Indians who influenced Myanmar culture: King Asoka / ArThawKa အေသာက မင္းၾကီး

There has been Indian influence on our Myanmar culture since the dawn of civilization, including indigenous medicine, astrology, establishment of cities states and our main religion, Buddhism.

Apart from Buddha, the Indian who most influenced Myanmars is Asoka, and others include Ziwaka, who is the forefather of Myanmar indigenous medicine; AbiYarzar who settled and established a dynasty in Tagaung; Shin TharRiPottayar and Shin MaugGaLan, disciples of Buddha; Theras Sona and Uttara who brought Buddhism to Thuwunnabhumi /  Suvannabhumi; ByatWi and Byatta who ate the Zawgyi PhoWinTharr and fought on either side of the Bamar-Mon war between King Anawratha and King Manuha.

Most of us has been brought up with Buddhism and the Jataka stories and we are familiar with these Indian episodes / history as if they are our own and there is even a school of thought that Buddha and the Sakya family were Tibeto-Burmans from the BuddhaGhayar / Mizzimadesa of the Zambudipa.

However, it is an indisputable fact that all in Buddhawin and the Jataka stories are Indians of current day northern India and southern Nepalese origin although we have the names of Yarma / Ramayana, ThetKaTho / Taxila, Kawliya, Yarzagyo, DayWaDaHa countries, YaMonNar, Thida rivers, AnarTaPein, WiTharKhar, Zattawun monastery, Waytharli / Vesali, Bassein, imbedded in our lives.

Whenever we go on pilgrimage, most pagoda histories state that they were built during the time of and by King Asoka, which is not compatible with historical facts, yet, propagated and repeated by all, like the myths concerning Buddha’s arrival in many parts of Myanmar and the existence of Buddha’s previous lives in the surrounding areas.

It was while I was listening to a sermon by ThidaGu Sayardaw Shin NyarNeikThara the other day that I got the idea to write about Ashoka. Previously, I had seen a film about Ashoka featuring the famous Shahrukh Khan as Ashoka but the film did not do justice about the great king and the wars he fought to build the empire. In the film, Ashoka is pronounced Ashoke.

Ashoka (Devanāgarī: अशोक, IAST: Aśoka, IPA: [aˈɕoːkə], 304 BC – 232 BC), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India’s greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests. His empire stretched from present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan in the west, to the present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of Assam in the east, and as far south as northern Kerala and Andhra. He conquered the kingdom named Kalinga, which no one in his dynasty had conquered starting from Chandragupta Maurya. His reign was headquartered in Magadha (present-day Bihar, India).^[1] He embraced Buddhism from the prevalent Vedic tradition after witnessing the mass deaths of the war of Kalinga, which he himself had waged out of a desire for conquest. He was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia and established monuments marking several significant sites in the life of Gautama Buddha. Ashoka was a devotee of ahimsa (nonviolence), love, truth, tolerance and vegetarianism. Ashoka is remembered in history as a philanthropic administrator. In the history of India Ashoka is referred to as Samraat Chakravartin Ashoka– the Emperor of Emperors Ashoka.

His name “aśoka” means “without sorrow” in Sanskrit (a= no/without, soka= sorrow or worry). In his edicts, he is referred to as Devānāmpriya (Devanāgarī: देवानांप्रिय)/Devānaṃpiya or “The Beloved Of The Gods”, and Priyadarśin (Devanāgarī: प्रियदर्शी)/Piyadassī or “He who regards everyone with affection”. Another title of his is Dhamma (prakrit: धम्मः), “Lawful, Religious, Righteous”.

Renowned British author and social critic H. G. Wells in his bestselling two-volume work, The Outline of History (1920), wrote of emperor Ashoka:

In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and emperors who called themselves ‘their highnesses,’ ‘their majesties,’ and ‘their exalted majesties’ and so on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star, even unto this day.

Along with the Edicts of Ashoka, his legend is related in the later 2nd century Aśokāvadāna (“Narrative of Asoka“) and Divyāvadāna (“Divine narrative“), and in the Sinhalese text Mahavamsa (“Great Chronicle“).

After two thousand years, the influence of Ashoka is seen in Asia and especially the Indian subcontinent. An emblem excavated from his empire is today the national Emblem of India. In the History of Buddhism Ashoka is considered just after Gautama Buddha.

As the legend goes, one day after the Kalinga War was over, Ashoka ventured out to roam the city and all he could see were burnt houses and scattered corpses. This sight made him sick and he cried the famous monologue:

What have I done? If this is a victory, what’s a defeat then? Is this a victory or a defeat? Is this justice or injustice? Is it gallantry or a rout? Is it valor to kill innocent children and women? Do I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity or to destroy the other’s kingdom and splendor? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant…. What’s this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?

The brutality of the conquest led him to adopt Buddhism and he used his position to propagate the relatively new religion to new heights, as far as ancient Rome and Egypt. He made Buddhism his state religion around 260 BC, and propogated it and preached it within his domain and worldwide from about 250 BC. Emperor Ashoka undoubtedly has to be credited with the first serious attempt to develop a Buddhistic policy.

Ashoka, now a Buddhist emperor, believed that Buddhism is beneficial for all human beings as well as animals and plants, so he built 84,000 stupas, Sangharama, viharas, Chaitya, and residences for Buddhist monks all over South Asia and Central Asia. He gave donations to viharas and mathas. He sent his only daughter Sanghamitta and son Mahindra to spread Buddhism in Sri Lanka (ancient name Tamraparni). Ashoka also sent many prominent Buddhist monks (bhikshus) Sthaviras like Madhyamik Sthavira to modern Kashmir and Afganistan; Maharaskshit sthavira to Syria, Persia / Iran, Egypt, Greece, Italy and Turkey; Massim Sthavira to Nepal, Bhutan, China and Mongolia; Sohn Uttar Sthavira to modern Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (old name Suvarnabhumi for Burma and Thailand), Thailand and Vietnam; Mahadhhamarakhhita stahvira to Maharashtra (old name Maharatthha); Maharakhhit Sthavira and Yavandhammarakhhita Sthavira to South India. Ashoka also invited Buddhists and non-Buddhists for religious conferences. Ashoka inspired the Buddhist monks to compose the sacred religious texts, and also gave all types of help to that end. Ashoka also helped to develop viharas (intellectual hubs) such as Nalanda and Taxila. Ashoka helped to construct Sanchi and Mahabodhi Temple. Ashoka never tried to harm or to destroy non-Buddhist religions, and indeed gave donations to non-Buddhists. As his reign continued his even-handedness was replaced with special inclination towards Buddhism.^[3] Ashoka helped and respected both Sramans (Buddhists monks) and Brahmins (Vedic monks). Ashoka also helped to organize the Third Buddhist council (c. 250 BC) at Pataliputra (today’s Patna). It was conducted by the monk Moggaliputta-Tissa who was the spiritual teacher of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka.

Current Trends in Myanmar Clothes Style and my wandering mind

A friend who recently returned from abroad wrote to me:

I notice some Myanmar women are wearing very shots shots on street and not many are weaing Hta Main. many wear Kora skirts and some Skirt Longyi. The dress code is changing. Too bad.

Times are changing and in Yangon, many are not wearing traditional longyis nowadays
the young (maybe up to 25-30) do not even know how to as they wear skirt-HtaMein school uniforms and not even it outside school, preferring skirts or pants, both long and short. This year, there are really short shorts and skirts worn on the street, girls taking advantage of the extremely hot weather. (A son of a friend who recently returned from a short visit to Shanghai told his mother that he saw plenty of girls’ white thighs over there; they are also seen here too, most white while many not so white thighs and of course calves too). We are nearly abreast with the world in terms of fashion, if not in development.
Many ladies who did wear longyi, in the over 40 age bracket, are not wearing longyis at home, preferring gowns, and some even go around with it, like those in the Africas.

Males of the young set also do not wear longyi too except to school (luckily, they have to wear longyi the traditional way; I wonder when the time will come when boys begin wearing clip on skirt-longyi / PaHsoes with ready-made KhaBoneSa!!! I hope I do not live to see that day; better wear shorts and pants than that)

We are going the way Japan, S Korea, HK, Taiwan, other Asian countries and China regarding dress codes. It is the way life is. I remember reading that Japanese were forced to wear Western style clothes by order of the Emperor when they came out of the closed door policy through the effort of the American naval Captain.
Also that the male Chinese ordered to cut off their long hair by decree of the Emperor in their “jump” / leap towards modernization.

Although I wear uniform trousers here in Mann oil field where it is dry, I cannot bear the humidity of Yangon in trousers. Longyis are the best for Yangon, unless one lives in at least 23 hour a day or more air-con environment.

Regarding the recent controversy over model Honey Oo / Hazel Moe, I do not believe that Myanmar are different from other people. Those who think that Myanmars should act differently do not have an open mind. I understand someone who do not like such fashion for everyone, but if one insists that Myanmar girls should act differently, it is unrealistic. What do Myanmars have to be different? Are we not the same humans homo sapiens as others? Bikinis are also the rage even in Myanmar, so a model wearing it in UK is not a wonder or something to discuss or look down upon.

I must say that the current males are lucky to be able to see these fashions, but whether they are lucky in other aspects of Life Style, I cannot say for sure. Some knives have 2 edges and cut both ways.

When I remarked about 20 years ago that Myanmars, especially males abroad usually arrange for marriages from home, P’s father remarked: they have dating there so one cannot get “ပါကင္ပိတ္” brides.
The life style here also was getting ahead in the last 20 years and so ……

A friend of mine joked: it is better to have a daughter than a son because if you have a daughter you are sure to get your actual grandchild whereas with a son …….

Safe Water Supply

I have a notion about the current trend of drinking bottled water in Yangon and all the cost and difficulties it entailed. I am not part of that trend and still drinks water from our tubewell, either from the tap or from a sand filter which have been in use for over 40 years at home.

Recently, I read a blog by Sourav Roy which I have produced below:

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!

June 6, 2010 · 4 Comments

Why are we scared of drinking water? Everytime, when we travel, why are we afraid to drink water from railway station filters? Why do we so often come across shouts of “Don’t drink that water!” ringing in our ears? And we take the advice seriously- we pledge our loyalty to bottled water, we distrust the ability of water filters to tame the toughest bacteria, and the money we spend on water during an average day of travel, is more than the daily wages of half of our countrymen!

70% of earth is covered with water. 57% of human body weight is water. And still, a middle class working class hero is afraid of it! He purchases bottles, which are never recycled, and manufactured under conditions one will puke upon! The piping, the bottling, the transportation, the greenhouse gases are all unnecessary! So, not only we are ridiculing ourselves by becoming slaves to packaged water, but also adding enormous amount of wastes to our mother earth! Bottled water is not safer and certainly not cheaper than running water! And I don’t think it tastes any better either!

Why don’t we start using reusable bottles? Have we totally forgotten bottles made of stainless steel or lined aluminum? Start reusing any convenient bottle you have at hand! More than 80% of the country drinks regular municipality supplied water- are they dead? Why only the privileged few has stomach-ache, head-ache, tooth-ache if they drink running water? The point is simple! Humans are getting conditioned by their own luxuries. We are being pampered to an extent that only disasters teach us to appreciate the nature and all its offerings, or are we waiting for a day when water will be costlier than petroleum?

P.S.- I have submitted this article for the recent blogadda contest organized on World Environment day. This article is sponsored by Pringoo.

 

Reading this blog led me on a train of thought influenced by my experiences.

I still drink water at home the way I did for over 20 years. Water from tube well filtered through a sand filter that was bought in a pottery shop and filled with home cleaned sand. My father made it and although the trend now in Yangon is to drink bottled water, I still drink water the usual way.

When I was young, we have not heard of any bottled water. Back then, we drank water from the Railways Department tube well that is supplied to the quarters where we lived and passed through a cloth filter, the traditional way. Later, when my parents moved to downtown Rangoon, we drank municipal supplied water. It was then that my father prepared a sand filter, and we have used it for over 40 years even after we moved again about 20 years ago to the current house where I now live and we use tube well water again as municipal water is unavailable.

When I rowed in the Kandawgyi and Inya lakes, I drank a lot of the lake water, although they contained visible particles. When we travelled, we drank any water available locally, including the water sold at railway stations which are essentially water from the Railways sources. They were sold in pots and everyone bought them. Some bought boiled water.

When I was attending microbiology classes, a teacher taught us methods of water filtration and when he came to the topic of the cloth filter that most used at home, he remarked that its real function is to remove leaves and earthworms. In actual, it removes much smaller particles and most that are visible of course. Sand filters and candle filters were the best available at the time.

When drinking water debuted some time ago, I wondered whether they will make a business in Myanmar as we are a poor underdeveloped country. But I was surprised at the way our people embraced the notion of drinking the bottled water and today, it has become a way of life to drink bottled water in Yangon and while travelling.

Nowadays people buy potable bottled water and bottled water business is booming and it has become a way of life. But most bottled water sold is not up to the Standards. Apart from some tricksters who refilled the used bottles with any tap water, the quality of many 20 liter water bottles are questionable apart from being free of visible particles.

I read that use of clear plastic bottles is only one of the criteria that the bottled water is up to Standard. The source of the water is also very important and whether it has been tested to screen out “all” possible dangerous substances is also an important factor.

Recently, there are a lot of “arsenic” problems found with tube wells in many countries in Asia, including Myanmar. A news about many areas in the Ayeyarwaddy and Bago divisions being affected had come out and it did not include Yangon. Yet the news did not specifically mention the areas that have been tested and found to be arsenic free so I do not know whether Yangon water supply has been tested and proved to be arsenic free.

The Standard Water Test does not include test for Arsenic so we cannot safely assume that even the approved and big selling brands are arsenic free.

The only consolation I have is that I am drinking water as I had for over the past 30 years and so far I and my family do not have any arsenic poisoning features and I do not have to worry whether the bottled water is safe.

Modern day Burmese version of Ramayana and Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)

Modern day Burmese version of Ramayana and Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)

In the modern day Burmese version, a novel of the Ramayana by Chit Oo Nyo ခ်စ္ဦးညိဳ, at the archery contest for the hand of Sita / Thida သီတာ, Lakshmana / LetKhaNa လကၡဏာ and Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)’s turn came ahead of Rama / Yama (ရာမ).

Lakshmana / LetKhaNa လကၡဏာ could lift the bow and was able to string it, but as he was trying, he looked at his brother Rama / Yarma ရာမ and left the stringing of the bow unfinished so that Rama / Yarma ရာမ will gain the hand of Sita / Thida သီတာ.

In Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)’s turn, he looked at Sita / Thida သီတာ as he was lifting the bow. Although he knew he could lift the bow, he saw Sita / Thida သီတာ becoming worried and decided to stop lifting the bow and went off in his chariot. In this version, Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ) is the hero who suffers for his beloved’s happiness.

The Jain Ramayana focus not on Rama but on the genealogy and adventures of Ravana. Ravana is a noble hero fated by his karma to fall for Sita and bring death upon himself, while he is in other texts an overweening demon.

The Jaina texts express the feeling that the Hindus have maligned Ravana and made him into a villain. Here is a set of questions that a Jaina text begins by asking- “How can monkeys vanquish the powerful raksasa warriors like Ravana? How can noble men and Jaina worthies like Ravana eat flesh and drink blood?

King Srenika goes to sage Gautama to have him tell the true story and clear his doubts. Gautama says to him, “I’ll tell you what Jaina wise men say. Ravana is not a demon, he is not a cannibal and a flesh eater. Wrong-thinking poetasters and fools tell these lies.”

Obviously, the Jaina Ramayana of Vimalasuri, called Paumacariya, knows the Valmiki form, and proceeds to correct its errors and Hindu extravagances. Here Ravana is noble, learned, earns all his magical powers and weapons through tapas, and is a devotee of Jaina masters. To please one of them, he even takes a vow that he will not touch any unwilling woman. He is shaken to his roots when he hears from soothsayers that he will meet his end through a woman, Sita. It is such a Ravana who falls in love with Sita’s beauty, abducts her, tries to win her favors in vain, watches himself fall, and finally dies on the battlefield. In these tellings, he is a great man undone by a passion that he has vowed against but that he cannot resist. Ramayana here is a classical tragedy tale of love and passion.

Jaina even rationalize the conception of Ravana as the Ten-headed Demon. When he was born, his mother was given a necklace of nine gems, which she put around his neck. She saw his face reflected in them ninefold and so called him Dasamukha, or the Ten-faced One.

I wonder whether Chit Oo Nyo had his idea of the plot by himself or whether he had known about the Jain Ramayana.

When I was young, I had read a version of Ramayana in English. It is one of the beginner’s English series. It was an Indian version, but I do not know which one. It mentioned the post script, an episode that occured many years after she was rescued and taken back. After some years, Sita was asked by her ladies in waiting what Ravana looked like and she drew an image of Ravana’s face. When Rama saw it, he became very angry and thought of killing her because he thought that Sita had betrayed him. But Sita made a vow and jumped into the fire and was unhurt. This made Rama understand that Sita was blameless and innocent and they lived happily thereafter.

This clearly shows that Ravana was a gentleman who did not take a woman against her wish even when Sita was in his hands for a long time.

Acknowledgement

I am much indebted to Sourav Roy who had commented on my earlier blog “Ramayana / Yarma LetKhaNar ရာမ လကၡဏာ / ရာမ ဇာတ္ Yama Zatdaw”, thereby enabling me to read his blogs:

Too many Ramayanas: http://souravroy.com/?s=too+many+ramayanas

Ramayana, as I see it…

http://souravroy.com/2010/01/21/ramayana-as-i-see-it-part-ii/

and others at: http://souravroy.com/#

Sourav had done a very extensive research on Ramayana epics and has enlightened me much by his blogs, some of the contents I have used here, in addition to the Wikipedia which is my other reference.

Airport security scanner / Backscatter X-ray

I got a forward mail

Fwd: အရပ္ကတို့ေရ…ကယ္ပါဦးေနာ္..ဒီလိုသာဆိုလြယ္ဘူး…လြယ္ဘူး

which shows:

New hand-held airport security scanner on test !!

I got followup mail:

They are doing that at airports now. The equipment is still too big, but might become the size of heart-starts later. But the handler will be exposed to too much X-ray.
I think the only problem is power supply. The portable hospital X-rays are now quite small. The scanners might even be smaller, as they low intensity.
KS

I thought that the attached scanner in the original mail is impossible so I wrote:

but they would not show the skin as in the attached file
how can x-ray cut through clothes only? and get reflected by skin?
even if it do so, how can an X-ray scanner be built into a hand held one?
it will go through skin and tissues too
handlers will see the bones and tissue shadows
it will be good for those meditating
to show that people and animals are just skeletons beneath the skin

Back came KS’s reply:

Po Nyi,
They are now viewing the reflected X-ray, not those that passes through, and can be done with a low intensity.
They can change the intensity to pass the clothes only.
They started using that to detect store-aways inside cargo trucks crossing borders, especially Mexico-US border.
And they are now installed at some but airports in the States, Europe and Asia. That had been in the news for some time. Even with a pic without a face, taken while testing the machine with security people.
And two airport security personal had been given warnings. One teased the other on the size of his dick for days and was beaten bad.
The attachment is a hoax. I had one short vedio that was too big to send to you some months ago, again a hoax.
The equipment is nowhere near hand-held size, but will be, in the near future.
KS

This led me to loop up on the internet and I found interesting things……

Backscatter X-ray is an advanced imaging technology. Traditional X-ray machines detect hard and soft materials by the variation in transmission through the target; in contrast, backscatter X-ray detects the radiation that reflects back from the target. It has potential applications in situations where non-destructive examination is required, and can be used even if only one side of the target is available for examination.

The technology is one of two types of whole body imaging technologies being used to perform security scans of airline passengers. The other technology is the millimeter wave scanner.

In contrast to millimeter wave scanners which create a 3D image, backscatter X-ray scanners will typically only create a 2D image. For airport screening, images are taken from both sides of the human body.^[1]

The technology has been proposed as an alternative to personal searches at airport and other security checkpoints, since it can easily penetrate clothing and reveal concealed weapons; however, it raises privacy concerns in that it appears to screeners essentially as a nude picture of the subject, and may allow screeners to gain access to otherwise confidential medical information, such as the fact a passenger uses a colostomy bag.

It is “possible for backscatter X-raying to produce photo-quality images of what’s going on beneath our clothes”, thus, the system has been designed to distort private areas.^[9] According to the TSA further distortion is used in the Phoenix airport’s trial system where photo-quality images are replaced by chalk outlines.^[10][11] The TSA has also commented^{[citation needed]} that setting up screening procedures such as having the screener viewing the image located far away from the person being screened could be a possibility.

In light of this, some journalists have however expressed concern that this blurring may allow people to carry weapons or certain explosives aboard by attaching the object or substance to their private parts.^[9][12]

Airport admits ‘strip search’ body scanners WILL show people naked

By Richard Shears
Created 10:01 AM on 15th October 2008

• Comments (186)
• Add to My Stories

New ‘strip search’ full body scanners being trialled in Australia will show people’s private parts, officials have admitted.

But to spare their blushes, the faces of passengers will be blurred.

Domestic travellers leaving Melbourne airport over the next six weeks will be asked to test the new security scanners that can see through clothing.

More recent…

• Airport full-body scanners face further delays over fears they breach child porn laws

The X-ray backscatter body scanner has been described by critics as a “virtual  strip search.”

The scanner is similar to one that was trialled at Paddington station in London in 2006 in direct response to the tube bombings in July 2005.

Similar systems have also been tested at Gatwick airport.

The new scanner is designed to show people concealing weapons – but it will show a lot more than that, airport chiefs have admitted

Cheryl Johnson, general manager of the Office of Transport Security, said:’ It will show the private parts of people, but what we’ve decided is that we’re not going to blur those out, because it severely limits the detection  capabilities. ‘

‘It is possible to see genitals and breasts while they’re going  through the machine, though,’ she admitted

However, Ms Johnson said there were a number of measures in place to tackle  concerns about privacy.

“The faces are automatically blurred and … it’s only a chalk-style outline,  it’s not as invasive as some of the other equipment that we’ve got,” she said.

The scanner uses a low energy X-ray to reveal any objects, metal or otherwise,  under a person’s clothing, including body features.

The testing will be  entirely voluntary during the trial,  which is being undertaken to test how the  new scanners would affect the flow of passengers through the security point.

“It does see through clothing, but it’s not a photographic image, it’s a low-energy X-ray that reflects off the skin,” added Ms Johnson.

“The security officer that’s looking at it is located away from the screening lane, so there’s no comparison of the person walking through and the image.

‘The images are not saved, you literally walk through, the screener hits a button to  say clear and the image goes.”

The new scanners will be tested at Melbourne Airport alongside ‘next generation’ baggage X-ray machines that can detect explosives in luggage.

Hand-held scanners that can detect explosives in liquids are also being tested.

Ms Johnson said these were a direct response to an alleged terrorist plot in  2006 to detonate liquid explosives on-board airliners.

She added all the scanners had tested well in laboratory conditions, but  information was needed on how they would impact on passenger amenity.

The trial runs until the end of the November, and the results will be analysed  before the technology is rolled out for real, possibly at domestic and international terminals.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1077800/Airport-admits-strip-search-body-scanners-WILL-people-naked.html##ixzz0qcH67eaf

Ramayana / Yarma LetKhaNar ရာမ လကၡဏာ / ရာမ ဇာတ္ Yama Zatdaw

We all are familiar with the Ramayana / Yarma LetKhaNar ရာမ လကၡဏာ / ရာမ ဇာတ္ Yama Zatdaw and I have known all along that there are Ramayana play festivals in Indonesia where our national cultural troupe participated previously, together with those of the other Asian countries where the Ramayana play is a national epic.

Recently, it has come to my knowledge that the Ramayana text dated from the 3^rd century B.C. although the origin dated much earlier, and is pre Buddha as attested by it being Dasaratha Jataka No. 461.

Ramayana is to India and the SEAsia, what Iliad is to Greeks and the West and Valmiki is the Asian equivalent of Homer. There are many versions in different countries including the modern version of Chit Oo Nyo in which DhaThaGiri / Ravana / Yawana ရာဝဏ / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ) is the hero, rather than the traditional Rama / Yarma / ရာမ.

Yama Zatdaw

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Yama Zatdaw, unofficially Myanmar’s national epic, is the Burmese version of the Ramayana. There are nine known pieces of the Yama Zatdaw in Myanmar. The Burmese name for the story itself is Yamayana, while zatdaw refers to the acted play or being part of jataka tales of Theravada Buddhism.

The Yama Zatdaw was introduced by oral tradition during King Anawratha’s reign although it was not known clearly whether the story was Valmiki’s Sanskrit epic Ramayana or not. In the Nat-hlaung-gyaung, the Visnu temple, within the walls of old city Bagan, there are some stone sculptures, one of them is Ramachandra. Based on Burmese literature, at least, Hanuman has been known in Burma definitely before 1527 AD.

Burmese ramayana was influenced greatly by Ayutthaya Kingdom, during which various Konbaung Dynasty kings invaded the kingdom. The invasions often brought back spoils of war, including elements of Ramakien (Thai version of Ramayana) into the epic. Rama sā-khyan, one of the well known literature in Burma, is believed to be composed in 1775 AD by U Aung Phyo which begins with Bala kanda and ends begins with Bala kanda and ends at Yudha kanda as in Valmiki’s Ramayana. There are also important Burmese literature and classical music related to ramayana which were developed in that era such as Yama-yakan (Rama’s song), Thida-yakan (Sita’s song) in 1784 AD; Yama-pyazat (Ramayana ballet) in 1789 AD; and Ka-lay Yama watthu (Young Rama’s life) in 1800 AD.

Ethnic Mon adaptation of ramayana is known as “Loik Samoing Ram” which was written in 1834 AD by a Buddhist monk named Uttama. It is evident that “Loik Samoing Ram” is mainly derived from Burmese version as the author of the Mon version stated in his preface that due to the popularity of Burmese version in the capital. However, Mon version also exhibits the connections with Thai, Javanese and Malayan versions and has own unique episodes which can not be found in Thai, Burmese or Malayan versions.

Characters

The characters of Yama Zatdaw share the same features and characteristics as those in the original story. However, in acting, the costumes are a mixture of Bamar and Thai elements. The names of the characters, in general, are Burmese transliterations of the Sanskrit names.

Sri Rama is known as Yama (ရာမ).
Sita is known as Thida (မယ်သီတာ).
Lakshmana is known as Lakhana (လက္ခဏ).
Hanuman is known as Hanuman (ဟာနုမန်).
Parashurama is known as Pashu-Yama.
Ravana is known as Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) or Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ).
Vali is known as Bali.
Maricha is known as Marizza.
Vibhishana is known as Bibi-thana (ဘိဘိသန).

Ramayana

The Ramayana (Devanāgarī: रामायण, Rāmāyaṇa) is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being the Mahabharata.^[1] It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king.

The name Ramayana is a tatpurusha compound of Rāma and ayana (“going, advancing”), translating to “Rama‘s Journey“. The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven books (kāṇḍas) and 500 cantos (sargas),^[2] and tells the story of Rama (an incarnation of the Hindu preserver-god Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana. Thematically, the epic explores the tenets of human existence and the concept of dharma.^[3]

Like its epic cousin the Mahābhārata, the Ramayana is not just an ordinary story: it contains the teachings of ancient Hindu sages and presents them in narrative allegory with philosophical and the devotional elements interspersed. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India.

There are other versions of the Ramayana, notably Buddhist (Dasaratha Jataka No. 461) and Jain in India, and also Thai, Lao, Burmese and Malay versions of the tale.

Textuality

Traditionally, the Ramayana is ascribed to Valmiki, regarded as India’s first poet. The Indian tradition is unanimous in its agreement that the poem is the work of a single poet, the sage Valmiki, a contemporary of Rama and a peripheral actor in the epic drama.^[5] The story’s original version in Sanskrit is known as Valmiki Ramayana, dating to approximately the 4th century B.C. According to Hindu tradition, the Ramayana takes place during a period of time known as Treta Yuga.

In its extant form, Valmiki’s Ramayana is an epic poem of some 50,000 lines. The text survives in several thousand partial and complete manuscripts, the oldest of which appears to date from the 11th century A.D. The text has several regional renderings, recensions and subrecensions.

According to literary scholarship, the main body of the Ramayana first appeared as an oral composition somewhere between 750 and 500 BCE. Some cultural evidence (the presence of sati in the Mahabharata but not in the main body of the Ramayana) suggests that the Ramayana predates the Mahabharata.

By tradition, the epic belongs to the Treta Yuga, one of the four eons (yuga) of Hindu chronology. Rama is said to have been born in the Treta Yuga to King Daśaratha in the Ikshvaku vamsa (clan).

The names of the characters (Rama, Sita, Dasharatha, Janaka, Vasishta, Vishwamitra) are all known in Vedic literature such as the Brahmanas which are older than the Valmiki Ramayana. However, nowhere in the surviving Vedic poetry is a story similar to the Ramayana of Valmiki. According to the modern academic view, Brahma, one of the main characters of Ramayana, and Vishnu, who according to Bala Kanda was incarnated as Rama, are not Vedic deities, and come first into prominence with the epics themselves and further during the ‘Puranic’ period of the later 1st millennium CE. There is also a version of Ramayana, known as Ramopakhyana, found in the epic Mahabharata. This version, depicted as a narration to Yudhishtira, does not accord divine characteristics to Rama.

Characters

• Rama is the hero of the tale. Portrayed as the seventh incarnation of the god Vishnu, he is the eldest and favorite son of the King of Ayodhya, Dasharatha, and his wife Kousalya. He is portrayed as the epitome of virtue. Dasharatha is forced by Kaikeyi, one of his wives, to command Rama to relinquish his right to the throne for fourteen years and go into exile.
• Sita is the beloved wife of Rama and the daughter of king Janaka. She is the incarnation of goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu. Sita is portrayed as the epitome of female purity and virtue. She follows her husband into exile and is abducted by Ravana. She is imprisoned on the island of Lanka until Rama rescues her by defeating the demon king Ravana. Later, she gives birth to Lava and Kusha, the heirs of Rama.
• Hanuman is a vanara belonging to the kingdom of Kishkindha. He is portrayed as an incarnation of the god Shiva (the Eleventh Rudra) and an ideal bhakta of Rama. He is born as the son of Kesari, a vanara king, and the goddess Anjana. He plays an important part in locating Sita and in the ensuing battle.
• Lakshmana, the younger brother of Rama, who chose to go into exile with him. He is portrayed as an incarnation of the Shesha, the nāga associated with the god Vishnu. He spends his time protecting Sita and Rama. He is forced to leave Sita, who was deceived by the demon Maricha into believing that Rama was in trouble. Sita is abducted by Ravana upon him leaving her.
• Ravana, a rakshasa, is the king of Lanka. After performing severe penance for ten thousand years he received a boon from the creator-god Brahma that he could not be killed by gods, demons or spirits. He is portrayed as a powerful demon king, who disturbs the penances of Rishis. Vishnu incarnates as the human Rama to defeat him, thus circumventing the boon given by Brahma.
• Dasharatha is the king of Ayodhya and the father of Rama. He has three queens, Kousalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi, and three other sons: Bharata, Lakshmana and Shatrughna. Kaikeyi, Dasharatha’s favourite queen, forces him to make his son Bharata crown prince and send Rama into exile. Dasharatha dies heartbroken after Rama goes into exile.
• Bharata is the son of Dasharatha. When he learns that his mother Kaikeyi had forced Rama into exile and caused Dasharatha to die brokenhearted, he storms out of the palace and goes in search of Rama in the forest. When Rama refuses to return from his exile to assume the throne, Bharata obtains Rama’s sandals and places them on the throne as a gesture that Rama is the true king. Bharata then rules Ayodhya as the regent of Rama for the next fourteen years.
• Shatrughna is the son of Dasharatha and his third wife Queen Sumitra. He is the youngest brother of Rama and also the twin brother of Lakshmana.

Variant versions

The epic story of Ramayana was adopted by several cultures across Asia.

As in many oral epics, multiple versions of the Ramayana survive. In particular, the Ramayana related in North India differs in important respects from that preserved in South India and the rest of South-East Asia. There is an extensive tradition of oral storytelling based on the Ramayana in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia and Maldives. Father Kamil Bulke, author of Ramakatha, has identified over 300 variants of Ramayana.

Southeast Asian versions

The Javanese dance of Ramayana describe Shinta held as prisoner in Alengka palace surrounded by ladies in waiting.

Many other Asian cultures have adapted the Ramayana, resulting in other national epics. Kakawin Ramayana is an old Javanese rendering; Yogesvara Ramayana is attributed to the scribe Yogesvara circa 9th century CE, who was employed in the court of the Sriwijaya. It has 2774 stanzas in manipravala style, a mixture of Sanskrit and Archaic prose Javanese language. The most influential version of the Ramayana is the Ravanavadham of Bhatti, popularly known as Bhattikavya. The Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the original Hindu prototype.

Phra Lak Phra Lam is a Lao language version, whose title comes from Lakshmana and Rama. The story of Lakshmana and Rama is told as the previous life of the Buddha. In Hikayat Seri Rama of Malaysia, Dasharatha is the great-grandson of the Prophet Adam. Ravana receives boons from Allah instead of Brahma. In many Malay language versions, Lakshmana is given greater importance than Rama, whose character is considered somewhat weak.

The Khmer retelling of the tale, the Reamker, is popularly expressed in traditional regional dance theatre.

The Cambodian version of Ramayana, the Reamker, is the most famous story of Khmer Literature since the Funan era. It adapts the Hindu concepts to Buddhist themes and shows the balance of good and evil in the world. The Reamker has several differences from the original Ramayana, including scenes not included in the original and emphasis on Hanuman and Sovanna Maccha, a retelling which influences the Thai and Lao versions. Reamker in Cambodia is not confined to the realm of literature but extends to all Cambodian art forms, such as sculpture, Khmer classical dance, theatre known as Lakhorn Luang (the foundation of the royal ballet), poetry and the mural and bas reliefs seen at the Silver Pagoda and Angkor wat.

Thailand’s popular national epic Ramakien (“Glory of Rama”) is derived from the Hindu epic. In Ramakien, Sita is the daughter of Ravana and Mandodari (T’os’akanth (=Dasakanth) and Mont’o). Vibhisana (P’ip’ek), the astrologer brother of Ravana, predicts calamity from the horoscope of Sita. So Ravana has her thrown into the waters, who, later, is picked by Janaka (Janok). While the main story is identical to that of the Ramayana, many other aspects were transposed into a Thai context, such as the clothes, weapons, topography, and elements of nature, which are described as being Thai in style. It has an expanded role for Hanuman and he is portrayed as a lascivious character. Ramakien can be seen in an elaborate illustration at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Bangkok.

Other Southeast Asian adaptations include Ramakavaca of Bali (Indonesia), Maharadya Lawana and Darangen of Mindanao (Philippines), and the Yama Zatdaw of Myanmar. Aspects of the Chinese epic Journey to the West were also inspired by the Ramayana, particularly the character Sun Wukong, who is believed to have been based on Hanuman

Theological significance

Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is a popular deity worshipped in the Hindu religion. Each year, many devout pilgrims trace his journey through India, halting at each of the holy sites along the way. The poem is not seen as just a literary monument, but serves as an integral part of Hinduism, and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or certain passages of it, is believed by Hindus to free them from sin and bless the reader or listener.

According to Hindu tradition, Rama is an incarnation (Avatar) of the god Vishnu. The main purpose of this incarnation is to demonstrate the righteous path (dharma) for all living creatures on earth.

Arshia Sattar states that the central theme of the Ramayana, as well as the Mahabharata, is respectively Ram’s and Krishna’s hidden divinity and its progressive revelation.

Modern day Burmese version of Ramayana and Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) / Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)

In the modern day Burmese version of the Ramayana by Chit Oo Nyo ခ်စ္ဦးညိဳ,

Lakshmana / LetKhaNa လကၡဏာ and Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) or Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)’s turn came ahead of Rama / Yama (ရာမ).

Lakshmana / LetKhaNa လကၡဏာ could lift the bow and as he tried it he looked at his brother Rama / Yarma ရာမ and left it unlifted so that Rama / Yarma ရာမ will gain the hand of Sita / Thida သီတာ.

In Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) or Datha-giri (ဒသဂီရိ)’s turn, he looked at Sita / Thida သီတာ as he was lifting the bow. Although he knew he could lift the bow, he saw Sita / Thida သီတာ becoming worried and decided to stop lifting the bow and went off. In this version, Ravana / Yawana (ရာ၀ဏ) is the hero who suffers for his love’s happiness.

Suvannabhumi

Thuwunnabhumi /  Suvannabhumi is well known to Myanmars as part of our history and is considered to be Thaton, but its precise location has been attested among historians and scholars, both local and foreign. Thailand and Cambodia claim to be the region where the Theras Sona and Uttara came and preached Buddha’s teachings. Thailand even has its newest airport named Suvannabhumi International Airport and Myanmar has a satellite town on the outskirts of Yangon named Thuwunna during the 60s.

Suvarnabhumi (Sanskrit) or Suvannabhumi (Pali) meaning the “Golden Land” or “Land of Gold”, is a term coined by the ancient Indians which refers broadly to Lower Burma, Lower Thailand, Lower Malay Peninsula, the Sumatra, but more generally accepted to refer more specifically to Lower Burma.^[1] Another term which was used by the ancient Indians is Suvarnadvipa which means the “Golden Peninsula/Island”. Suvarnabhumi may have been used primarily as a vague general designation of an extensive region in Southeast Asia, but, over time, different parts of it came to be designated by the additional epithets of island, peninsula or city.^[2] In contrast the ancient name for the Indian subcontinent is Jambudvipa.

Nomenclature and Etymology

Suvarnabhumi and Suvarnadvipa (Sanskrit). The word Suvarnabhumi may be parsed into Suvarna, meaning “having a beautiful colour”, “glittering”, “golden” and bhumi holding the semantic field: “earth”, “soil”,”territory”,”country”,”land”. Hence, the term “Suvarnabhumi” may be rendered into English as “Golden Land”. For the word Suvarnadvipa, dvipa mean a “land having water on two of its sides”, which can mean “Peninsula” or “Island“. Hence, the term Suvarnadvipa may be rendered into English as “Golden Peninsula” or “Golden Island“.

Origin

The reference to Suvarnabhumi appear in various ancient Indian, Sri Lankan, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Chinese writings. ^[3]. The name appear in the Ramayana text (3rd century BC) in the form of Suvarnadvipa (the Golden Peninsula/Island) or Suvarnabhumi (the Golden Land), which can be assigned with certainty to Southeast Asia.^[4] Ancient Indian texts Arthasashtra of Kautilya (c. 300 BC), mentioned that the Brahmin Sanka sailed from Varanasi to Suvarnabhumi.^[5] Other ancient texts, such as the Kathakosa tells the story of Nagadutta who went to Suvarnabhumi with five hundred ships to conduct a profitable trade.^[6] The first latin geographer who made a reference to a location in Southeast Asia is Pomponius Mela, who refer to the island of gold (Chryse) in his ‘De Chorographia’ (c. 45AD).^[7]

The Greek mathematician and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who worked in Alexandria in the 2nd century A.D. used the name Chryse Chersonesos (Golden Peninsula/Island) to refer to an area which scholar have identified as the Malay Peninsula^[8] and Sumatra.^[9]

While the term Suvarnadvipa (Golden Island) is usually identified with the island of Sumatra, numerous Arab writer have identified the whole Malay archipelago as the location of Suvarnabhumi.^[10]

In an illustrated ancient Nepalese manuscript, a picture is entitled “Suvarnnapure Sri-Vijaya-pure Lokanatha” or (the image of) Lokanatha (AvalokiteSvara) in Sri Vijaya-pura in Suvarnnapura, which refer to the powerful Sri Vijaya kingdom located in Southeast Asia.^[11]

Even as late as the 16th century A.D., it have been recorded that Budhagupta, a Buddhist monk, visited two islands called Suvarnadvipa located in the eastern sea of India. ^[12]

In 1478, King Dhammazedi from the Mon kingdom of Ramannadesa, erected ten stone inscriptions written with Mon and Pali language. The inscriptions stated that his kingdom is also known as Suvannabhumi.^[13][14] The stone inscription is known among scholars as the “Kalyani Sima” or “Kalyani Inscription“. The inscription deal mainly with the the reform undertaken by the king to purify Theravada Buddhism in his kingdom.

According to Tibetan source Dharmapala (7th cent. A. D.) and Dipankara Atisa (11th Century A. D.) have visited Suvarnadvipa.

Suvannabhumi and Buddhism

Suvannabhumi has been mentioned in various Theravada Buddhist text such as Milindapanha, Mahaniddesa and Jatakas. In the Sri Lanka chronicle Mahavamsa (4th Century AD), it stated that after the conclusion of the Third Buddhist Council, two monk Sona and Uttara were sent to Suvannabhumi for missionary activities. ^[15].

The rule of law

Since time immemorial, humans have lived under rules and laws which are made to control undesirable activities and behaviors. But as people like to live in such lifestyle, the rules and laws are broken all the time while many live within its restrictions. Therefore it is said that “Laws are made to be broken”. The rule of Law never really applies unless people agree to its restrictions and unpopular laws are always broken, even if in stealth.