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Ariya and the Golden Book: A Millenarian Buddhist Sect Among the Karen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
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Millenarian movements provide a dramatic expression of discontent with the present order and an anticipation of its imminent and radical transformation. When they arise within a context of cultural confrontation, in which the limits of an indigenous culture are seen for the first time against the perspective of an advanced—and advancing—civilization, they may at times incorporate within their vision of the millenial condition some of the desirable aspects of that civilization. Indeed, under suitable circumstances movements that begin with chiliastic expectations may end by passing to major involvement with larger societies and the modern world. It is not a common condition, to be sure, and has recently been discounted. “Millenialism,” observes Bellah, “… could contribute only under very special conditions to social innovation, for it was usually a symptom of severe social pathology. Its consequences were often destructive, or the energies it released were quickly rechanneled into traditional forms….”
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References
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74 Dr. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University and at that time president as well of the General Convention of the Baptists, quoted in Judson, p. 466.
75 As Smeaton, p. 199, recognized.
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77 See Aberle, 1966, p. 320 f.
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103 The Free Karen viewpoint has been characterized as “racial-salvationist” (U On Myint, “Inside the Karen State,” The Nation [Rangoon], Sunday, 30 Jan., 1955, p. 8).
104 Carpenter, pp. 11, 14.
105 The title is a loanblend of the Karen phu “grandfather” and Mon caik, which Shorto (1962, P. 93f.) glosses for Mon as “sacred being or thing, Buddha, pagoda, image of Buddha.” The latter also appears in the Karen title, Mu Caik, used for Buddhist monks, and in the Leke term, Pha Caik, “Father God,” applied to Ariya.
106 In similar manner, successors to the office of the chief prophets of the Bwe show initial reluctance to assume the burden of office (Marshall, p. 247).
107 There is worship twice daily before a small household shrine, with a small vase of flowers in central position and lacking an image of the Buddha; there are also weekly public ceremonies.
108 Although it is possible that Marshall's description of ‘traditional’ Karen strictness (e.g. pp. 139, 192, 288) may be drawn from peoples themselves under the impress of millenarian puritanism.
109 In conventional Buddhist cosmology Indra presides over the thirty-three gods dwelling in the Tawatissa heaven atop Mount Meru, which stands in the center of the universe, and leads them against the asuras, who emerge from subterranean cities to assault them. In a higher heaven, the Tusita, Ariya awaits his time. (See de la Vallee Poussin, L., “Cosmogony and Cosmology [Buddhist],” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. Hastings, J., IV [T. and T. Clark, 1911], 134Google Scholar.)
110 These were all that the bu kho himself could name. “The earlier believers,” he asserted, “knew them all. I am a latter elder and am following what they told us.”
111 The Karen name for this deity seems to be drawn through the Mon from the Pāli rukkhajīvo (R. Halliday, A Mon-English Dictionary [Siam Society, 1922], p. 381.).
112 Warren, pp. 324–326.
113 Mason, 1884, p. 21.
114 Carpenter, 1873, p. 10 described “Kya-eng” as at that time the site of the most eastern Karen church in the district.
115 Saw Tha Din, personal communication. I should make it explicit that not only did Saw Tha Din interpret for me when no Thai speaker was available but that he reported to me many of his conversations with the Phu Chaik and other officials. The data garnered in a week's visit to Htimaw have been much enhanced by his contribution, although not instanced at every point in the text.
116 Marin, pp. 17–18. Thra Loo Shwe, “The Karen People of Thailand and Christianity” (M.S., 1962), p. 66. Although the former recorded Ariya as the primary divinity, he did not recognize in him the character of the Coming Buddha. Furnivall, by contrast, had earlier reported the cult of Metteya among the Delta Karen. Some of the features which he notes are shared by the Telakhon sect, in a more general way with several of the bu kho of the Ywa cult, and perhaps with the more orthodox branches of Buddhism as well. (Furnivall, J. H., “Meitteya and Shinmale,” and “Further Notes on Shin-ma-le,” JBRS, IX [Dec., 1919], pp. 158, 159Google Scholar. For Shinmale, see Tin, Pe Maung, “Buddhism in the Inscriptions of Pagan,” JBRS, XXVI [Apr., 1936], 59Google Scholar.)
117 The writer has sought to introduce soybeans as a substitute source of protein that does not contravene religious injunction.
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119 The denominations directly involved have been Baptist and Disciples of Christ. An account of the first visit to Htimaw is contained in Paul S. Dodge, “Two Weeks on an Elephant. Diary of the First Visit to the Telakhon of Thailand, Nov.–Dec, 1962,” reproduced by the Bangkok office of the Church of Christ in Thailand. The same issue includes an autobiographical note by Saw Tha Din, “The Third Call.” See also Tinker, Hugh, The Union of Burma (Oxford, 1957), pp. 37, 397Google Scholar.
120 I use the term in a less technical sense than does Wallace, A. F. C., Culture and Personality (Random House, 1961), pp. 34–39, from whom I have drawn itCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
121 The golden animal seems to correspond to the outtazaungs, often in the form of pretty girls, who guard such treasure in Burmese belief. (See Mendelson, “King of the Weaving Mountain,” p. 233.)
122 Mendelson, “Messianic Buddhist Association,” p. 375.
123 Paul S. Dodge, personal communication, 1966.
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125 Paul S. Dodge, personal communication, 1967.
126 Eggan, Fred, “Social Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Comparison,” Amer. Anthrop. LVI (Oct., 1954), 743–763CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nadel, S. F., “Witchcraft in Four African Societies: An Essay in Comparison,” Amer. Anthrop., LIV (Jan.-Mar., 1952), 18–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
127 To use the term which Geertz, employs in his essay, “The Integrative Revolution,” in Geertz, Clifford, ed., Old Societies and New States (Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar.
128 In this stance, the Telakhon fall into one of two conditions that Bellah, p. 193, sees as unfavorable for the religious encouragement of progress. In depending upon divine intervention to establish the millenial condition, they would appear to enter into the second.
129 Bellah, p. 184.
130 Shepperson, George, “The Comparative Study of Millenarian Movements,” Millenial Dreams in Action, Essays in Comparative Study, ed. Thrupp, Sylvia L., Comparative Studies in Society and History, Suppl. II (1962), p. 45Google Scholar.
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