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Journal of Burma Studies articles are listed here by volume number.

Volume 9 (2004) ¡ Volume 8 (2003)  ¡  Volume 7 (2002)  ¡  Volume 6 (2001)  ¡  Volume 5 (2000) 
¡  Volume 4 (1999) ¡  Volume 3 (1998)  ¡  Volume 2 (1997)  ¡  Volume 1(1997)

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 7 (2002) $16.00

James, Helen, Adoniram Jusdon and the creation of a missionary discourse in pre-colonial Burma.

In the following paper I argue that Adoniram Judson, the first American Baptist Missionary to Burma, was strongly empathetic with his adopted country.  His work as interpreter-translator during the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 and his visits to Ava both immediately before and after the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), although coached in the language of Christian mission, exhibited characteristics markedly different from the perspective of Ann Judson’s memoir and from those of certain missionary narratives subsequent to his own.  I propose to examine aspects of three texts:  Ann Judson’s An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire; Henry Gouger’s Personal Narrative of Two Years Imprisonment in Burmah; and Adoniram Judson’s deposition to John Crawfurd.  I shall also refer to J. Snodgrass’ Narrative of the Burmese War (1824-1826) and Henry Trant’s Two Years in Ava for other perspectives of some events.   

Zöllner, Hans-Bernd, Germans in Burma, 1837 – 1945.
This article gives an account of the Germans who lived in Burma or who visited the country between the beginnings of British rule in 1826 and the end of World War II.  After surveying German-Burmese relations from 1826 until today, the manifold German engagement in Burma before World War I is detailed.  This engagement was followed by a sharp decline in the number of Germans living in the country other than for short periods between the two great wars.  After World War II, on the German side, there was almost no memory of German activities in Burma left.  By contrast the Burmese kept and keep this memory very much alive.

Tun, Saw, A preliminary study of Burmese prophetic sayings.
The Burmese people are known to be superstitious in many ways.  One is a belief in prophetic saying known as tabaun.  This paper explains how in the past, people placed importance on these prophetic sayings.  It describes how learned Buddhist monks have reminded people not to be influenced by them.   Rather, they should be concerned with their kamma.

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 6 (2001) $16.00

Dijk, Wil O. The Voc in Burma: 1634 – 1680.
This article is intended to show that the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) at the General State Archives (ARA), The Hague, The Netherlands, are a rich source of information on seventeenth century Burma. Because this unearthed data is mostly about commerce, this paper deals with the VOC’s trade with Burma. What has come to light is that the Dutch factories in Burma were an important and integral part of the VOC’s network of trade, seeing that the profits helped to fund the purchase of Indian textiles that were the backbone of much of the Dutch inter-Asian trade. The Dutch, moreover, sold Burmese export products profitably from Persia to Japan and Holland. In the end, the VOC’s establishment in Burma became the victim of a general change in Dutch fortunes when forces in both Europe and the Far East began working against the Dutch East India Company.

Martin, Michael, A glimpse into the traditional martial arts in Burma.
The traditional martial arts are an aspect of Burmese culture that has been virtually ignored by Burma scholars. Yet these martial arts have a rich heritage dating back to the early days of Burma. Historic events, religion, political necessities, and, more have shaped them recently into economic realities. The traditional martial art came close to extinction during the British colonial period, but was revived during the Japanese occupation. In past times, they were utilized for warfare and self-defense. Today the self-defense element remains, while the combat element has been transformed into sports and artistic cultural expression. The present economic conditions and the spread of foreign martial arts pose a current threat to the survival of the Burmese traditional martial arts and require the attention of Burma scholars to document this important component of the historic cultural identity of Burma.

Schober, Juliane, Venerating the Buddha’s remains in Burma: From solitary practice to the cultural hegemony of communities
The veneration of Buddha relics and images is a neglected, yet central organizing principle of Theravada culture and religious practice. My essay is informed by a historised understanding of Eliade's hierophany, a manifestation of a universal Buddhist sacred reality that defines and identifies cultural orders at the centers of local, historical contexts. I further rely on Bells' work on ritual and Gramsci's writings on hegemony to describe Burmese veneration of the Buddha's remains in diverse social and religious contexts. These range from the solitary practice, meditation and personal service in the Ananda mode to the Royal mode that defines social hierarchy in public rituals and expresses socio-religious aspirations of individuals and communities through culturally salient metaphors.

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 5 (2000) $16.00

Nemoto, Kei, The concepts of dobama (“our Burma”) and thudo-bama (“their Burma”) in Burmese nationalism, 1930–1948.
This article attempts to demonstrate the interdependent operation of the term dobama (“our Burma”) and its opposite, thudo-bama (“their Burma”), in the minds of members of the Dobama-asiayoun (“Our Burma Party”). From the party’s very beginning in 1930 to the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League’s struggle against Japanese rule and subsequently for independence from the British from 1944 to 1947, Dobama party members, known as thahkins, avoided being identified as thudo-bama, meaning “the Burmese of their (the British or Japanese) side” or “the Burmese people who collaborated with the colonial regime.” Instead, they invariably identified themselves as dobama, or “our Burmese.” The thahkins preferred to define themselves in negative rather than positive terms. In other words, they chose to identify themselves by describing what they were not rather than what they were, and by attacking their imagined enemies, the thudo-bama, rather than attempting a clear definition of dobama.

Longmuir, Marilyn, Yenangyaung and its twinza: The Burmese indigenous “earth-oil” industry re-examined.
In the early nineteenth century, the indigenous oil industry at Yenangyaung may have been the largest in the world. The article summarizes and evaluates the descriptions of nineteenth and early twentieth century European observers, with special attention to the pre-colonial uses of the oil, the legends about the site, the local institutions governing ownership of the wells, the indigenous methods of oil extraction, and the Europeans’ estimates of production levels.

Diokno, Maria Serena I., An annotated bibliography of articles on the Burmese peasantry from the journal of the Burma Research Society, 1911–1970.”
This compilation covers fifty articles and twenty-six township records published in the Journal of the Burma Research Society between 1911 and 1970.  The selected articles all shed light on the economic life of the peasantry and have been divided as follows: Part I) Translations of relevant sources or commentaries on the peasantry, Part II) Geographic and other background information necessary for understanding peasant life, and Part III) Analyses or descriptions of the traditional, colonial, and early modern economy, of which the peasants were an important part. The articles are arranged by theme and date of publications within each section and sub-section.

James, Helen, The fall of Ayutthaya: A reassessment.
Conventional views of the 1760–1767 Burmese attacks on Ayutthaya contend that the Burmese were taking advantage of an opportunity to attack a politically and economically weak kingdom. This article adduces evidence from the Burmese chronicles, from accounts by contemporary foreign observers, and from economic history to argue that Burma’s campaigns against Ayutthaya were part of an epic struggle between the two polities that began in the 1500s and continued until the Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826. Control of trade was one of the central factors motivating this centuries-long conflict. It was the very strength and wealth of the Siamese kingdom, not its alleged weakness, that motivated the Burmese invaders, who hoped to strike a blow that would knock Ayutthaya out of contention as the trading hub of mainland Southeast Asia.
 

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 4 (1999) $16.00

Seekins, Donald M. The north wind and the sun: Japan’s response to the political crisis in Burma, 1998-1998.
Japan's response to the political crisis in Burma after the establishment of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in September 1988 reflected the interests of powerful constituencies within the Japanese political system, especially business interests, to which were added other constituencies such as domestic supporters of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle for democracy and those who wished to pursue 'Sun Diplomacy,' using positive incentives to encourage democratization and economic reform. Policymakers in Tokyo, however, approached the Burma crisis seeking to take minimal risks―a "maximum strategy"―which limited their effectiveness in influencing the junta. This was evident in the February 1989 "normalization" of Tokyo's ties with SLORC. During 1989-1998, Japanese business leaders pushed hard to promote economic engagement, but "Sun Diplomacy" made little progress in the face of the junta's increasing repression of the democratic opposition.
 

Reith, Charlotte, Pottery in the Chin Hills.
During my research on contemporary pottery villages in Burma, I was given the name of one such village, Lente, by a native now living in the United States. Lente is located in the Chin Hills, a remote area of western Burma difficult to access, inhabited by many tribes speaking a large number of languages. Foreigners are rarely given permission to visit the Chin Hills, and although I obtained permission to travel to Lente, I was ultimately prevented by the authorities from going further than nearby Falam. I was nevertheless able to collect data from Lente in three ways: first, my guide Daw Moe Moe was able to visit Lente and take photographs of the potters there; secondly, Daw Moe Moe was able to return to Falam with a potter from Lente village and with enough of the proper kind of clay to facilitate a demonstration which I photographed and documented; and thirdly, I was given a copy of a videotape showing the potters working in Lente village. This tape was taken by a young man from Falam who is interested in recording local crafts processes. The tape allowed me to observe a process of making pots with which I was totally unacquainted, and which has otherwise escaped recent photographic or video documentation. This was a true "discovery" concerning the ways in which pots can be made, and still another indication of the imagination and ingenuity of humankind.
 

Wheatley, Julian, with San San Hnin Tun, Languages in contact: The case of English and Burmese.
This article deals with the nature and the effects of the long period of linguistic contact between Burmese and English. Part 1 deals with general issues of contact and borrowing; part 2 provides examples of English loanwords in Burmese, and considers the processes of phonological and semantic accommodation that they reflect.

Daulton, Jack, Sariputta and Moggallana in the golden land: The relics of the Buddha’s chief disciples at the Kaba Aye Pagoda.
In this article, the author reconstructs and documents the story of the relics of the Buddha's chief disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, at the Kaba Aye Pagoda in Burma. Using previously unpublished archival materials, including first-hand archaeological reports and internal museum documents, as well as contemporary newspaper accounts, the author details the discovery of the relics by British military officers in 19th-century India, the subsequent removal of the relics to England where they were placed on museum exhibition, and their eventual reenshrinement in Burma and India 100 years later.

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 3 (1998) $16.00

Charney, Michael W., Rise of a mainland trading state: Rahkaing under the early Mrauk-U kings, c. 1430-1603.
This study of the rise of the maritime kingdom of Rahkaing (Arakan) in the 15th and 16th centuries attempts to demonstrate how the kings of Danya-wati gradually drew other power centers in the Rahkaing littoral (including Mekha-wati, Dwara-wati, and Chittagong) into its political orbit. Vital to this political centralization were the collateral processes of increasing maritime trade, demographic growth spurred by resettled war captives, the suppression of rival lowland tribes, supplies of firearms, and the development of a multi-directional system of religious patronage. By the end of the 16th century, Mrauk-U rulers, as both Buddhist kings and Islamic sultans, controlled the entire Rahkaing littoral as one kingdom and had begun their expansion into neighboring regions as distant as Dacca in Bengal and Pegu in Burma.  

Longmuir, Marilyn. Footnote to Burmese economic history: The rise and decline of the Arakan oil fields.
After the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886, the modern Burmese oil industry expanded at Yenangyaung, the long-standing center of hand-dug wells worked by twinza. An earlier attempt to establish a commercial industry in Arakan in the late 1870s was thereby eclipsed. On the islands off the Arakan coast―Ramree, Cheduba, and the Boronga Islands―British explorers had drawn attention to oil pools and seepage. In 1878, the first modern oil well in Burma was drilled on Eastern Boronga Island. However, the eager oil speculators had not done their homework, and the Arakan oil industry declined because the oil-fields were poor producers and thus not economically viable for mass production. The Arakan experience nonetheless influenced the early commercial exploitation of the Yenangyaung fields.

Pollak, Oliver B, Robert Talbot Kelly and “Picturesque Burma.”
Robert Talbot Kelly, through his art and his 1905 publication, Burma Painted and Described, provides a visual and textual account of colonial Burma that was subsequently marketed in England and America. Travelogues served as a form of voyeuristic education about the exotic for the stay-at-home adventurer. Postcolonial scholarship, to some degree assisted by Edward Said's Orientalism, now permits a reanalysis of both the art and the written texts of travel literature for what they say about cultural attitudes during the age of high imperialism, and in particular about Kelly's use of the word picturesque as a literary and artistic descriptor.  

Bagshawe, L. E., Kingship in Pagan Wundauk U Tin’s “Myan-Ma-mìn Ok-chok-pon Sa-dàn.”
This paper analyzes the attitudes toward kingship expressed in the Myan-ma-mìn Ok-chok-pon Sa-dàn ["The Royal Administration of Burma"], written by Pagan U Tin (1861-1933) and first published shortly after the author's death. Following a brief biographical account of Pagan U Tin, the discussion considers four perspectives on Burmese kingship appearing in the work: 1) the king as judge; 2) the king as guarantor of regularity; 3) the king as descendant of the Sun (and of Mahasammata, originator of civil society); and 4) the king as Buddha-to-be. The Burmese monarch was predominantly a symbolic figure who affirmed the kingdom's past and guaranteed its future. Although U Tin reports on the questionable morality of Kings Mindon and Thibaw, he nevertheless addresses both as "Excellent King" and admonishes his readers against offending the dignity of the throne.

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 2 (1997) - Special Issue $16.00

Laichen, Sun, Chinese Historical Sources on Burma: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources

Sun Laichen's unique and valuable 100-plus page bibliography includes (1) an annotated list of 135 Chinese primary sources on Burma from the pre-Tang through the Qing periods, complete with author-title index, (2) an introductory discussion of the availability and recent uses of these sources, (3) a list of introductions and collections of Chinese historical sources on Southeast Asia, and (4) a list of Burmese, Chinese, English, French, and Japanese historical works on Burma that utilize the Chinese primary sources. Chinese names and book titles are shown in Chinese characters and in roman transcription.

Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 1 (1997) $16.00

Reith, Charlotte, Comparison of three pottery villages: Shan State Burma.
During my visit from 1991-1994 to three pottery-producing villages in Shan State, I was struck by the differences in technology and product. Contrary to my assumption that this small area would evidence a shared technology and similar products, I found three distinctly differing pottery traditions. In some places in the world, membership in the same ethnic group seems to be an important factor in determining the techniques and products of the potters belonging to that group. However, two of these villages, Compani and Awe Yaw, are both populated by Danu and have distinctly different ways of making pots. While it is primarily concerned with the pottery-making processes in the three villages, this article is also interested in the lives of the potters and how they face the challenges inherent in their craft.
 

Cooler, Richard, Temples and Rainfall in Ancient Pagan.
This article examines unusual features of various religious buildings located at Pagan, such as below-ground monasteries and brick-lined water-catchment basins, to establish that low rainfall of less than 24 inches annually was a constant in the local climate throughout the Pagan period. Confirming this fact sheds light on the critical role the construction of religious structures played in linking the inadequately watered capital to outlying irrigated agricultural lands, thus ensuring the necessary provision of food to the city. As the population of Pagan grew, the need to increase food supplies from the outlying areas created an incentive for focusing the practice of the Merit Path to Salvation on the erection of still more religious buildings, thus creating the "forest of temples" seen at Pagan today.

Huxley, Andrew, The importance of the dhammathats.
Burma's dhammathats are pre-colonial compilations of legal and ethical material. They provide vivid insights into the details of everyday village life and into the process by which Burmese authors adapted Pali texts from India to their own purposes. They appear to be at least as old as any other surviving Burmese literature and contain valuable lessons for contemporary Burma. This article hopes to rescue them from their unjust neglect.

Tun, Saw, The development of political themes in Minthuwun's poetry.
Min-thuwun is perhaps the greatest of living Burmese poets. Over the past 70 years he has published more than 100 poems covering a broad range of topics, including young love, the hardships of village and student life, and Burmese nationalism. Following a brief biographical sketch of the poet, this article presents a series of readings of selected poems that show Min-thuwun to be a passionate promoter of Burmese culture and an astute and subtle social commentator whose political messages are conveyed in figurative verse notable for its depictions of the victims of injustice. By framing his discussion within the periodization of 20th-century Burmese literature put forth by the poet-critic Mya Zin, the author demonstrates how Min-thuwun's career can be taken to exemplify the development of modern Burmese literature as a whole.

Allott, Anna, Half a century of publishing in Mandalay.
The Ludu Kyi-bwa-yay Press was established in Mandalay as a radical left-wing publishing house by Ludu U Hla and his wife, Daw Amar, in 1938. Ludu U Hla was a pioneering Burmese journalist, would-be social reformer, social historian, and, most of all, recorder of folk-tales. Daw Amar began her writing career in 1938 as a translator, mostly of anti-Western works; in 1964 she began a series of major works dealing with Burmese traditional performing arts and the history and culture of Upper Burma and of Mandalay. U Hla died in 1982, and in March 1984 much of the press was destroyed in the great Mandalay fire. Nevertheless, the press resumed publishing in 1987 under the direction of Daw Amar and despite continued strict government censorship has remained in operation until the present. The latest book in Ludu U Hla's folktale series appeared posthumously in 1996. This article is followed by a translation of a short biography of Ludu U Hla written by Daw Amar.