Hudson on the Mon Paradigm I
"Over the past few years a hypothesis has emerged which is having a profound impact on the study of early Burma, particularly early Bagan, and on the theoretical and analytical approach taken in this thesis. This is Michael Aung-Thwin’s rebuttal of what he calls the Mon paradigm, the widely accepted notion among both indigenous and western scholars that the traditional story of King Anawratha invading and capturing Thaton in the 11th century and a subsequent inflow of Mon culture into Bagan (as outlined above, page 25) was a historical fact. The Aung-Thwin hypothesis was introduced at conferences in Amsterdam and Yangon and has been developed in a volume still in press at the time of writing this thesis which the author has generously supplied in manuscript (Aung-Thwin 2004). Aung-Thwin’s work involves a paradigm shift in the classic sense, in which "one conceptual view is replaced by another". It fulfils Kuhn’s criteria of being a paradigm unprecedented so as to attract the scientific community, and open ended enough so that several different groups of scientists can work on different problems within it (Kuhn 1970). The reaction at the 2001 Texts and Contexts conference in Yangon, which saw two highly detailed, prepared rebuttals presented from the floor at the conclusion of Aung-Thwin’s paper, which had been circulated in advance, was a fair indication that the academic community in Myanmar is attracted to the debate. The following summary of, and commentary on, the Aung-Thwin hypothesis (Aung-Thwin 2001a, 2002, 2004) will demonstrate that the new paradigm is open to new approaches in many fields. Aung-Thwin suggests that:
* The conquest of Thaton by King Anawratha of Bagan in AD 1057 is a myth. There was no kingdom of Thaton to conquer at that time, it came later. The notion of a first millennium Mon kingdom in southern Burma originated with the 15th century King Dhammaceti of Bago (Pegu) as part of a retrospective claim of Theravada Buddhist orthodoxy for his regime. According to the story, Anawratha took captives, Buddhist scriptures and a generally more advanced culture to Bagan. He brought Buddhist relics to enshrine in the Shwezigon pagoda, and from his time, there was a substantial program of pagoda building (Phayre 1883: 33-35; Harvey 1925: 23-29). This portion of the received history emphasises a mid-11th century date for the beginnings of construction.
* Western scholars of the 20th century accepted the story of the early Mon kingdom as fact, and attributed many finds in southern Burma of coins, art works and archaeological materials, "even those with no dates or Mon writing on them" to the Mon ethnic group. The Mon were portrayed as the historical victims of aggressive Thais and Burmans, whose consolation for this injustice was to be credited with civilising their conquerors, a situation with parallels to the Roman adoption of the culture of the conquered Greeks.
* The introduction of Burmese writing at Bagan was wrongly attributed by modern-era scholars to the influence of the Mon after AD 1057. The first evidence of written Old Burmese was taken to be the AD 1112-1113 multi-language (Pyu, Pali, Old Burmese and Old Mon) Rajakumar (also called the Myazedi) inscription, widely viewed as Burma’s Rosetta stone (Taw Sein Ko & Duroiselle 1919). Any Burmese inscription that predated this was considered unreliable and "impossible". Duroiselle had stated that "all evidence points to the fact that the Burmese language was not written until the middle of the XIth century, after the fall of Thaton in 1057; all inscriptions, therefore, which bear a date anterior to this must be considered as, and in effect are, copies made subsequently" (ASB 1920: 15; Duroiselle 1921: vi).The assumption of the greater antiquity of Mon civilisation, including writing, therefore became both premise and proof. Aung-Thwin suggests that Burmese inscriptions at the Mahabodhi temple at Bodhgaya in India, listing repairs and donations by Burmese pilgrims, go back to at least AD 1035 (Figure 155). He says that several dozen other inscriptions, existing mainly as copies, but 11 as originals, written in Old Burmese, precede the Old Burmese face of the Rajakumar inscription. He proposes that the Burma (Bagan) script was most likely derived from the Pyu script found at Sriksetra in the 7th and 8th centuries, and that the Old Mon script derives from the Burman, not vice versa. Aung Thwin’s argument gains support from a recent study that suggests that the Burmese face of the inscription, of which two copies exist, one in the Bagan museum and one at the 19th century Myazedi pagoda, near which both pillars were found, appears on grammatical grounds to have been the original from which the other translations were made (Tun Aung Chain 2001).
"The effect of the Mon paradigm was to make “orthography the ultimate litmus test for deciding chronology”. Temples containing Archaic Burmese writings were automatically considered to be later than those with Mon writings. Aung-Thwin gives examples of misreadings of the written record, citing captions on the Jataka plaques at the East and West Hpet-leik temples at Bagan which were considered by early scholars to be Mon but were read in 2002 by Aung- Thwin and Myint Aung as actually being the Pali names of the Jataka stories, "no more Mon than they are Burmese". Architectural styles were assigned, notably by Luce, to an earlier "Mon phase", a "transitional phase" and a later “Burman” period. Aung-Thwin suggests that this should be rejected, and style should be assessed in terms of structural and technical development. However this must be done with the awareness that there was "astoundingcontinuity of the most dominant styles, which suggests that 'change' and 'progress' in temple architecture were not inevitable consequences of the mere passage of time".
* "The key documentary support for the idea of a Mon period at Bagan is the use of Old Mon in some inscriptions by Kyanzittha. Aung-Thwin points out that this represents only a dozen or so inscriptions, whose content mainly promotes the notion that Kyanzittha had been the god Vishnu in a previous life, and is therefore a claim of legitimacy for the throne. While Aung-Thwin tentatively advances some explanations for Kyanzittha’s use of Old Mon, such as the possibility that he may have relied on a Mon adviser, the Shin Arahan of later stories, he proposes that Kyanzittha's preference for Old Mon is a one-off phenomenon rather than a trend or pattern, and with Old Burmese used much more widely before and after Kyanzittha, the emphasis on his use of Old Mon represents the “propensity among certain scholars of South-east Asia to make rules out of exceptions” (Aung-Thwin 2001a, 2002, 2004). A pre-Bagan period founding date for Thaton, and its claim to be the centre that inspired Bagan, had been in dispute long before the argument was crystallised by Aung-Thwin. "This tradition is difficult to reconcile with the paucity of archaeological remains discovered in the area of Thaton”, wrote Subhadradis in 1966 (Subhadradis Diskul 1966: 166). There have been archaeological excavations around the sites of Winka and Hsindat Myindat, which are 30 to 45 kilometres north of Thaton. This area has at times been referred to, with no apparent basis, as "Old Thaton" ("Editor's Note on Excavation of Old Thaton" 1976), but is in fact a probable first millennium site traditionally known as Taikkala or Suvannabhumi, which in its own right merits further investigation (Myint Aung 1977, 1999). Thaton itself is shown by aerial photographs (1:6,000, 19 March 1958, THA 360, sheets 8-10, 26-31, 44-51, 59-67, 107-109) to be moated and rectangular in plan, with an enclosed site known as the "old palace" at the centre (Thin Kyi 1959; Luce 1969: 25; Aung Thaw 1972: 35-40). Archaeological excavation has revealed habitation material under Thaton’s stone and laterite wall (Baby 2000). A program of radiocarbon or thermoluminescence dating might be able to provide some concrete evidence of the age of the site."
* The conquest of Thaton by King Anawratha of Bagan in AD 1057 is a myth. There was no kingdom of Thaton to conquer at that time, it came later. The notion of a first millennium Mon kingdom in southern Burma originated with the 15th century King Dhammaceti of Bago (Pegu) as part of a retrospective claim of Theravada Buddhist orthodoxy for his regime. According to the story, Anawratha took captives, Buddhist scriptures and a generally more advanced culture to Bagan. He brought Buddhist relics to enshrine in the Shwezigon pagoda, and from his time, there was a substantial program of pagoda building (Phayre 1883: 33-35; Harvey 1925: 23-29). This portion of the received history emphasises a mid-11th century date for the beginnings of construction.
* Western scholars of the 20th century accepted the story of the early Mon kingdom as fact, and attributed many finds in southern Burma of coins, art works and archaeological materials, "even those with no dates or Mon writing on them" to the Mon ethnic group. The Mon were portrayed as the historical victims of aggressive Thais and Burmans, whose consolation for this injustice was to be credited with civilising their conquerors, a situation with parallels to the Roman adoption of the culture of the conquered Greeks.
* The introduction of Burmese writing at Bagan was wrongly attributed by modern-era scholars to the influence of the Mon after AD 1057. The first evidence of written Old Burmese was taken to be the AD 1112-1113 multi-language (Pyu, Pali, Old Burmese and Old Mon) Rajakumar (also called the Myazedi) inscription, widely viewed as Burma’s Rosetta stone (Taw Sein Ko & Duroiselle 1919). Any Burmese inscription that predated this was considered unreliable and "impossible". Duroiselle had stated that "all evidence points to the fact that the Burmese language was not written until the middle of the XIth century, after the fall of Thaton in 1057; all inscriptions, therefore, which bear a date anterior to this must be considered as, and in effect are, copies made subsequently" (ASB 1920: 15; Duroiselle 1921: vi).The assumption of the greater antiquity of Mon civilisation, including writing, therefore became both premise and proof. Aung-Thwin suggests that Burmese inscriptions at the Mahabodhi temple at Bodhgaya in India, listing repairs and donations by Burmese pilgrims, go back to at least AD 1035 (Figure 155). He says that several dozen other inscriptions, existing mainly as copies, but 11 as originals, written in Old Burmese, precede the Old Burmese face of the Rajakumar inscription. He proposes that the Burma (Bagan) script was most likely derived from the Pyu script found at Sriksetra in the 7th and 8th centuries, and that the Old Mon script derives from the Burman, not vice versa. Aung Thwin’s argument gains support from a recent study that suggests that the Burmese face of the inscription, of which two copies exist, one in the Bagan museum and one at the 19th century Myazedi pagoda, near which both pillars were found, appears on grammatical grounds to have been the original from which the other translations were made (Tun Aung Chain 2001).
"The effect of the Mon paradigm was to make “orthography the ultimate litmus test for deciding chronology”. Temples containing Archaic Burmese writings were automatically considered to be later than those with Mon writings. Aung-Thwin gives examples of misreadings of the written record, citing captions on the Jataka plaques at the East and West Hpet-leik temples at Bagan which were considered by early scholars to be Mon but were read in 2002 by Aung- Thwin and Myint Aung as actually being the Pali names of the Jataka stories, "no more Mon than they are Burmese". Architectural styles were assigned, notably by Luce, to an earlier "Mon phase", a "transitional phase" and a later “Burman” period. Aung-Thwin suggests that this should be rejected, and style should be assessed in terms of structural and technical development. However this must be done with the awareness that there was "astoundingcontinuity of the most dominant styles, which suggests that 'change' and 'progress' in temple architecture were not inevitable consequences of the mere passage of time".
* "The key documentary support for the idea of a Mon period at Bagan is the use of Old Mon in some inscriptions by Kyanzittha. Aung-Thwin points out that this represents only a dozen or so inscriptions, whose content mainly promotes the notion that Kyanzittha had been the god Vishnu in a previous life, and is therefore a claim of legitimacy for the throne. While Aung-Thwin tentatively advances some explanations for Kyanzittha’s use of Old Mon, such as the possibility that he may have relied on a Mon adviser, the Shin Arahan of later stories, he proposes that Kyanzittha's preference for Old Mon is a one-off phenomenon rather than a trend or pattern, and with Old Burmese used much more widely before and after Kyanzittha, the emphasis on his use of Old Mon represents the “propensity among certain scholars of South-east Asia to make rules out of exceptions” (Aung-Thwin 2001a, 2002, 2004). A pre-Bagan period founding date for Thaton, and its claim to be the centre that inspired Bagan, had been in dispute long before the argument was crystallised by Aung-Thwin. "This tradition is difficult to reconcile with the paucity of archaeological remains discovered in the area of Thaton”, wrote Subhadradis in 1966 (Subhadradis Diskul 1966: 166). There have been archaeological excavations around the sites of Winka and Hsindat Myindat, which are 30 to 45 kilometres north of Thaton. This area has at times been referred to, with no apparent basis, as "Old Thaton" ("Editor's Note on Excavation of Old Thaton" 1976), but is in fact a probable first millennium site traditionally known as Taikkala or Suvannabhumi, which in its own right merits further investigation (Myint Aung 1977, 1999). Thaton itself is shown by aerial photographs (1:6,000, 19 March 1958, THA 360, sheets 8-10, 26-31, 44-51, 59-67, 107-109) to be moated and rectangular in plan, with an enclosed site known as the "old palace" at the centre (Thin Kyi 1959; Luce 1969: 25; Aung Thaw 1972: 35-40). Archaeological excavation has revealed habitation material under Thaton’s stone and laterite wall (Baby 2000). A program of radiocarbon or thermoluminescence dating might be able to provide some concrete evidence of the age of the site."
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