between yog vacara and pre-modern technologies is currently underway by Crosby. 57. Crosby was interested to observe the overlap between pharmacist and traditional healer (with a similar range of skills from herbal healing to astrology to empowerments), and the continuity from the more traditional to the more modern role down the generations of families, during fieldwork in parts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh where access to a modern doctor was very difficult. However, since this was not the actual focus of the fieldwork among the Theravada Buddhists of Bangladesh, the authors do not know the extent to which these observations would withstand systematic scrutiny. 58. See Crosby (Citation2003) and McDaniel (Citation2008). 59. McDaniel (2008, 14). 60. Anonymised group discussion, 5 February 2010.