How to (Un)make a Chakravarti King: Kingship in U Hpo Hlaing’s Rajadhammasangaha and Bagis Sarma’s Nitilatankur
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
This paper offers a comparative analysis of two 19th century texts of political advice, ethics and kingship composed at the crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, respectively in the Buddhist court of Konbaung Burma and the Hinduized milieu of the Tai-Ahom kingdom of Assam. The first text, Rajadhammasangaha, a treatise on kingship and polity in Burmese, was penned in 1878 by U Hpo Hlaing, a prominent courtier, minister and intellectual in King Mindon’s entourage, purportedly as a guide for the potential reforms and “righteous” kingly conduct in the government of the Kingdom of Burma as a young Thibaw-min, the last Burmese monarch, was just installed on the throne as Mindon’s successor. The second text, Nitilatankur was composed sometime in the first decade of the 19th century by a court poet named Bagis Sarma under the patronage of an Ahom military general. The two texts were embedded and encoded in two interrelated but divergent frameworks of kingship: one, the Buddhist dharmaraja, righteous kingship, and the other, the Brahmanical devaraja, divinised kingship. This study argues that while the Burmese text outlined a revolutionary proposal for devolution of chakravarti kingship into a form of constitutional monarchy and abolition of kingly absolutism drawing on the contractual nature of Buddhist kingship and global constitutionalist ideas, the Assamese text was a classic advice manual for ensuring the sustenance of chakravarti kingship in a Brahmanical polity.
How to Cite
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
kingship; Rajadhammasangaha; Nitilatankur; Buddhism; Hinduism; Konbaung; Ahom; Southern Asia
Primary sources
An Account of Assam (1927), J. P. Wade (com. 1800), Benudhar Sharma (ed.), published by R. Sarmah, North Lakhimpur.
Kamandakiya Nitisara: Or, The Elements of Polity (1896), Kamandaka (com. between 3rd and 7th CE), M. N. Dutt (transl.), Elysium Press, Calcutta.
Nitilatankur (1941), Bagis Sarma (com. around 1800s), Sarat Chandra Goswami (ed.), Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Government of Assam, Guwahati.
Rajadhammasangaha (2004), U Hpo Hlaing (com. 1878), L. E. Bagshawe (transl.), available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/The_Rajadhammasangaha-print.pdf (accessed May 18, 2023).
Secondary sources
Bandeira E. M. (2018), “China and the Political Upheavals in Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia: Non-Western Influences on Constitutional Thinking in Late Imperial China (1893–1911)”, The Journal of Transcultural Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 40–78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.ts.2017.2.23701
Bandeira E. M. (2022), “Creating a Constitutional Absolute Monarchy: Li Jiaju, Dashou, and the Late Qing Interpretations of the Japanese Parliament”, The International History Review, November. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2022.2139282
Banerjee M. (2022), “A Non-Eurocentric Genealogy of Indian Democracy: Tripura in History of Political Thought”, in J. P. Wouters (ed.), Vernacular Politics in Northeast India: Democracy, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 83–110. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192863461.003.0003
Baruah M. (2012), Frontier Cultures: A Social History of Assamese Literature, Routledge, New Delhi.
Bechert H. (1970), “Theravada Buddhist Sangha: Some General Observations on Historical and Political Factors in Its Development”, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 761–778. https://doi.org/10.2307/2943086
Bhuyan S. K. (ed.) (1932), Tungkhungia Buranji or A Chronicle of the Tungkhungia Kings of Assam, Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Assam, Gauhati.
Candier A. (2007), “A norm of Burmese kingship? The concept of Raza-dhamma through five Konbaung period texts”, Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 11, pp. 5–48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2007.0001
Charney M. (2002), “Centralizing Historical Tradition in Precolonial Burma: The Abhiraja/Dhajaraja Myth in Early Konbaung Historical Texts”, South East Asia Research, Vol. 10, Issue 2, pp. 185–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5367/000000002101297053
Cœdès G. (1968), The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, East-West Center Press, Honolulu.
Emmrich C., McQuade J., Aiyar S. and d’Hubert T. (2023), “Towards a Burma-inclusive South Asian Studies: A Roundtable”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 57, Issue 1, pp. 283–320. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X21000718
Fatt U Htin (1979), “Biographical Preface”, in Rajadhammasangaha, U Htin Fatt (ed.), Sape U Publishing House, Yangon, pp. 10–86.
Fillmore C. J. (1982), “Frame Semantics”, in Linguistics in the Morning Calm, Hanshin Publishing Company, Seoul, pp. 111–137.
Frasch T. (2017), “A Pāli Cosmopolis: Sri Lanka and the Theravāda Buddhist Ecumene, c. 500–1500”, in Zoltán Beidermann & Alan Strathern (eds), Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, UCL Press, London, pp. 66–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1qnw8bs.8
Gautam P. K. (2021), “A Comparison of Kamandaka’s Nitisara and Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Statecraft, Diplomacy and Warfare”, Journal of Defence Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 41–67.
Goswami S. K. (2014), “Sva-mahimare Udbhaxita Ekhani Xaru Gaon”, in Xahitya.org, available at: www.xahitya.org (accessed March 25, 2023). (In Assamese).
Graeber D. and Sahlins M. (2017), On Kings, University of Chicago Press, Illinois.
Hengsuwan M. and Prasithrathsint A. (2014), “A Folk Taxonomy of Terms for Ghosts and Spirits in Thai”, Manusya: Journal of Humanities, Vol. 17, Issue 2, pp. 29–49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/26659077-01702003
Herzberger H. G. (1975), “Double Negation in Buddhist Logic”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 3, pp. 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00157329
Huxley A. (2007), “Rajadhamma Confronts Leviathan: Burmese Political Theory in the 1870s”, in Ian Harris (ed.), Buddhism, Power and Political Order, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 26–51.
Kangle R. P. (1960), The Kautilya Arthasāstra, Part I, University of Bombay, Bombay.
Kulke H. (1978), The Devaraja Cult, Transl. by I. W. Mabbett, Issue 108 of Data Paper Series, Southeast Asia Program, Dept. of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell University Commons, available at: https://hdl.handle.net/1813/57575 (accessed May 18, 2023).
Lieberman V. (1984), Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580–1760, Princeton University Press, Princeton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400855858
Leehey J. (2010), Open Secrets, Hidden Meanings: Censorship, Esoteric Power, and Contested Authority in Urban Burma in the 1990s, PhD thesis submitted to Department of Anthropology, University of Washington.
Leider J. (2005), “Specialists for Ritual, Magic, and Devotion: The Court Brahmins (Punna) of the Konbaung Kings (1752–1885)”, Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 159–202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2005.0004
Leider J. (2011), “A Kingship by Merit and Cosmic Investiture: An Investigation into King Alaungmintaya’s Self-Representation”, Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 165–187. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2011.0012
Lieberman V. (1996), “Political Consolidation in Burma Under the Early Konbaung Dynasty 1752–1820”, Journal of Asian History, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 152–168.
Morkevičius V. (2018), Realist Ethics: Just War Traditions as Power Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108235396
Neog M. (1986), Maheswar Neog Racanavali, Bani Mandir, Dibrugarh.
Pollock S. (2006), The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India, University of California Press, Berkeley. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520932029
Prager S. (2003), “The Coming of the ‘Future King’: Burmese Minlaung Expectations Before and During the Second World War”, Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 8, pp. 1–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jbs.2003.0000
Prutsch M. J. (2014), “ ‘Monarchical Constitutionalism’ in Post-Napoleonic Europe: Concept and Practice”, in Kelly L. Grotke & Markus J. Prutsch (eds), Constitutionalism, Legitimacy and Power: Nineteenth-Century Experiences, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 69–83. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723059.003.0004
Rajkhowa B. (1905), Assamese Demonology, Patrika Press, Calcutta.
Skilling P. (2007), “King, Sangha, and Brahmans: Ideology, Ritual and Power in Pre-modern Siam”, in Ian Harris (ed.), Buddhism, Power and Political Order, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 182–215.
Seneviratne H. L. (1987), “Kingship and Polity in Buddhism and Hinduism”, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 147–155. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/006996687021001013
Singh J. P. (1998), “On Nitilatankur: Its Date and Author”, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 59, p. 1073.
Sternbach L. (1974), “On the Influence of Sanskrit Dharma – and Arthasastras upon the Niti Literature of Burma: The Rajadharma in the Lokasara”, in Charudeva Shastri Felicitation Volume, Charu Deva Shastri Felicitation Committee, Delhi, pp. 612–628.
Strathern A. (2019a), Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108753371
Strathern A. (2019b), “Sacred Kingship under King Narai of Ayutthaya: Divinisation and Righteousness”, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 107, Pt. 1, pp. 49–77.
Tambiah S. J. (1976), World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511558184
Vajpeyi R. (1973), “The Term Matsanayaya in the Kautiliya Arthasastra”, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 64–69.
Watanabe Y. (1987), “Concerning the Foreign Policy of King Bodawpaya – a study of kingship in Burma’s Konbaung Dynasty”, Journal of Oriental Researches, Vol. 46, Issue 3.
Yi Yi (1982), “Life at the Burmese Court under the Konbaung Kings”, in Burma Historical Research Department Silver Jubilee Publication, Historical Research Department, Rangoon, pp. 100–147.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.