{"id":101101,"date":"2020-04-13T16:41:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T23:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101101"},"modified":"2020-04-15T15:06:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T22:06:41","slug":"medieval-sri-lanka-and-theravada-buddhism-in-southeast-asia-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/13\/medieval-sri-lanka-and-theravada-buddhism-in-southeast-asia-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"MEDIEVAL SRI LANKA AND THERAVADA BUDDHISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

THAILAND<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thailand had received Sinhala Buddhism by\nthe   6th<\/sup> century at least. A\nMon inscription dated 550-650 AD found in Narai cave in Saraburi province spoke\nof a group of Anuradhapura persons who had settled in Dvaravati.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Gunawardana says, the earliest\nSinhala Buddhist influence  found in\nThailand, was  at Nagara Sri\nDhammaraja,   known thereafter as Ligor and\ntoday as Nakhon Si Thammarat. Vat Phra Borom Mahatit, the main temple at\nNakhon, led in the dissemination of Sri Lanka Theravada  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nakhorn Si Thammarat was strategically located\nbetween the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam, practically in line with Sri Lanka.  It was open to influences from Sri Lanka and\nelsewhere. The port mentioned most in\nconnection with visits to Sri Lanka  is Tran, on the western coast of Nakhorn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gunawardana said that according to the\nchronicles, Nakhorn was founded by king, Dharmasokaraja who was forced to leave\nhis kingdom of Hamsavatti in south Burma due to an epidemic.  Before he founded Nakhom, a delegation of a\nhundred men and four nobles were dispatched by ship to consult the ruler of Sri\nLanka. The Sri Lanka king had approved the idea of the new city, and sent a\nleading monk named Buddhagambhira back with them. Buddhagambhira was going to an already\nBuddhist land, said the chronicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A manuscript from Badalun monastery, speaks of\nthe arrival from Sri Lanka of a monk named Anomadassi who brought along with\nhim sacred relics. The chronicle of Ma\u2019an Nagarasiri Dharmaraja and the\nChronicle of the Holy reliquary of Mo\u2019an Nagarasiri Dharmaraja, discovered at\nNakhorn Si Thammarat, contain material from the Sinhala Dhatuvamsa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dupont (1942) noted that in a number of\nBuddhist images in the Chaiya region of Ligor, dated between 8-12 centuries,\nthe major influence was Sri Lanka.  Researchers\nfound that Phra Boromathat ceti   in\nNakon Pathom, the first Sinhala style stupa, was modeled after Kiri vehera in\nPolonnaruwa. Goonatilake (2007) reported that six other Sinhala style stupas\nbuilt around the same time in the Ligor peninsula were inspired by the Sinhala\nmonks who went there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandrabanu of Ligor invaded Sri Lanka in the\n13 century.  In the Vat Hva Vian\ninscriptions datable to 1230 .Chandrabanu is identified at king Siridhamma of\nDhammarajanagara. Dhammaraja nagara has been identified as Nakhorn and the\nruler has been identified as the Chandrabanu who invaded Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thailand seems to have received some of its Sinhala\nBuddhism from Cambodia.  Some Pali texts\nfrom Sri Lanka, found in Thailand are in the Khmer script. The Noen Sa Busa bilingual inscriptions\nfound in Prachinaburi are partly in Pali and partly in Khmer.   The three verses of the Sinhala  Thelakatahagatha included in it,   were in Khmer script. The Sinhala\nscript   came into use in Thai Buddhism\nonly around 15 century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kings of Northern Thailand , such as King Lu\nThai ( 1317-1347)  of Sukhothai and king\nKilana( (1355-1385) of Chiang Mai, wanted the Sinhala upasampada. They\nrequested Udumbara Mahasami who was living in Muttima in Burma to send a monk\nto perform upasampada. Udumbara sent Sumana thera  , who had received upasampada  under him in Muttima. Sumana thera established\nthe Sihala sect in Sukhothai ,Chiang Mai, and Haripunjaya  (Lamphun). Gunawardana sees this as  the continuation of the forest dwelling\ntradition of Sri Lanka . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to   \nthe   Khmer \u2018inscriptions  of  the\nMango grove\u2019, a religion dignitary who possessed a profound knowledge of  Theravada \nBuddhism ,and had held high ecclesiastical office in his land of Sri\nLanka   arrived at Sukhodaya in 1361\nduring the reign of king  Lu Tai\n(1347-1368). This would have been\nSumana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sumana received a magnificent reception from\nKing Lu Thai. The king had staged a grand spectacle in  honor of the bhikkhu.  King Lu Thai  then studied \nBuddhism under Sumana.  then\nabdicated  and became a monk (or received\ntemporary ordination). The ceremony at the Golden Tower of the palace   where the king received temporary ordination\nwas described in detail in inscriptions, said Goonatilake. Lu Tai  emphasized the centrality of Sri Lanka in the\nBuddhist world, observed Gunawardana. Lu\nThai refers to Anuradhapura\u2019s Ruvanveli  in his work, Traibhumikatha <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jinak\u0101lam\u0101l\u012b, a Chiang Mai chronicle, said\nthat the arrival of the Bhikkhu Sumana \nin Chiang Mai during the rule of king \nKilana ( 1355-85) led to the setting up on a large number of Buddhist\nmonuments and sculpture in that region. This is supported by stone inscriptions\nat Wat Phra Yun in Haripunjaya  written\nin Pali and Thai script. King Kilana built an artificial cava Wat Umong, in\nChiang Mai to house the visiting Sinhala monks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goonatilake  says Si Satha, (Sri Sraddha) a \u2018prince monk\u2019\nfrom Sukhothai spent ten years in Sri Lanka, learning the Dhamma and visiting\nthe major Buddhist sites . He returned in 1344. Gunawardana  \nsays he  came back with the title ‘Sri Lankapradipa’,\nbringing along several bodily relics of the Buddha.  A\nspecial monastery called Vat Mahadhatu was built for him. The royal monk lived\nat Vat Mahadhatu, but maintained a link with the forest dwelling\ntradition.  his preference was to mediate\nin the forest, observed Gunawardana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gunawardana\nsays there was\nevidently a large Sri Lanka  retinue   at Vat Mahadhatu, belonging to the \u2018five groups\u2019 attached to\nthis monastery. In Sri Lanka monasteries, the term \u2018five groups \u2018 refers to\ncarpenters, ironsmiths, weavers, leatherworkers, and barbers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goonatilake\nsays Si Satha, returned\nwith several\ncraftsmen from Gampola. The craftsmen were settled in five  villages in Sukhothai, and they added Sinhala\nstyle motifs of makaras to the Mahathat stupa, the main stupa of Sukhothai. These\nwere based on Lankatilaka temple, which had been built during Sri Sraddha’s\ntime in Sri Lanka . The bell shaped stupas and the standing elephants emerging\nform niches  were also inspired by Lankatilaka\nand Gadaladeniya.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next recorded link with Sri Lanka is in\nthe reign of Paramaraja (1370-1388) of Ayuthya also known as Boromaraja. the\nThai bhikkhu, Dhammakitti  had studied in\nSri Lanka and returned to Ayutthaya to live in a monastery named Lankarama  built for him by  king \nParamaraja. He had received upsampada from Sangharaja Dhammakitti  Mahasami of Gadaladeni. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also mention of Nanagambhira, a\nleading figure in the  Chiang Mai group\nthat went to Sri Lanka in 1424. He was responsible for the vigorous expansion\nof this group in Chiang Mai as well as other placed in Thailand including\nSukhothai, and Haripunjaya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lanna chronicles of Thailand say that King\nTilokaraja (1441 \u2013 1486) of Chiang Mai, had in 1455 planted a bodhi branch\nbrought from Anuradhapura, and built a monastery in Chiang Mai, known as Wat\nSinhalaram, today known as Wat Cedi Cet Yod. Wat\nSihalaram became the first centre of Pali studies in Thailand. The king   had convened the eighth World Tripitaka Council\nthere in 1477. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Tilokaraja was a great patron of the Sihala\nsect. He had invited a Sinhala monk from Lamphun, named Mthangkon, to spend the\nvas at Ratchamonthian temple and given him the title of Phra Maha Swami.  In the time of this king, a general named Sinhalagotta\n(Sinhala clan) rebuilt the shrine called Rajakuta in Chiang Mai and deposited\nin it a sacred relic brought from Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Buddha\nimages from Sri Lanka played an important part in the politics of Thailand and\nLaos.  One was  the Prabhang Buddha of Laos, which has been\ndiscussed earlier.  Thailand eyed it and\ntook it whenever the opportunity arose. \nThere were two other Buddha statues which became politically important,\nthe Sihinga Buddharupa and the Emerald Buddha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the Sihinga Buddarupa\u2019s origins seem to be\nuncertain. It went from Sri Lanka to Thailand. Jinakalamai (1516 AD) refer to a\njoint mission sent to Sri Lanka by Rocaraja (identified as king Rama Khamheng\n1279-1298) of Sukhothai and the king of Nagara Sri Dhammaraja, requesting the Sinhala\nking to send them the Sihinga Buddharupa. this statue was seen as a symbol of\nsovereignty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kings of      the various kingdoms in Thailand, all\nwanted it, and the image went from king to king,   spending time in the various Thai capitals,\nsuch as Ayutthaya,   Chiang Mai and    Sukhothai. Records indicate that it was\ninstalled at Chiang Mai between 1369 and 1371 and treated with great reverence.\nHowever, copies had been made and today there are three images all claiming to\nbe the original. They are in Chiang Mai, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Bangkok, said\nGoonetilaka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third image is the emerald Buddha image, a\nseated image made of green jade. This has been made in Pataliputra, India, then\nit was sent to Sri Lanka for protection, and from there to Thailand at the\nrequest of the Thai king. King Anawrahta of Burma,  had also asked for the     image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the journey,\nit went by mistake to Angkor, Cambodia and had to be rescued.  In Thailand, it went from kingdom to\nkingdom,  form Ayutthaya to  Chiang Mai  which was under Kilana. At one time, it\nwas  in Luang Prabang in Laos. Goonatilake\nobserves that at one point of time, all three images were in Luang Prabang. After\ngoing to and fro,   the Emerald Buddha is\nnow kept in state in Bangkok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinhala Buddhism influenced the Buddhist art\nof Thailand. Ayutthaya has hundreds of the Sinhala stupa. The Bo saplings\nplanted in Thailand and elsewhere were from Sri Lanka. Griswold (1966)\nconcluded that Buddha image brought from Sri Lanka played a crucial role in\nBuddha sculpture in Thailand. The 6 century Buddha image form Khorat is one\nsuch example. Boiseller (1963) also argued that the earliest Southeast Asian\nBuddha images such as those found at Dvaravati were inspired by Anuradhapura .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MYANMAR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The introduction of Buddhism to centers in\nBurma such as Hmawza and Old Prome are dated between 5-8 century AD, said\nGunawardana. Hmawza , deep inside\nBurma,  belonging to the kingdom of\nSrishetra,( 5-7th<\/sup> AD)yielded many inscriptions on\ncaskets, plates and stupa. De Casparis     studied the gold plates from  Hmawza,written in Pali  and  Pyu languages and concluded that the script\nresembled 4th<\/sup> century Sinhala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nresearchers  say that Buddhism  took root in Bagan, the first capital of the\nfuture Burmese state. The Bagan kingdom existed from 9th<\/sup> to 13 century.\nKing Anawrahta (1044-77), sent     a\nrequest to Sri Lanka  for the Tripitaka  commentaries \nand Sri Lanka complied. Sri Lanka refused a request for the Tooth relic\nand instead sent a duplicate of the tooth relic. The Burmese king had made more\nduplicates and enshrined the first in Shwezigon Pagoda. King Kyanzitta ( 1084-1112) revised the Tripitaka\nbased on the Sinhala version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the time\nof King Narapatisithu (1174-1211) and his successors, several large monasteries\ndedicated to Sinhala monks, were built in Bagan. These monasteries are located near the  village of Myinkaba, and the Sinhala monks\nwere known as Tamani sect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pali Inscription\ndated 1271  found in the Tamani complex\ntalks of a mission taken by a Bagan monk to Sri Lanka asking for monks to\npropagate Buddhism. A Burmese\ninscription dated 1197 records the enshrinement of four sacred relics sent by\nking of Sri Lanka . Several stupas  there are in Sinhala style. One complex has\nthree large monasteries near each other. One had two floors and could\naccommodate 100 monks. Another was for samanera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murals\ndepicting Mahavamsa were found in Kubyauk-gyi temple in Myinkaba village. The\ntemple was constructed by son of King Kyanzitha, Prince Rajakumar   in 1113. Major events from Mahavamsa   are recorded such as visits of Buddha to\nisland, Bo tree brought by Sanghamitta, also Dutugemunu, Elara, the justice\nbell and the cow. Text was given below in Mon language . These\npaintings were prominently placed on two long walls, facing each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Manavulu Sandesaya’\nspeaks of a Mahathera Kassapa, resident in Bagan.  The text included a request to come and\npurify the Sangha in Bagan.   Manavulu Sandesaya is a 13th<\/sup>\ncentury text in Pali written by Nagasena thera at Ramba vihara, Sri Lanka. Godakumbura\nhas set this in the reign of King Narapatisithu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Successors of\nking Narapatisithu 1174-1211, patronized the Sinhala monks. Inscription dated\n1233 mentions a Sinhala monk called Buddharamsi as head of a monastery  located near the  Sinbaung monastery where Sinhala monk Ananda\nwas chief priest. Post Bagan period also, Sri Lanka monks continued to be\nrespected. Inscription from Sale, 32 miles from Bagan, dated 1409 says\nmonastery was built for Sinhala monks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large\nnumber of influential Sinhala monks taught at Myanmar. They  \nenjoyed high prestige. Jinakalamali says Udumbara Mahasami from Sri\nLanka arrived in Burma in 1331. He\narrived in Hamsavati ( Pegu in Lower Burma) with 12  Mon monks who had re-ordained in Sri Lanka. This\ngroup of monks, including Chapata,  had\nstudied under  Udumbaragiri fraternity. On\ntheir return they established a centre of the forest dwelling monks at Martaban\n(Muttima, lower Burma.) headed by \u2018Udumbarapuppha Mahasami\u2019. This Udumbara Mahasami\nhas been identified as Sangharaja Medhankara, the author of Lokappadipakasara. His fame attracted the attention of king\nLodaiya and King Kilana of Thailand.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers  say that there would have been a great number\nof Sinhala bhikkhus in Burma to carry out the task of teaching Pali through Sinhala\nscript and help translate  text on a\nlarge scale form Pali to Mon and later to Burmese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King\nDhammazedi who was earlier a Mon bhikkhu, and now king of Bago in Lower Burma\nreceived his education in one of the many Sinhala Sangha monasteries in\nAva.  Kalyani inscription  of Dhammazedi, says Dhammazedi  sent 22 Burmese mahatheras to Sri Lanka , in\n1476  to received upsampada afresh under\nVidagama Mahathera. When they returned King Dhammazedi had the Kalyani sima\ncreated for them. After three years all the monks in Burma, 15,666 of them were\nre-ordained there.  In hundred of\nordination halls. Bhikkhus from lower Burma, Arakan, Ava, Toungoo, Shan,\nSukhothai and Chiang Mai in Thailand, and even Cambodia came and took\nordination again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Minbin (1531-53)\nalso known as Andaw, king of Arakan, now part of Burma had close relations with\nSri Lanka. A replica of the sacred tooth relic was  placed at Andaw stupa during reign of Min\nbin. Many copies of Tripitaka brought\nform Sri Lanka were placed around the most venerated Buddha image there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inscription\nindicates that Mahavamsa and Culavamsa were popular texts in Burma. They were\nin temple libraries.  The libraries also\nheld Anagatavamsa,        Thupawamsa,\nBodhivamsa and their tikas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Burmese\n(Myanmar) chronicles were directly modeled on the Mahavamsa.  The first Burmese chronicle, Yazawinkyaw of\n1520 was based on Dipawansa. Goonatilake says\nthat six-sevenths of the space is allotted to the Mahavamsa. The rest is a list\nof Burmese kings and their works of merit. The\nMaha-ya-zawin-gy, written in 1720, and the Hman-nan-ya-zawin (Glass Palace\nChronicle) written in 1821  were also\nmodeled on the Mahavamsa. The Burmese chronicles\nMahasammatavamsa, Rajavamsa and Sasanavamsa were all directly modeled after the\nMahavamsa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Sri\nLanka lost its own copies of the Mahavamsa and Dipawamsa, the Southeast Asian\ncountries came to the rescue. Oldenburg\nsays that all the copies of Dipawamsa he saw seemed to be copies from a single\nBurmese original.  Turnour says his copy\nwas from an original brought from Thailand, reported GP Malalasekera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myanmar archeological department identified\nover 80 stupas of the Sinhala style, said Goonatilake.  <\/strong>Deputy Director General of\narchaeology, Burma had told Hema Goonatilake that there were over 260 large\nmonuments in Bagan which showed Sinhala influence from 11th<\/sup> to 17\ncentury. The last Sinhala type stupa\nwas Konimhutoau in Sagaing, built in 1648. It was  modeled after the Mahathupa at Anuradhapura. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goonatilake also\nrecords a unique event which took place in modern times.  Vaturegama Dhammadharatissa thera, a Sinhala\nbhikkhu, ordained in Myanmar in 1800, went to Assam which was then under Burma.\nHe was  very popular teacher of Buddhism\nthere.   Assamese king invited him to be\nhis advisor. The king was killed in 1824, when Britain attacked Assam. But\nbefore that, the king had handed over government temporarily to the monk.  The ministers unanimously decided to appoint\nthe thera as king of Assam.   Ven.Vaturegama\npersuaded Assam to settle for peace with Britain, instead of fighting. The  British in gratitude wanted to grant him\nanything he wanted. His wish was to be sent back to Sri Lanka safely. This is related\nby Goonatilake (2018) but no reference is provided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

References are: RALH Gunawardana<\/strong>.  Relations linking Theravada communities of\nSri Lanka and Thailand with special reference to Nakhorn Sri Thammarat. In\nJanaprabha Amaradasa Liyanagamage felicitation volume\u201d. \/ Hema Goonatilake<\/strong>.  Sinhalese\ninfluence on Laos. JRASSL. Vol 53 2007\/ Hema\nGoonatilake<\/strong>, The Mahavamsa illustrated 2018 \/ Hema<\/strong> Goonatilake<\/strong>,\nPresidential address, SLAAS annual sessions 2006\/ Hema Goonatilake<\/strong>.  Buddhist\ntimes. 1(11) march 2003. ( Concluded)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS THAILAND Thailand had received Sinhala Buddhism by the   6th century at least. A Mon inscription dated 550-650 AD found in Narai cave in Saraburi province spoke of a group of Anuradhapura persons who had settled in Dvaravati.  However, Gunawardana says, the earliest Sinhala Buddhist influence  found in Thailand, was  at Nagara Sri Dhammaraja,   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}