a fifteenth-century royal monument in burma and the seven stations in buddhist art

A Fifteenth-Century Royal Monument in Burma and the Seven Stations in Buddhist ArtAuthor(s): Donald M. StadtnerSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Mar., 1991), pp. 39-52Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3045777 .

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A Fifteenth-Century Royal Monument in Burma and the Seven Stations in Buddhist Art

Donald M. Stadtner

A group of fifteenth-century monuments in Burma commemorates a special seven- week period associated with the Buddha's Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in India. The layout of the shrines, or stations, was determined by a formal plan that was considered to be a replica of the original temple complex at Bodh Gaya. The adoption of the plan in Burma reflects the process by which a venerated religious site in India and its interpretation were transmitted to Southeast Asia. The royal patronage of the site was motivated by a regional myth that legitimized the foundation of Buddhism in Burma.

The monuments in Burma that are of concern to this study raise broad questions about the very nature of Buddhist art outside its homeland in India. In Southeast Asia, myths arose among the kingdoms of Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka that sought to connect the life of the Buddha with separate regional histories. In Sri Lanka, for example, a tradition asserted that the Buddha flew through the sky to the island and left an impression of his footprints for his devotees to worship. In addition, corporal relics of the Bud- dha were purportedly transmitted from India under special circumstances and venerated in shrines patronized by royalty. The most revered temple in Burma is believed to con- tain hairs of the Buddha that he gave to two merchants at the conclusion of his seven-week residence at Bodh Gaya. Such myths furnished a narrative matrix in which the Bud- dha himself played a major role in establishing the faith in these diverse regions. At the same time, the patronage of monuments associated with these relics provided rulers with the opportunity of protecting and sustaining the faith. The royal sponsor of the monuments in Burma, for example, likened himself to much earlier celebrated rulers in India and Sri Lanka whose encouragement of Buddhism had become legendary.

Buddhists also constructed temples that resembled the sacred temple at Bodh Gaya, which marked the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. Surviving examples occur throughout Southeast Asia and in other Asian countries, such as Nepal and China. Additional shrines at Bodh Gaya commemorated each of the seven weeks that the Buddha spent in residence there, but these were rarely replicated elsewhere. The complex at Pegu in Burma and another in Thailand are the only two for which there is firm evidence, and both belong to the fifteenth century.

Stone inscriptions connected to the shrines in Pegu suggest the importance that was attached to designing the site according to the layout at Bodh Gaya. Indeed, the efficacy of the site was enhanced by its resemblance to the original in India. The few scholarly interpretations of the Pegu temples have argued that the plan was obtained directly from

Bodh Gaya at the time of construction. By the fifteenth century, however, the Bodh Gaya region had been ruled by Muslim dynasties for more than two hundred years, and it is unlikely that the shrines marking all of the stations there were still standing or located in their original positions. A fresh study of the sources for the layout at Pegu reveals not only the changes that occurred at Bodh Gaya over the centuries but the process by which Buddhists abroad determined the appearance of the faith's most important sacred center in India. The ground plan at Pegu did not derive from fifteenth-century India but was based on an influential biography of the Buddha and descriptions of Bodh Gaya compiled by pilgrims from Southeast Asia.

The shrines at Pegu were first noticed in the late nineteenth century, at a time when the English were beginning to explore and document Burma's past. The monuments dedicated to the stations were constructed over a wide area encompassing approximately a square kilometer. The largest shrine, marking the first week, signaled the Buddha's enlightenment. Its central position and its size indicate that it was the principal monument around which the others were oriented. Another station is situated a short distance to the east of the principal temple and is dedicated to the fifth week. Both these monuments are constructed of brick and surrounded by high, brick walls. Apart from a small artificial lake that represents an incident associated with the sixth week, no remains of the other stations have sur- vived. In the vicinity of each station was a large stone inscription whose text provided a summary of the episodes in the life of the Buddha that each shrine commemorated.

The main shrine has been recently cleared of vegetation and is today a subject of worship, but the other standing temple is virtually concealed by dense jungle growth. Since the site's discovery, attention has centered almost entirely on hundreds of terra-cotta plaques that were originally inserted into niches on the faces of the compound walls of the two extant temples. Figures in high relief on the tiles depicted the demons and female temptresses who played a prominent role during the Buddha's residence at Bodh



40 THE ART BULLETIN MARCH 1991 VOLUME LXXIII NUMBER 1

* BodhCaya

INDIA BURMA

SPagn

VIETNAM

Bay of Bengal THAILAND

Indian Ocean 1 Map of principal sites in India and Southeast Asia

Gaya. Many plaques were dispersed long ago into Euro- pean public collections, where they have provided the West with its only tangible knowledge of this Buddhist site.

Occasional notices of the shrines appeared in the annual reports of the Archaeological Survey of Burma published prior to the Second World War. A handful of the site's epigraphs have been edited and translated into English, but the bulk of the inscriptions are available only in a single publication in Burmese.1 Despite the significance of these monuments, no study has adequately described the site or examined the sources of its ground plan.

The entire site commemorating the stations was dedicated in A.D. 1479 during the reign of King Dhammaceti (A.D. 1462-1492). This ruler belonged to an ethnic group known as the Mons, whose political control of Lower Burma reached its apogee during this period. The selection of the stations as a theme has been universally explained as an effort by Dhammaceti to emulate the sacred site of Bodh Gaya, but its choice was also tied directly to the special Mon myth that celebrated the hair relics of the Buddha

given to the two merchants on the last day of the seven- week period. These relics were thought to be enshrined in a monument near Pegu that Dhammaceti had refurbished, a monument that has continued to be venerated as Burma's most sacred shrine.

The Seven Stations at Pegu The seven stations mark the Enlightenment of the Bud-

dha beneath a special tree at Bodh Gaya (Fig. 1) and the immediately succeeding events of his biography. After a week of meditation under the tree, the Buddha achieved enlightenment after defeating the demon Mdra and his army. The Buddha then spent a second week in a "steadfast gaze" at the Tree of Enlightenment. The third week was

occupied in walking from east to west upon a jeweled walk-

way. The gods then created a jeweled house as the Buddha's residence during his fourth week. The fifth week was devoted to sitting beneath a tree belonging to a goatherd named Ajap la. During this week, Mdra's three seductive daughters failed to distract the Buddha from his meditative course. The main event of the sixth week was a snake king's sheltering the Buddha from a storm. The Buddha spent the final week beneath the Rajdyatana tree, enjoying his eman-

cipation from worldly attachments. At the end of the seventh week, on the forty-ninth day, the Buddha granted strands of his hair to two traveling Indian merchants who returned home and enshrined the relics. The merchants, the brothers Tapassu and Bhalluka, are considered to be the

first lay disciples of the Buddha, and the hair relics are

thought to be the first of the Buddha's corporal relics to have become objects of worship. As a token of their devotion, the brothers donated food to the Buddha, who held a special bowl fabricated by the gods.2 The Mons of the fifteenth century maintained that the merchants were from Lower Burma, and that the hair relics are those now in the national shrine in Rangoon. The political power of the

My research in Burma during the fall of 1987 was funded by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution. Additional support was provided by the Uni-

versity Research Institute, The University of Texas at Austin. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Department of Religious Affairs, the Department of Archaeology, and the United States Information Serv- ice in Burma. Colleagues who have shared their insights include Nai Pan Hla, U Myint Aung, Robert Brown, Patricia Herbert, Janice Leoshkho, Senake Bandaranayake, and Chandra Wickramagamage.

I U Chit Thein, ed. and trans., Shei-huang mon kyauk-sa baung-gyok (Collection of Ancient Mon Inscriptions), Rangoon, 1965. 2 This version is contained in the Nidana Katha, a lengthy preface to the J~takas. Of uncertain date, this work in Pali drew upon works that were formulated in the early centuries B.c. For the development of the Buddhist canon, see K.R. Norman, Pali Literature, Wiesbaden, 1983. For a translation of this text, see Rhys Davids.



A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ROYAL MONUMENT IN BURMA AND THE SEVEN STATIONS IN BUDDHIST ART 41

VIC*

VAST S

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CIA

........... lk,

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2 Terra-cotta plaque, Burma, ca. 11th-12th centuries. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Mons was consolidated under Dhammaceti, who initiated work on many religious monuments throughout Lower Burma. The greatest concentration of building occurred in Pegu, the capital, but the largest and most significant shrine was devoted to the hair relics in nearby Rangoon.

All of the seven separate episodes occurred in the vicinity of the Tree of Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The shrine celebrating this event at Bodh Gaya is known today as the

MahTbodhi Temple, and this temple, along with a tree said to derive from the original, has been revered by Buddhists throughout the world as a major pilgrimage center for over two millennia. Apart from the Mahabodhi Temple, the pre- cise locations of the shrines marking the remaining stations at Bodh Gaya cannot be positively identified.

The earliest stratum of Buddhist literature recognized only four weeks surrounding the Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, but this number was later expanded to a total of seven.3 This period of forty-nine days provided a transition between the Buddha's earlier career as a wandering ascetic and his decision to leave Bodh Gaya in order to preach.

The first station, which signified the Enlightenment, was the favorite subject of the Buddhist artists of Southeast Asia. They generally depicted the Buddha in a seated position, often beneath a tree, with his extended right hand touching the earth (Fig. 2). This gesture of his hand indicates his call to the Earth Goddess to affirm his spiritual fitness at the end of the first week. Following this moment, the demon Mira and his army flee in defeat. The remaining six stations are rarely depicted separately. An exception are images of the Buddha protected by the hoods of the snake king Mucalinda, which marked the sixth week. Sculptures portraying this incident are known in the West largely by works from the Khmer kingdom, which was responsible for Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.

Despite the appearance of the stations in many standard biographies of the Buddha, the theme has never been of major importance in Buddhist art.4 Depictions of the episodes, therefore, never gained the widespread currency or stability that marked renderings of other incidents from the Buddha's career, such as his birth, certain miracles, his enlightenment, and death. Even fairly complete narrative cycles of the Buddha's life in Asian art usually omit some or all of the stations and concentrate upon other episodes.5

Works of art portraying all of the stations occasionally appear in Upper Burma at Pagan, a site composed of hundreds of brick temples dating between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (Fig. 1). A unique terra-cotta votive plaque from the Pagan period presents the stations in a horizontal row beneath depictions of the "Eight Great Events" (Fig. 2). The first station is placed in the center,

3The earliest reference is found in the Mahavagga; see T.W. Rhys Davids and H. Oldenberg, trans., Vinaya Texts Translated from the Pali, Oxford, 1881, 73-84. The four Stations are marked by the following: the tree of Enlightenment, Ajapala's tree, Mucalinda's tree, and the Raj-yatana tree. The Nidana Katha retained this order but inserted three stations between the Enlightenment and the Ajapala incident.

4 The theme is unknown in the Buddhist art of India. Gandharan reliefs often depict the Enlightenment (first week), and the presentation of four bowls by directional deities (seventh week). Perhaps the most complete depiction of the stations occurs on the south gateway at Sanchi; see J. Marshall, A Guide to Sanchi, Calcutta, 1955, 56-57. A tree that Marshall identified on this gateway with the former Buddha Vipasyin may, in fact, represent the incident of the Buddha in a "steadfast gaze" at the Bodhi Tree. This episode occurs in a unique relief from Amaravati; see H. Sar-

kar, "The Nagarjunakonda Phase of the Lower Krsn- Valley Art: A Study Based on Epigraphical Data," in F.M. Asher and G.S. Gai, eds., Indian Epigraphy: Its Bearing on the History of Art, New Delhi, 1985, pl. 38. A representation of the jeweled walkway is found at Bharhut, and a number of examples of Mucalinda shielding the Buddha occur in Indian art.

5 The most extensive representation of the biography in Burma is found among the images within the Ananda Temple at Pagan treated in Luce, pls. 278ff. The only stations represented are the "temptation" of the Bud- dha (pl. 297, b) and the Enlightenment (pl. 297, d). Ninth-century imagery at Borobudur, Indonesia, is based upon a Sanskrit text, the Lalitavistara; the seven weeks are treated differently in this text than in the Niddna Katha, but the reliefs concentrate upon the incident of the two merchants that concluded the seventh week. This text makes no mention of the orientation of the stations.




and the others are symmetrically disposed on either side.6 A small group of stone images and mural paintings also prove that the theme of the stations was known at Pagan, but no evidence indicates that the stations as a group were represented by special structures.7 During this early period, the incident of the hair relics and the two Indian merchants, which took place at the conclusion of the seven weeks, was not yet associated with Burma.

After the eclipse of Pagan's prestige in the thirteenth century, no stations in Burma are recorded until the construction of the monuments at Pegu in the fifteenth century. The appearance of the theme does not necessarily represent a revival of a lost tradition, since it would have been kept alive through the study of Buddhist texts. Mon inscriptions and later manuscripts in Burma record an elaborate my- thology establishing a direct link between Lower Burma and the historical Buddha.' At the core of these myths is the presentation of corporal relics of the Buddha to legendary Burmese rulers by the Buddha's disciples. The most venerated were the strands of hair bestowed on the forty- ninth day, which were believed to have been transported by the merchants to the national shrine in Rangoon near Pegu.

Stone inscriptions at Pegu indicate that the complex devoted to the stations was dedicated on a single day during the summer of 1479.9 None of the inscriptions suggests that any of the monuments contained relics, but the theme of the stations was inextricably connected to the hair relics that are featured during the seventh week. Surviving epigraphs in the Mon language refer to only three of the seven stations: the second week - the Buddha's jeweled walkway; the fifth week - the goatherd's tree; and the sixth

week - the sheltering of the Buddha by the snake Mu- calinda who resides in a lake (Fig. 3). Traces of the stations, except the jeweled walkway, exist in the jungle surrounding the central Mahibodhi Temple, which marks the first week.1o The complex probably included all seven monuments, but until the dense vegetation is cleared or more donative records are discovered, this cannot be proved.

The mode of worship at the site is unknown, but the wording of the inscriptions suggests that devotees moved between stations in the proper sequence and paused to read the accompanying epigraphs. It is also unknown if the appearance of each station was modeled upon its brief textual description, such as the "jeweled house" or the "goatherd's tree." The epigraph connected with the jeweled walkway, however, described an actual walkway and two small shrines placed at either end. The goatherd's temple is today a shapeless mound of brick covered by jungle, and the Mah-bodhi shrine, known in modern Burmese as the Shwegugyi Temple, perhaps reflects a number of undoc- umented rebuildings since the fifteenth century. The only surviving works reliably dated to the fifteenth century are the tall brick walls surrounding the central shrine and the goatherd's temple. The inner face of the brick walls retains the niches into which glazed plaques were placed (Fig. 4).

A comparison between the disposition of the extant monuments and Buddhist textual sources reveals that the plan- ners did not haphazardly orient the monuments to the central temple but relied upon a tradition that specified the layout. The inscription at Pegu connected with the sixth week, when the Buddha was sheltered by the snake king, also described the Buddha's preceding week at the goatherd's tree (fifth week) and then his walk to the "southeast"

6 The stations are represented from right to left in the following order: Mucalinda, "steadfast gazing," Ajapala tree, Enlightenment, jeweled house, walkway, and R-jiyatana tree. The correct sequence is maintained

by the pairing of consecutive weeks on either side of the central figure. For the Nidana Katha's role during the Pagan period, see H.L. Shorto, "The Devata- Plaques of the Ananda Basement," in Ba Shin, et al., eds., Essays Offered to G.H. Luce (Artibus Asiae, Suppl., xxii), 1966, 156-165. A painted label associated with a depiction of the steadfast gazing (second week) at Pagan specifically refers to this incident taking place northeast of the Bodhi Tree. This evidence helps to confirm the role of the Nidana Katha or textual traditions based upon it. Curiously, none of the other

inscriptions associated with these illustrations of the seven weeks refers to directions. The reference to the orientation of only one station may imply that there was some disagreement about the true locations of the other stations; see Col. Ba Shin, K.J. Whitbread, G.H. Luce, "Pagan, Wetkyti-in Kubyauk-Gyi, An Early Burmese Temple with Ink-glosses," Artibus Asiae, xxxiii, 3, 1971, 193.

7 The stone images are examined in Luce, 152-153. R. Brown also treated this iconography in P. Pal, ed., Light of Asia, Los Angeles, 1984, 62. See also H. Woodward, "Burmese Sculpture and Indian Painting," in Anand

Krishna, ed., Chavvi-II, Banaras, 1981, 21-24. Wall paintings depicting the stations are discussed in Col. Ba Shin, et al. (as in n. 6), 167-218. The stations appear in a Sri Lankan chronicle in which paintings(?) of the

"events during the seven weeks" were commissioned by a king; see W.

Geiger, trans., The Mahavamsa, London, 1964, 204. A later Burmese chronicle refers to an early cleric who "had drawings made after the li- keness of the great Wisdom Tree and the seven sites," which he took to Sri Lanka; see Pe Maung Tin and G.H. Luce, The Glass Palace Chronicle,

London, 1923, 47. 8 A list of Mon epigraphs is found in H.L. Shorto, A Dictionary of Mon

Inscriptions, London, 1971, xxx-xxxii. Most of the inscriptions have been translated into Burmese in U Chit Thein (as in n. 1). Translations into

English of these records were prepared for me by Nai Pan Hla, who worked from transliterations compiled by Luce and Blagden. For an overview of Mon monuments in Pegu, see D. Stadtner, "King Dhammaceti's Pegu," Orientations, xxi, 2, 53-60.

9 The only firmly dated record at the site is the Mucalinda inscription established on the fifth day of the waning half of the month of As-lha

(June-July) in 841 of the Burmese Era, or A.D. 1479. The Burmese Era

began in A.D. 638. The inscription was first edited in Report of the Su-

perintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1938-1939, Rangoon, 1939, 22-24. The inscriptions associated with the Ajapala temple and the

jeweled walkway were translated in Bladgen, I, 1-19. The latter inscription bears no date, but the former was dedicated on the same day as the Mu- calinda epigraph (the year is effaced). Thirteen immense stones bearing a weathered epigraph in Mon and Burmese are situated outside the com-

pound walls of the Shwegugyi Temple on the east. This untranslated record is probably the major foundation grant of the site.

10 The plan reproduced in this article is based upon the only drawing of

the site; see Report of the Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1914, Rangoon, 1915, pl. ii. The scale of the Mucalinda Lake and its distance from the two temples are approximate, since the lake was not

included in the plan published in 1914 and has never been properly sur-

veyed. That the chief temple is somewhat misaligned in relation to the

compound walls is probably another indication of its successive rebuilding.




Scale: One inch equals 30.5 meters

GOATHERDERS' TEMPLE

MAHABODHI TEMPLE

MUCALINDA LAKE

3 Plan of the Seven Stations, Pegu

71:7

,TA,

4 Compound wall, Shwegugyi Temple, Pegu (courtesy Department of Archaeology, neg. no. 1913-14/1236)

of the Mah-bodhi shrine to a special tree beside the lake.11 This inscription is located near the bank of a large artificial pond whose actual orientation conforms to its location specified in the epigraph (Fig. 3). That the placement of this lake is mentioned in the record indicates the significance attached to planning the shrines according to a formal, predetermined layout, which was understood to emulate the original site at Bodh Gaya, India.

The few previous interpretations of the Pegu monuments have claimed that the layout was obtained from a special mission that Dhammaceti sent to Bodh Gaya. But this belief is based upon two sixteenth-century manuscripts in Burma that provide only general descriptions of such a mission. No reference is made to the stations or a special layout at Bodh Gaya. Each manuscript also differs in its account of the mission, and the dates of the mission do not correspond.12 Nevertheless, this connection between Dhamma- ceti's kingdom and Bodh Gaya was considered the most plausible motivation for the Pegu complex and its special layout. Such interpretations also rested on the improbable assumption that all of the stations at Bodh Gaya were extant at the time of the mission, and that their positions were identical to those at Pegu.

None of the dozens of inscriptions from Pegu or Lower Burma during the second half of the fifteenth century refers to a mission to India. Such a mission would have been a source of great merit and pride, and there were ample epi- graphic opportunities for the Mons to express a direct link with the Buddhist homeland. In addition, the Bodh Gaya region was firmly under Muslim control beginning in the fourteenth century, and Buddhism within India during this period was a faith practiced only by a small minority. Moreover, it has long been recognized that the Buddhist kingdoms in Burma and Thailand had turned to Sri Lanka for religious guidance where a "purer" form of Buddhist practice and belief was thought to exist."13 Dhammaceti may have indeed sent a mission to Bodh Gaya, but the motivation and plan for the monuments in Pegu emerged from more complex sources.

Dhammaceti's patronage at Pegu was connected to his active role in rejuvenating a Buddhist community that was characterized by laxity, corruption, and religious schisms, as described in detail in a lengthy inscription at Pegu.14 The solution, the king reasoned, was to unite the clergy under an umbrella of orthodoxy imported from Sri Lanka. Three

11 The Pali word for southeast ("agnay") was adopted; see Report, 1938- 1939 (as in n. 9), 23. 12 The fullest exploration of the Indian mission is in A. Griswold, "The

Holy Land Transported," in N.A. Jayawickrama, ed., Paranavitana Fel- icitation Volume, Colombo, 1955, 173-225. Griswold did not visit Pegu, and therefore relied upon the plan published in 1914, which did not include the Mucalinda Lake. Moreover, he mistook many of the newer shrines noted on the plan for stations. G.H. Luce also proposed an Indian

origin for the layout at Pegu in an address delivered to a Mon cultural conference held in Moulmein, February, 1955. For a typewritten copy of this unpublished lecture, I wish to thank Nai Pan Hla.

13 W.M. Sirisena, Sri Lanka and South-EastAsia, Leiden, 1978. The strong ties between Burma and Sri Lanka began in the Pagan period, if not earlier.

14 The inscription, in Pali and Middle Mon, is engraved on ten stones located approximately eleven kilometers north of the complex dedicated to the stations. The Pali section was translated in Taw Sein-Ko, "A Pre-

liminary Study of the Kalyani Inscriptions of Dhammacheti, 1476 A.D.," Indian Antiquary, xxii, 1893, 11-17, 29-53, 85-89, 150-159, 206-213, 236- 243. The longer Mon portion is translated in Blagden, III, 2, 75-290. The Buddhist division in Sri Lanka was known as the Mahavih-ra (literally, "Great Monastery"), whose headquarters were located on the bank of the

Kalyani River.




Jeweled House Steadfast Gazing

Jeweled Walkway

MAHABODHI TEMPLE 5 Layout according to the Nid-ana Katha

Jeweled House Jeweled Walkway Steadfast Gazing

MAHABODHI TEMPLE Goatherder's Tree

Rajayatana Tree Mucalinda Lake 6 Layout according to Burmese manuscript

years before the dedication of the stations in Pegu, therefore, forty-four Mon clerics sailed to Sri Lanka in order to obtain fresh ordinations at the chief monastery in Colombo on the bank of the

Kalynii River. The same epigraph in

Pegu that documented the purpose of this mission recorded the establishment of a special ordination hall in Pegu named after the Kalyani River and other halls throughout Lower Burma in which new ordinations were performed. A parallel dependence on Sri Lanka occurred in Thailand during the same century. In both countries, for example, replicas of the Bodhi Tree were established that were associated di-

rectly with Sri Lanka.15 Dhammaceti's moral revival of the Buddhist community

also included the celebration of relics that were uniquely tied to the establishment of Buddhism in Lower Burma. The foremost were the strands of hair presented to the merchants shortly after the Enlightenment, which were preserved in the Shwedagon shrine in Rangoon. Others were six hairs given to hermits, and a single tooth said to have

multiplied itself thirty-three times.16 The theme behind the

legendary history of each of these relics was the direct connection between the historical Buddha and the Mon realm. Such relics enhanced the sanctity of the monuments constructed in their honor, but they also legitimized the very foundation of Buddhism in Burma. Later Mon chronicles

argued for the primacy of the Shwedagon hair relics on the grounds that they were the first relics of the Buddha placed under worship.17 The theme of the stations and the hair relics therefore assumed a special meaning for Burma during this era.

Textual Sources for the Seven Stations Previous interpretations that connected the layout of the

stations with Dhammaceti's purported mission to Bodh Gaya overlooked the role of an influential biography of the Buddha that specified a partial plan of the stations at Bodh Gaya. The brief descriptions in this text, the Nidana

Kath-i, were probably based on a now lost cluster of shrines at Bodh Gaya itself, whose foundation probably dated to the early centuries B.c.18 This work noted all of the stations, but provided the locations of only the first four: the first week - the Mahdbodhi Temple, center of the complex; the second week - the "steadfast gazing" at the tree, northeast of the Mahabodhi Temple; the third week - the walk on the jeweled walkway, between the "steadfast gazing" and the Mahdbodhi Temple; and the fourth week - the residence in the jeweled house northwest of the Mahibodhi Temple (Fig. 5).

That the inscriptions at Pegu and later Mon and Burmese versions of the Buddha's life essentially adhere to the Nidana Kath- is an important reason for believing that this text provided at least a partial layout for the Pegu monuments. A standard Burmese biography of the Buddha dated to the eighteenth century follows the Nidana Katha in the location of the first four stations but exceeds the earlier text by furnishing the orientations of the last three stations.19 They were fixed in the following order: first week - defeat of Mdra and Enlightenment, the Mahdbodhi Tem- ple in the center; second week - "steadfast gazing," northeast of the Mahabodhi Temple; third week - the jeweled walkway, north of the MahIbodhi Temple; fourth week - the jeweled house, northwest of the Mahdbodhi Temple; fifth week - the goatherd's tree and temptresses, east of the Mahibodhi Temple; sixth week - the snake king and lake, southeast of the Mahibodhi Temple; and seventh week - the Rajdyatana tree, the two merchants and hair relics, south of the Mahabodhi Temple (Fig. 6).

The orientation of the surviving monuments in Pegu conforms completely to the plan specified in this eighteenth- century text. An identical layout has been noted for a missing group of seven shrines in Chiengmai, Thailand, that

15 Blagden, 278-280. In this inscription from Pegu, the actual origin of the tree is unstated, but it was called the "Kalyani Bodhi." In Chiengmai, the

principal Bodhi tree was thought to originate from a seed that derived from Sri Lanka, which was traced back in turn to the original tree in India; see N.A. Jayawickrama, trans., Epochs of the Conqueror, Being a Trans- lation of the Jinakamalipakarnari, London, 1968, 66ff and 139. 16 The most important legends are discussed in H.L. Shorto, "The Ga-

vampati Tradition in Burma," in R. C. Majumdar Felicitation Volume, ed. H.B. Sarkar, Calcutta, 1970, 15-30. 17 R. Halliday, "Slapat Raj-wan Datow Smin Ron," Journal of the Burma Research Society, xiii, 1923, pt. 1, 1-67. 18 See n. 2. In the Pali text, each shrine is referred to as a diigaba.

19 This text, Tathagatha-oudana, was translated in P. Bigandet, The Life or Legend of Gaudama, London, 1914. The section pertaining to the stations is contained in chapter v. Burmese nature spirits or nats play a significant role in the text. The worship of the nats was probably important in early Pegu, since a 16th-century Mon manuscript refers to syncretic shrines at all of the major Buddhist monuments in Lower Burma, including those at the Shwegugyi and Ajapdla shrines; see H.L. Shorto, "The De- watau Sotopan: A Mon Prototype of the 37 Nats," Bulletin of the School

of Oriental and African Studies, xxx, 1967, 128-129. That none of the Mon inscriptions refer to the nats suggests an attempt to adhere to Bud- dhist orthodoxy.




+* Steadfast Gazing N

SJeweled Walkway

* Jeweled House * Mara's Defeat

MAHABODHI TEMPLE

* Goatherders' Tree * Mucalinda Lake

7 Plan of Bodh Gaya according to Chinese pilgrim

was built during the same century as the Pegu monuments.20 This evidence suggests that a standard layout had emerged by the fifteenth century, at least in Burma and neighboring Thailand. This plan has endured into modern times, since two recently constructed shrines at Pegu, the jeweled walkway and jeweled house, were built in locations conforming to this layout.

The genesis of the standard plan owed much to the Nidlna Kath-, since this text furnished at least a partial layout (the first four stations). At Bodh Gaya itself, the stations probably shifted in location over the centuries, and these changes, reflected in pilgrims' descriptions compiled at different times, explain the orientation of the last three stations of the plan found in Pegu and Chiengmai, and the occasional references to the orientations of the stations in Buddhist texts.

The Indian Origin of the Seven Stations No descriptions of Bodh Gaya during the fourteenth or

fifteenth century survive, but two much earlier sources fur- nish information for the reconstruction of the monuments at the site. The earliest is a fifth-century Chinese pilgrim's record of a journey to India that included a list of all of the stations at the Mahdbodhi Temple.21 The orientation of the shrines is not mentioned, but this reference confirms

that all seven stations cited in the Nidana Kath- were ac- tually constructed at the site. A fuller account of Bodh Gaya is found in a seventh-century Chinese pilgrim's record, the

only source containing specific orientations for each of the stations in relation to the central Mah bodhi Temple (Fig. 7). The stations were counted among a number of other monuments and were not described as a distinct group of temples.22 Some were marked by special images wor- shipped within monasteries, while others were noted by distinct shrines. Distances between the stations were unstated, and therefore the scale of any reconstruction must be approximate. That this Chinese description deviated to a certain extent from the earlier Nidana Katha implies that the locations of some of the stations had already changed somewhat by the seventh century (Figs. 5, 7).

A comparison between the seventh-century description of Bodh Gaya, the later standard plan in Southeast Asia, and the few Buddhist textual references to the stations reveals the shifts in location that individual shrines under- went during the Pala period (ca. A.D. 750-1300). Apart from the Nidana Katha, the only early Pali work to include a description of the stations is a commentary on the Udana, which has been assigned to the sixth century. The locations of the stations in this commentary agree with the Nidana Kath-a; the single exception is the jeweled house (fourth

20 E.W. Hutchinson, "The Seven Spires: A Sanctuary of the Sacred Fig Tree at Chiengmai," Journal of the Siam Society, xxxix, 1951, 43. The orientations of the shrines read by Hutchinson were corrected by Gris- wold, 214. The central temple, known as Wat Chet Yot, survives from the 15th century, although none of the surrounding ruinous structures said to be stations can be positively identified. The same complex is described in less detail in a 16th-century Thai chronicle that recorded the construction in the mid-15th century of "seven hallowed spots"; see N.A. Jayawickrama, trans. (as in n. 15), 139.

21 J. Legge, trans., A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Oxford, 1886, 88- 89. The small shrines around the central temple in the famous Kumrahar plaque may represent one or more of the stations. 22 S. Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, Lon- don, 1869, 113-137. The plan reproduced in this article is in part based upon A. Cunningham, Mahabodhi: or the Great Buddhist Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya, London, 1892, pl. xviII.




week), which is located to the west of the central shrine.23 That the seventh-century Chinese pilgrim also placed the fourth station in the same position should not be considered coincidental (Fig. 7). Such a correspondence suggests that this Pali commentary drew upon a description of the site at some stage of its evolution.

Two eighteenth-century texts from Burma and Sri Lanka also provided directions for the stations. The Burmese source largely follows the Nidana Kath-a (Figs. 5, 6) and is in complete agreement with the description of the layout at Chiengmai referred to above. The locations of the stations in the Sinhalese text correspond to the Burmese account.24 An important exception is the location of the goatherd's tree (fifth week), which in the Sinhalese source is located in the southwest; in all of the other texts and at Pegu, this station is positioned in the east. This location in the southwest, however, conforms to the Chinese pilgrim's account in the seventh century, suggesting that this late Sinhalese text preserved a tradition that was at least par- tially based on a much earlier description of the original site (Fig. 7). Such examples indicate not only the shifts in the positions of the stations that took place following the seventh century, but the way in which these alterations at Bodh Gaya were noted by Buddhist pilgrims from abroad and conserved in traditions that differed slightly from one another.

Although the Nidana Kath-a furnished the locations of only the first four stations, it provided a convincing textual basis for these later texts and the monuments at Pegu and Chiengmai. Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia were probably more comfortable relying upon a textual source for the plan, perhaps realizing that shifts in location had occurred at Bodh Gaya. Inasmuch as the Nidina Kath-a specified the orientation of only the first four stations, first- hand information on the positions of the last three stations probably informed other later traditions. The correspondence between the late Sinhalese version and the Chinese account of the site is a strong argument for this conjecture. Pilgrims' descriptions of Bodh Gaya were therefore incor- porated into written traditions that remained unaltered, de-

spite the changing layout at Bodh Gaya. The complex at Pegu and Chiengmai are the only sur-

viving "replicas" of Bodh Gaya that certainly included the stations, but it would not be surprising if future fieldwork uncovered additional examples in Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, and even within India. The later textual sources may have been based on such lost monuments that were thought to be correct renditions of the sacred site. The eighteenth-century Burmese and Sinhalese versions were indeed likely descriptions of local monuments, since specific distances between the stations and the central temple were provided. The distances in both examples are different, which suggests that while the correct disposition of the stations was important, the scale was determined with great flexibility. The first four stations in these two sources, however, were planned in proximity to one another, but the last three were at some distance from the central cluster.25 At Pegu, for example, the missing shrines marking the "steadfast gazing," the jeweled walkway, and the jeweled house were probably constructed within the large area defined by the compound walls for the central temple (Fig. 3).

Miniature replicas of the entire original site in India may have also furnished models for Buddhists unable to visit Bodh Gaya itself. Two such undated examples survive in Tibet, in wood and stone, but the numerous, separately fashioned pieces have probably been shifted from their original positions over the centuries.26 Moreover, the small temples and st-ipas that make up these replicas cannot be identified as stations.

Temples evoking the central shrine at Bodh Gaya have been constructed from time to time throughout the Bud- dhist world. Important examples occur in Beijing in China, Patan in Nepal, Chieng Rai in Thailand, and at Pagan, but there is no evidence that they were accompanied by shrines to commemorate the stations.27

Buddhists today at Bodh Gaya identify all of the stations at the site, except the Rdjdyatana tree and the goatherd's shrine. The only correspondence with the layout recorded in the texts and the Chinese account is the orientation of the "steadfast gazing" (northeast) and the jeweled walkway

23 FL. Woodward, ed., Udanatthakatha, London, 1977, 51-52. No directions are provided for the Mucalinda and Rayayatana trees.

24 Bigandet (as in n. 19). For the Sri Lankan text, see 0. Dhammajoti, ed., Sarvagfiagun--lank-iraya, Alutgama, 1936, 190-208. The relevant por- tions of this source were provided to me by Chandra Wickramagamage. A second Burmese text from the 18th century, Ma-la lin-ga-ra wut-htut, located the steadfast gazing in the north and the jeweled house in the west; for a translation of this passage, I am grateful to Patricia Herbert. Both these positions conform to the Chinese pilgrim's account, and the location of the jeweled house is the same as that contained in the Pali commentary (as in n. 23). The orientation of these two stations differs from that found in the text translated by Bigandet, suggesting that versions of the stations varied slightly within the same region during the same general period. 25 Such proximity is suggested in the texts that supply distances between the stations and the central temple. See also the wording in the Ajapala temple inscription in Blagden (as in n. 8), and in Bigandet (as in n. 18). Luce (as in n. 11) recorded an inscription found "two furlongs" south of

the Shwegugyi temple, which marked a shrine symbolizing the Raj-yatana tree. This inscription was never edited, and its whereabouts are unknown. The proximity of the first four stations is a tradition that probably began in the Nida-na Katha- (as in n. 2), 201. 26 C.E.A.W. Oldham, "Some Remarks on the Models of the Bodh Gaya Temple Found at Nar-thang," Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research

Society, xxIII, 4, 1937, 418-428. Illustrations of both models are found, however, in Rahula Sankrityayana, "Second Search of Palm-leaf Man-

uscripts in Tibet," Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, xxiii, 1, 1937, 1-57, facing p. 17. More than a dozen small shrines in the shapes of st-ipas surround the central temple in these two nearly identical models, but the individual pieces must have been shifted over the centuries. See also B. Rowland, "A Miniature Replica of the Mahabodhi Temple," Jour- nal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, vi, 1, 1938, 75-77, and P. Myer, "The Great Temple at Bodh-Gaya," Art Bulletin, XL, 1958, 277-298. 27 These other Asian examples are discussed in Griswold, 209-213.




(north). That these same positions are found in the influential Nidana Katha is perhaps one more indication of the importance of this text.28

The inscriptions at Pegu are silent concerning any specific sources of the plan, but the correct orientation of the stations played an important role for the Mons in enhanc- ing the resemblance of the site to the original in India. The epigraph noted above that refers to the "southeasterly" direction of the lake at Pegu is ample evidence that the nature of the layout itself was significant. Dhammaceti's mission to Sri Lanka may have observed a temple complex there devoted to the stations, but no firm evidence suggests that any such monuments were constructed in the Buddhist world before those at Pegu and Chiengmai. Thus the plan adopted at Pegu was probably based on a combination of sources drawn from the Nidaina Katha and records compiled during the Pala period by Buddhist pilgrims from abroad. Lost texts from Sri Lanka may have informed the layout in fifteenth-century Burma and Thailand, since Sin- halese Buddhism exerted a tremendous influence on these two countries during the fifteenth century.

Illustrations featuring the stations are contained in biographies of the Buddha from Burma that are dated no earlier than the eighteenth century. The ordering of the seven weeks is consistent with the Nid~na Katha and is designed to be read from left to right in a narrative fashion typical of a certain type of Burmese manuscript. A seated Buddha receiving the two kneeling merchants on the forty-ninth day after the Enlightenment depicts the seventh station (Fig. 9).29 Since the stations are not part of the normal repertoire of Buddhist themes, the symbolic hand gestures assumed by the Buddha find no parallel with standard depictions. The manuscript in Thailand describing the stations also provided brief descriptions of the postures and hand ges-

tures assumed by the Buddha during each week, but only a few correspond to the Burmese illustrations. The seven weeks featured on a later book cover from Sri Lanka adhere to the order of the Nidana Kath-d, but few of the postures or hand gestures match the examples from Thailand and Burma (Figs. 8, 9).30 Such deviations suggest that whereas the ordering of the events and the layout of the shrines became conventionalized, little agreement existed for the depiction of the Buddha at each of the stations.

Demons and Temptresses The most important remains from this entire period at

Pegu are a great number of glazed terra-cotta plaques that once belonged to the compound walls of the central temple and the goatherd's shrine. The figures on the tiles depict the army of the demon Mdra and his three seductive daughters, who are allegories of Lust, Passion, and Thirst. Rep- resenting attachment to worldly desires, Mdra and the three sisters symbolize for Buddhists an ever-present challenge in overcoming sensual and emotional bonds. In the later Burmese tradition borrowed from the Nidana Kath-, the demons and daughters appear during the first and fifth weeks respectively.31 The demon plaques were therefore inserted into two rows of parallel niches in all four walls surrounding the Mahdbodhi Temple, while the females were placed within niches in the walls of the goatherd's temple, associated with the fifth week (Figs. 3, 4).

The sparse documentation at the time of their discovery in the late nineteenth century suggests that the total number of surviving plaques was between two and three hundred. At least two hundred tiles were transferred to the old Phayre Museum in Rangoon in the early part of this century, but some of these were perhaps destroyed during the Japanese occupation. Approximately fifty plaques are under the care

28 J.C. Huntington, "Sowing the Seeds of the Lotus: A Journey to the Great Pilgrimage Sites of Buddhism, Part I," Orientations, xvi, 2, 1985, 61. 29 The British Library, OR. 14297. Captions beneath the illustrations refer to the location of only one station, the R-jiyatana, positioned in the south.

30 This Sinhalese work is illustrated in Pal (as in n. 7), 266-269. The episode of the Buddha's pacing on a jeweled walkway shows him twice (upper right-hand side). The episodes of the jeweled walkway and the steadfast gazing are sometimes represented in late Thai mural painting,

notably at Wat Ko Kaeo Suttharam in Phetburi. At least one surviving Sri Lankan wall painting from the same century at Ridi Viharaya, Matale District, contains a depiction of the steadfast gazing. 31 In one Sanskrit version, the Mah-vastu, the daughters appear in the third week while the Buddha is upon the jeweled walkway; see J.J. Jones, trans., The Mahaivastu, III, London, 1956, 269-274. In another Sanskrit text, the Buddhacarita, the daughters appear with Mira at the Bodhi Tree; see E.B. Cowell, et al., trans., Buddhist Mahayana Texts, Oxford, 1894, 160-163.




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of the Department of Archaeology in Burma, while an approximately equal number were dispersed long ago into public collections in the West.32

Two distinct groups of demon plaques prove that a limited narrative sequence was planned. In one group, the demons are marching in pairs and preparing for battle (Fig. 10). All of the figures are animal-headed with human bodies. A number of plaques bear short, incised Mon legends across their tops, which identify the types of animals and often their weapons. The faces of the creatures are normally turned to the right. In rare examples, the demons are joined in action (Fig. 11). No single figure seems to represent the leader of the demons, M-ra, who was said to ride upon a special elephant. The Pegu plaques resemble in a general fashion the well-known M-ra series contained on tiles belonging to the plinth of the Ananda Temple at Pa- gan. All of the Pagan plaques bear early Mon inscriptions

32 The earliest notice of the plaques is in Taw Sein-Ko, "Notes on an Ar- chaeological Tour through Ramannadesa," Indian Antiquary, xxi, 1892, 377-86. The next reference is in R.C. Temple, "Notes on Antiquities in Ramannadesa," Indian Antiquary, xxII, 1893, 327-366. Temple, unlike Taw Sein-Ko, did not visit Pegu, but he illustrated a number of plaques that were preserved in the Phayre Museum in Rangoon. By 1893, at least 170 plaques had been deposited in the Phayre Museum. Temple also referred to tiles in the museum belonging to a shrine in Syriam, near Ran- goon, but laments that "these invaluable remains have been deposited without a note to shew which are from Pegu and which from Syriam." Before the Second World War, the Phayre collection was shifted to the

central library of Rangoon University, which was destroyed during the

Japanese occupation. The status of the plaques during this period is unknown. Roughly thirty plaques are in storage at the Archaeological Sur-

vey office in Pagan, while about ten tiles are with the Archaeological Survey office in Mandalay. A handful are also in the main office of the

Archaeological Survey in Rangoon, and a few fragmentary tiles are preserved in the museum in Mrohaung. Public collections in the West hold at least forty-seven, few of which have been published - London: Vic- toria and Albert Museum (4), British Museum (2), and Horniman Museum (7); Oxford: the Ashmolean Museum (6) and Pitt Rivers Museum (4); Exeter: Royal Albert Memorial Museum (8); Paris: Musee Guimet (4); and, West Berlin: Museum fur Indische Kunst (8). American museums

recently acquiring plaques are the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (a single tile with daughters), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (two demon plaques), and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (a single demon

plaque). The pieces in Los Angeles have been illustrated in P. Pal, Images of Piety, Images of Wonder, Los Angeles, 1987, color pl. on p. 32, and

fig. 17 (a-b). The most extensive collection in private hands (about fifty plaques) belongs to Yamamura Michio, a Japanese dealer. These plaques were acquired recently in Thailand, near the Burmese border along a

smugglers' route. Some of these plaques have been illustrated in Secrets

of the Ceramic Road: Recent Finds from the Thai-Burma Border (in Jap- anese), no author, n.d. The plaques vary somewhat in size, but they nor-

mally measure 45cm in height and 35cm in width. The most recent publication to discuss the plaques is J. Guy, Ceramic Traditions of South-East Asia, Oxford, 1989, 10-11. Guy suggests that an early kiln site between

Pegu and Rangoon may have been the source for the tiles in Pegu.




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describing the different demons. Many are paired, but there are a number with a single figure. Unlike the Pegu examples, some of the demons are mounted upon animals of various types.33

The second group at Pegu, also shown in pairs, features the army in defeat and disarray after the collapse of their forces (Fig. 12). Shorn of armor and weapons, many are depicted with their hands clasped together in a traditional gesture of homage to the Buddha. Often one demon is placed above the other in a vertical composition, simulat- ing the rough-and-tumble of battle described in the Nidana

Kath-i. Unlike the first group, the faces of the figures are

not given a particular orientation. At Pagan, no tiles depict the defeated demons. These two categories of plaques were placed into the two parallel rows of niches. None of the plaques were described in situ, but perhaps one group was placed above the other. Or the vanquished demons alone may have been inserted into the east wall, since the decisive battle with Mdra occurred while the Buddha faced in that direction. If this were their original position, it would resemble the disposition at the Ananda Temple in Pagan, where the undefeated demons are found only on the western half of the basement, from the north door to the south; on the eastern half are tiles devoted to gods (devat-) of various types.

The battle with M-ra was also a popular subject for illustrated manuscripts in Southeast Asia. In an eighteenth- century example from Thailand, the demons are shown on the right, M ra upon his elephant at the top, and the defeated army on the opposite side (Fig. 14). Some of the figures have their hands clasped together in a fashion rem- iniscent of some of the defeated demons among the Pegu tiles.34 The army is subdued by a flood produced by the Earth Goddess from water flowing from her hair, a vari- ation on the defeat developed in Southeast Asia but unknown in the Pegu inscriptions.

The three daughters of Mira reasoned that since men's tastes varied, each would assume the appearance of a hundred women in different guises - as young girls, child- less women, women who had one or two children, middle- aged, and older women. The epigraph connected to Aja- pala's shrine repeats the list found in the Nidina Katha,

33 Luce (as in n. 5), 11, 151-152, and IIi, pls. 329-331.

34 Pal (as in n. 7), 70-71. Although in other Thai depictions of the scene the Buddha is usually shown seated on the throne, here he is not represented. Some of Mira's men are dressed as Europeans and Muslims.




but each manifestation is increased to three hundred. In- scriptions on a number of the plaques attest to these differences as specified in the Nidana Kath-a.35

Like the demons, the females are paired and their bodies are normally turned to the right (Fig. 13). Perhaps tiles with identifying labels began the series of the same type that were without legends. Distinctions among these plaques have not yet been linked to the differences noted in the descriptive epigraphs. The most inventive are those in which the two women are bound together by subtle glances or by overlapping arms.

Both the demon and daughter tiles are glazed in a limited spectrum of colors - normally tan, green, blue, brown, and red. A few are colored in a single hue, and an even smaller number are without glaze. The plaques were produced in two basic stages. The initial step was the for- mation of a thick slab of clay, perhaps in a wooden mold. Before the clay hardened, the loosely formed figures were pressed into the flat background. Small, separately fashioned segments of clay were added to create the jewelry and weapons. Before the application of colored glazes, thin lines were incised to produce bold surface ornamentation. Small molds creating shallow raised designs were used on some of the women's garments; such molds never seem to have been used on the demon plaques. Certain incised lines on the demons suggesting musculature imply that the sculp- tors perhaps based their works upon two-dimensional de-

signs for which linear elements alone defined volume and

depth. While the demons exhibit great inventiveness and technical achievement, the daughters are uneven in quality. In some fairly crude examples, which could be mistaken for fakes, the careful detailing of the garments has been

replaced by simple, unadorned shapes fashioned by hand. Additional figural sculpture from this period in Lower Burma is difficult to identify, and, therefore, few compar- isons can be drawn with the plaques. Inscriptions at Pegu, however, suggest that the bulk of the figurative work con- sisted of now lost stucco ornamentation placed on the ex- terior of brick structures.

The Adoption of the Seven Stations The most compelling question posed by the monuments

in Pegu is not so much the origin of its layout as the motivation behind the selection of the theme. That the Mons

may have established the only such large complex devoted to the theme in the Buddhist world makes this question central to any understanding of the site. Former interpre-

tations that linked the site's creation to Dhammaceti's al-

leged mission to Bodh Gaya overlooked the important association between the stations and the Mon legend connecting the hair relics of the Buddha to Lower Burma. In the standard Buddhist sources, such as the Nidana Ka- thU, the merchants received the relics on the last day of the seven weeks and returned to their home within India where the relics were deposited in a special shrine. In the Burmese versions, however, the two return to their native Burma to establish the relics in the country's chief religious monument, the Shwedagon shrine in Rangoon near Pegu. The tremendous importance of these relics by themselves high- lighted the significance of the stations, for the seven weeks

provided the narrative context in which the presentation of the relics to the Burmese merchants played a role. This

symbolic connection between the shrine in Rangoon and the stations must have been firmly linked in the minds of the inhabitants of Lower Burma during the fifteenth

century. The importance of the hair relics was elevated during

Dhammaceti's reign by extensive refurbishings of the

Shwedagon monument in Rangoon. A lengthy donative record at the Shwedagon fully expressed the connection between the hair relics and the stations. The brief account of the two merchants in the Nidina Katha is expanded in the

inscription into an elaborate narrative associating the incident with the very transmission of Buddhism into Lower Burma. The version in the epigraph emphasized the role of the indigenous merchants in the Buddhist story. Native Sri Lankan lore known in Burma through imported texts also became wedded to the central myth; the hairs were stolen from the merchants by a cunning snake and recovered by a monk who was dispatched by a legendary Sinhalese ruler.36 This conflation of the different legends was probably designed to enrich the efficacy of the relics in light of the prestige accorded to Sri Lankan traditions in Burma

during this period. The two merchants were archetypes for religious action

and devotion in Burma. The elder brother devoted himself to the worship of the relics as a lay disciple, while the

younger joined the Buddhist order. Models for royalty were furnished by a history of kings whose legendary patronage centered on the creation and restoration of shrines housing relics. In his inscriptions, Dhammaceti likened himself to

specific ancient kings in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma who "purified" the Buddhist community and who patronized enshrined relics.

35 The inscription on the plaque in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, has been translated by Nai Pan Hla: "Mara's daughter assumes the form of a virgin having no children." According to Nai Pan Hla, a number of

plaques bear the single consonant "da" which refers to "tday" or "middle." This refers to the "middle-aged" women in the Nidana Kath-, but may have the special meaning of "concubine" or "mistress" in Middle Mon. See also C.O. Blagden, "Some Talaing Inscriptions on Glazed Tiles," Jour- nal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1912, 689-698. One complete plaque, in

storage at Pagan, has a single female figure. 36 Blagden, 38-39. A medieval Pali text from Sri Lanka, the Nala-tad-

-tuvamsa, was probably the origin of this myth. Other elements of the

Shwedagon inscription, principally place-names associated with the two

brothers, Pokkharavati and Asitafijana,

suggest the influence of two earlier Pali works, the TheragCtha Commentary and the Ai guttara Com- mentary. In the Nidana Kath-a and the Mahavagga, the merchants are said to be from Ukkala, a region normally identified with the state of Orissa in eastern India. The tradition of eight strands of hair recorded in the

Shwedagon inscription appears to derive from the Ahguttara Commen- tary. Much of the same information is also found in Halliday (as in n.

16). The debt Burma owed to Sri Lanka for its Buddhist literature is wit- nessed in a list of 295 texts contained in an inscription at Pagan with the date A.D. 1442. The Mons did not occupy Pagan, but there is no reason to think that the same texts were not available in Lower Burma; see M.H. Bode, The Pali Literature of Burma, London, 1909, 101-109.




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The overarching issue raised by the stations in Pegu was the importance of legitimizing the corporal relics of the Buddha that were associated with Lower Burma. The Mon myths were similar to those of other Southeast Asian kingdoms that symbolically connected their separate regions to the historical Buddha, who never traveled outside India. Like Saint James's celebrated cult at Compostela, such myths enhanced the sanctity of relics and specific sacred locations. Other Mon myths recorded in Dhammaceti's inscriptions feature the teeth of the Buddha, promised to Lower Burma by the Buddha himself during his lifetime and delivered at the time of his cremation by a disciple. The Burmese sources noted that the hair relics had special significance, however, since they were the "first" of the Bud- dha's relics and they also became the object of worship while the Buddha was still alive. The elevation of these special Burmese relics during Dhammaceti's reign may have represented in some ways a regional response to the over- whelming influence from Sri Lanka expressed in the mas- sive re-ordination of Burmese monks according to Sin- halese rites. The pious ruler had insisted on this bold intervention from Sri Lanka to unite the community and eliminate schisms, but such reliance on foreign traditions may have stimulated the desire to highlight regional iden- tity and the integrity and automony of the Buddhist community of Lower Burma.

Inasmuch as the tradition of the stations was rarely, if ever, commemorated by monuments in Burma or elsewhere, the choice of the theme in Pegu and its related shrine in Rangoon reflected a unique combination of local re- quirements at a particular moment in Burma's history. The interplay between regional myths, sacred texts, and royal patronage reveals the complex nature of the transformation of a Buddhist theme and its development beyond India.

Donald M. Stadtner is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. His articles on north Indian

sculpture and architecture have appeared in Ars Orientalis, Artibus Asiae, Archives of Asian Art, and Oriental Art. He is Guest Editor of the Winter 1990 issue of the Art Journal devoted to new approaches to Indian art [Department of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712].

Frequently Cited Sources Blagden, C.O., Epigraphia Birmanica, iv, 1, Rangoon, 1934.

Griswold, A., "The Holy Land Transported," in N.A. Jayawickrama, ed., Paranavitana Felicitation Volume, Colombo, 1955, 173-223.

Luce, G.H., Old Burma - Early Pagan, 3 vols., Locust Valley, N.Y., 1969.

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a fifteenth-century royal monument in burma and the seven stations in buddhist art

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