¹ Collis, Maurice, Trials in Burma, London, 1938, p. 214.Google Scholar

² Lord Curzon later made the club relinquish the Palace which subsequently came under the care of the Archaeological Survey.

³ The ceremonial raiments included, according to various accounts, the following: (a) ruby earrings or ‘crown of victory’; (b) gem-studded shoes or slippers; (c) gem-encrusted sword or ‘sword of victory’; (d)royal fan or whisk; (e) the white umbrella.

⁴ Warren, C. V., Burmese Interlude, London, 1937, p. 140.Google Scholar

⁵ U, Ba, My Burma, New York, 1959, p. 105.Google Scholar

⁶ Collis, , op. cit., p. 216.Google Scholar

⁷ The New York Times, 28 December 1930.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid., 29 December 1930.

⁹ Ba U, op. cit., p. 109

¹⁰ The Times, 6 January 1931.

¹¹ The New York Times, 30 December 1930.

¹² Ibid., 2 January 1931.

¹³ Ibid., 5 January 1931.

¹⁴ See Document No. 1 in Appendix for the rebel oath.

¹⁵ The practice of tattooing also led to an interesting juridical dilemma. Various tattoo designs were regarded by most Burmans (including some British-educated ones) as effective protection against snake-bite. Since all rebels were tattooed in a certain way, were all tattooed persons to be considered ipso facto guilty? In trials of the rebels, ‘the prosecution asked the Tribunal to presume that all those who were tattooed were rebels, and should therefore be convicted, even though there was no evidence against them’. (Ba U, My Burma, p. 108.) Fortunately for the accused rebels, one of the three presiding judges was Ba U (later President of Burma), who was himself tattooed on his arms and knees. Thus, each alleged offender had to be tried on the basis of available evidence. For rare photographs and excellent illustrations, see ‘Curiosities of the Burmese Rebellion,’ The Illustrated London News, 3 september 1932, pp. 350–1Google Scholar

¹⁶ Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1931–1932, Vol. XII, Cmd. 3900, ‘Report on the Rebellion in Burma up to 3rd May 1931’.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 10.

¹⁸ Warren, , op. cit., p. 149.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Sarkisyanz, E., Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution, The Hague, 1965, pp. 160 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ Smith, D. E., Religion and Politics in Burma, Princeton, 1965, p. 107.Google ScholarWhile substantially correct in this statement, Smith has made a questionable assertion in another respect, as he speaks of the ‘U Ottama–Saya San tradition’ as one of the main trends in Burmese political life: it ‘emphasized the total rejection of western culture, intense and partly violent struggle against the British rulers, the leadership of political monks, and the value complex of Burmese Buddhist race, religion, language and culture as the highest loyalty’ (p. 118). While U Ottama and Saya San were contemporaries, and Saya San was certainly influenced by U Ottama during the early 1920s, I am convinced that the differences in the tactics of these two leaders were more significant than their similarities in concept. This is illustrated in the juxtaposition of Documents Nos. 2 and 3, which express these differences vividly. This valuable distinction is lost in the attempt to express a significant generalization by combining the two as Smith has done.Google Scholar

²¹ Sarkisyanz, , op. cit., p. 164 ff., states vividly, if perhaps somewhat extremely, that ‘Many Burmese politicians of the Educated Class felt their status threatened more by the nativistic upsurge of rural tradition than by the tutelage of their British guardians’.Google Scholar

²² Cady, J. F., A History of Modern Burma, Ithaca, 1960, p. 310.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., p. 233.

²⁴ Collis, , op. cit., p. 221.Google Scholar

²⁵ Furnivall, J. S., Colonial Policy and Practice, Cambridge, 1948, p. 200: ‘just as the native political organization was broken up into villages, so also was the ecclesiastical organization. This allowed the machinery of discipline to decay.… In ecclesiastical as in lay affairs, British law supplanted Burmese custom, the last vestiges of monastic law disappeared, and with them, the only effective machinery for regulating admission to the Order and expelling disreputable members’. It would be a mistake, however, to blame this entirely on the British, as Smith (footnote 19, p. 38), points out: ‘There can be no doubt that Buddhism did decline seriously under foreign rule. It is necessary, however, to distinguish clearly the aspects of that decline attributable to governmental religious policy from the unintentional yet inevitable consequences of the processes of modernization. In the final analysis, the latter were more important than the former’.Google Scholar

²⁶ Sarkisyanz, op. cit., pp. 127–132.Google Scholar

²⁷ Compare the tone of Saya San's appeal with the pronouncement of U Ottama cited in Document No. 3; see also footnote 19.

²⁸ Cady, , op. cit., p. 232.Google Scholar

²⁹ U Saw himself met a violent end, tried and banged in 1947 for his complicity in the assassination of Aung San and his cabinet; the Galon insignia has not been an entirely auspicious one.

³⁰ U, Ba, op. cit.Google Scholar

¹ From Warren, C. V., Burmese Interlude, London, 1937, pp. 92–94Google Scholar.‘Oath Water’ was taken with this oath, giving it greater momentousness by following an ancient South-east Asian tradition. Compare with the Oath of Allegiance to a Khmer Sovereign, Document No. 8 in Benda, and Larkin, , The World of Southeast Asia, New York, 1967.Google Scholar

² Burmese animist spirits.

³ The protective magic of the Galon worked by turning dangerous objects—bullets, spears, etc., into harmless water.

¹ From Dagon Shwe Hmyar (i.e., U Tin), Saya San, Rangoon, Burma Translation Society, n.d. (ca. 1960), pp. 20–21. Letter dates from ca. December 1930. Translated by Mr Paul Bennett, Yale University.Google Scholar

² Sawbwa: title of hereditary ruler of a Shan state.

³ Saya San's title, equivalent to ‘Garuda King’.

⁴ Sutta: teachings of the Buddha.

⁵ Abidhamma: ethical philosophy.

⁶ Vinaya: monastic code of conduct.

⁷ Local nationalist political organizations.

¹ Knowledge, 20 09 1923 (in Burmese).Google Scholar Cited from Von der Mehden, F., Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, Madison, 1963, pp. 213–14.Google Scholar