pref-fore.htm
Maung Htin Aung. Printed and published by U Myint Maung, Deputy Director, Regd: No (02405/02527) at the Religious Affairs Dept. Press. Yegu, Kaba-Aye P.O., Rangoon, BURMA. 1981.
Set in HTML by the staff of TIL and edited by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.
Contents of this page
Preface - Dr. Htin Aung
Foreword - Prof. U Po Tha
The aim of my study of this book - UKT
Contents of this page
p.vii
Chapters 2 to 8 were originally given as lectures to the Burma Research Society, Rangoon, at its annual meetings from 1952 to 1957. They have, of course, been rewritten, but traces of the spoken word remain here and there, and occasionally the same facts given in an earlier chapter are repeated in a later chapter, for which defects I crave the reader’s indulgence.
I had promised my publishers, the Oxford University Press, to submit the manuscript of this book by June 1958, but other preoccupations intervened and some years passed before I could do so. I am grateful to them for their patience. In the meantime, I wrote an essay on the subject for Perspective of Burma in 1958. I am grateful to Intercultural Publications Inc., New York, for permission to reproduce that essay as Chapter 1 of this book.
Maung Htin Aung
One full moon day, some thirty years ago, I was attending the annual festival of a ‘Jungle’ pagoda some miles outside the town of Pegu. The pagoda was reputed to be the place where the two monks, Dhamma-zedi and Dhammapala, practiced magic, and the place was full of persons, mostly imposters, who claimed to be following the path of purity and endeavour, along which Dhamma-zedi had travelled before them. I watched with some amusement a white-clad and bearded figure walking by, surrounded by a crowd of devotees, but I stopped smiling when I saw an incongrous figure among them, namely a young student, wearing a brand-new college blazer. My surprise turned into shock when I recognized him to be young Maung Htin Aung who had just entered University College, Rangoon, with a very brilliant academic record behind him. I was by then a lecturer in chemistry, and shouted to him rather angrily, ‘What do you think you are doing here?’ and he replied, ‘I am doing research, sir, in unnatural science.’ ‘I hope you will publish a thesis on it,’ I said with due sarcasm, and he replied, ‘I will, sir, if you will please write the introduction.’ Years passed, he became my colleague on the University staff, and in 1946 he became the Rector. He had by then published his Burmese Drama and his Burmese Folk-Tales and I reminded him of our encounter at the Jungle pagoda and suggested that he should now write his thesis on unnatural science. ‘Sir, please do not remind me of a mis-spent youth,’ he replied. But a few weeks later, he came to me with a handful of Burmese alchemic compounds and discussed their composition.
The account of the pre-Buddhist religious cults which are contained in the following pages was originally given as lectures by Dr. Htin Aung to the annual meetings of the Burma Research Society during the period 1952 to 1958, in his capacity, first as Vice-President, then as President, and finally as Past President of the Society. I had the honour and the privilege of listening to all the lectures, and I can still remember the excitement and the controversy that followed his first lecture in the series, which was on Burmese Initiation Ceremonies. Some members of the audience were shocked at his defence of the Ari monks, and the one-hour lecture was followed by a heated discussion which lasted for some three hours. The following year, his lecture on the Nine Gods resulted not only in controversy, but also in resentment against him for endeavouring to show that the ceremony was not really Buddhistic in origin. However, as further lectures followed, his audiences came to appreciate his findings.
I have no hesitation in saying that Dr. Htin Aung has rendered again a signal service to Burmese studies in publishing his lectures in book form. Apart from his academic attainments, Dr. Htin Aung is specially qualified to write on the subject of the pre-Buddhist religion of the Burmese, because he combines in his person a deep understanding and faith in Theravada Buddhism and a sympathy and appreciation of the aspirations of the Burmese astrologer and the Burmese alchemist. Belonging to a family one of whose ancestors is listed among the Thirty-seven Nats, he was kidnapped as a child by a village headman and initiated into the cult of the were-tiger; this background will perhaps explain his sympathetic attitude towards the folk elements in Burmese Buddhism. Just as his Burmese Drama and his Burmese Folk-Tales placed on permanent record many Burmese oral traditions that have now completely disappeared even from the remotest village, this book puts on permanent record the oral lore of the pre-Buddhist cults, which has never been collected before, even in the Burmese language.
U Po Tha
Professor of Chemistry, and
Dean of the Faculty of Engineering
University of Rangoon,
1st October, 1959.
UKT note: Though I did not realize it, this forward was dated a few months before the death of Professor U Po Tha. At the time of U Po Tha’s death, I had already come back from the United States. He insisted that I rejoin my old post in the Chemistry Department, University of Rangoon: he had great concern for me because I was without a job, but had a wife (she was a demonstrator in his department) and a two-year old son. One day in December 1959, as a sort of a farewell, he wished me well as he passed me by -- I was going into a lecture and he was going home for his lunch. Before I had finished my lecture, I was called to his home to assist in his funeral preparations.
There are several reasons why I have chosen to digitize and study this book. Among the many is my interest in linguistics. In what languages were the historical characters in this book speaking to each other. For example, in what language would Anawratha, presumably Burmese, speak to Shin Arahan, presumably Mon. Burmese and Mon are different languages and usually a Burmese speaker, even now, would not understand Mon. Of course, the present-day Mons of Myanmar are largely bilingual in Mon and Burmese, but not the other around. This is because the dominant language in Myanmar is Burmese. But in the days of Anawratha and Shin Arahan, it was not so. And there were the Pyus with their own language which would be more similar to Burmese than to Mon. It is believed that the Pyu language is now extinct or has been incorporated into Burmese.
Another reason is culture and religion. As a practicing Theravada Buddhist, I have a pretty good idea of what Buddhism is. But the question is whether my interpretation of Buddhism the same as that of the majority of the common people who believe in Nats, Treasure-guardians, ghosts, witches, were-tigers and were-crocodiles, talismans, and incantations.
The culture of the upper classes including their religion has been found in the Brahmanical texts [UKT: simply substitute with "Buddhist texts"] and hundreds of scholars in both the East and the West have produced voluminous works on Brahmanical Hinduism [Buddhism]. Unfortunately nothing or very little is said in the Brahmanical [Buddhist] texts about the culture of the common people, especially of their religion. Even the part played by the common people in the formation of National Culture is not recorded, though 80% of the population are common people living in the villages. However, for the proper assessment of Indian [Myanmar] culture and civilization, it is necessary to record the history of the vast majority of the population. -- from Human Fertility Cults and Rituals of Bengal, by P. K. Maity, Abhinav Publications, 1989, p.2.
This book by Dr. Htin Aung can therefore be an introduction to Myanmar culture and religion.
U Kyaw Tun aka Joe Tun
Singapore 080827
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