The Wheel-Turner and His House : : Kingship in a Buddhist Ecumene / / Geok Goh.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Goh, Geok,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (250 p.) :; 4 illustrations, 6 maps

The recorded history of precolonial Burmese empire and the modern state of Myanmar starts with the kingdom of Bagan in the eleventh century. The oldest surviving written records and structures are from the reign of King Anawrahta (1044–1077). Anawrahta converted to Theravada Buddhism and created a vibrant Buddhist state in the Irrawaddy River basin. Anawrahta is a folk hero to this day in Myanmar and is widely credited as a charismatic and pious leader who consolidated various ethnic groups throughout the region into a single nation. The Wheel-Turner and His House traces the archaeological and historical record of Anawrahta and his seminal position in forming modern Myanmar, based on the few sources that have been recovered. The Great Chronicle, an important history of the country written by the 18th-century Burmese nobleman U Kala, forms the basis for much of the knowledge we have about Anawrahta today. Geok Yian Goh examines U Kala's work in light of the context of U Kala's own time and points out the bias of his royal court, as well as the scribe's personal views from the elaborate narratives he produced. She looks at other sources as well, including unpublished palm-leaf manuscripts, to disentangle earlier knowledge about Anawrahta and eleventh-century Bagan. Placing the overall study of Burmese historical tradition within the larger manuscript culture of Asia, Goh presents a critique of theoretical issues in history, especially the relationship between the past and memory. In order to analyze the expansion of Anawrahta's historical image that formed the development of a Buddhist ecumene in the eleventh and twelth centuries, Goh utilizes published and unpublished texts in Burmese and classical Chinese, along with northern Thai and Sri Lankan texts, many of which Goh makes available for the first time in English.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Lists of Figures & Maps -- List of Abbreviations -- Note on Transliteration -- Preface -- Introduction -- PART ONE-The Historical Context -- 1-The Genesis of the King -- 2-The King and His Ecumene -- PART TWO-The King in the Story: Orality and Literacy in Myanmar and Southeast Asia -- 3-The Yazawin: Orality and Literacy -- 4-U Kala and the Anawrahta Story -- 5-Makers of Burmese History after U Kala -- PART THREE-Reinventing the King -- 6-The King as Hero: Memory and History in Modern Burma 175 Postscript-The Narrative Comes Full Cycle -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index