Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past: Monument, Image and Text

Chapter 10: Śiva in Burma

135 Chapter 10 Śiva in Burma1 Pamela Gutman Abstract The little evidence of Śaivism in Burma suggests that it was restricted to peripheral sites, in Arakan in the northwest, to Thaton on the Gulf of Martaban, and to Indian trading communities in Central Burma. This chapter examines the sculptural evidence from sites in these areas, and concludes that in Arakan, Śaivism, while showing close connections with cults prevalent in Bengal from around the seventh century CE, was also in contact with centers to the west, such as Sambor Prei Kuk. In the eleventh century Lower Burma was in contact with Nakhon Si Thammarat on the Thai peninsula and with the Mons of Haripuñjaya. It is apparent that both Buddhism and Vaisnavite Hinduism with some Śaivite accretions were practised there concurrently. An image of Śiva and Parvati found at the old Mon capital of Thaton shows Pāla, Angkorian and Pagan influence. A standing four-armed image of Śiva now at the Pagan Museum from the Nat-hlaung-kyaung, a Vis .n .u temple at Pagan regarded as having been built for the court Brahmins and Indian traders shows Cōl .a influence and can be stylistically dated to the late eleventh/early twelfth centuries. There is little evidence of Śaivism in Burma. What there is suggests that as a cult it was restricted to peripheral sites, in Arakan in the northwest and to Thaton on the Gulf of Martaban, and to Indian trading communities in central Burma. In seventh-century Arakan and at the Pyu city of Śrī Ks .etra Vaisnavism was favored, and later Vis .n .u was incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon. This process was paralleled in the late Buddhist art of Eastern India (Bautze-Picron 1996: 109–35). Unlike many polities to its east, after the eighth century Buddhism remained the most popular religion while Brahmanical practices were largely restricted to royal ritual. Arakan In Arakan, contiguous with east Bengal, Anandacandra’s inscription of c. 729 CE records that his Candra dynasty claimed descent from ‘the lineage of Isa [Siva]’ (Gutman 1976: 35–67; Johnston 1944: 357–85), and the bull on the obverse of its coins from the sixth to the eleventh centuries indicates a continuance of this tradition (Gutman 1997: 11, pls. XXXVIII–XLI). It is probable that the bull came to symbolize wealth and power in pre-urban and early urban times, around the beginning of the present era. It would therefore have been readily accepted as an Indic cult icon when rulers adopted Brahmanic religious practices in order to expand their power. Excavations of the old city of Vesāli in 1978 revealed a ceremonial site in the center of which a somewhat damaged image of a bull on a pedestal was found (Figure 10.1). While it is tempting to interpret the presence of the bull as an extension of Śaivite practice in India, it should be noted that there are remarkable parallels between the art of Vesāli and the pre-Angkorian art and architecture of Sambor Prei Kuk, the site of the seventh-century Isanapura near Kompong Thom in Cambodia. It is possible that the Arakan Candras adopted their Śaivism from there rather than solely from Bengal. Significant cultural continuities existed within pre-eighth-century mainland Southeast Asia (Gutman 2001: 44–6). 10 ISEA.indd 135 6/6/08 10:05:09 AM 136 PAMELA GUTMAN Fig 10.1 Bull from the Vesāli excavations, Mrauk-U Museum. Red Sandstone. Sixth to seventh centuries. (Photo courtesy of Bob Hudson) Fig 10.2 Dvarapala Nandisa near Wethali village. Red sandstone. H. 1.85 m., H. of 1.56 m., Base 0.62 m. (Photo by Pamela Gutman, 1974) 10 ISEA.indd 136 6/6/08 10:05:11 AM 137 ŚIVA IN BURMA An image in high relief of the Dvarapala Nandisa at Vesāli (Figure 10.2), today reportedly limed and painted and worshipped as a future Buddha, was probably the base of a door jamb and part of a torana of a Śaivite shrine. Standing erect with a slight inclination of the hips to the left, its left hand holds a rosary, the right a long staff, widening towards the top which is now broken but conceivably was once crowned by a trisula. Images of this kind first make their appearance in late Gupta art, and following the Epic and Purānic traditions...