BUDDHISM, THE ROYAL IMAGINARY AND LIMITS IN WARFARE: THE MODERATING INFLUENCE OF PRECOLONIAL MYANMAR ROYAL CAMPAIGNS ON EVERYDAY WARRIORS

ABSTRACT

Rules on the treatment of civilians and other non-combatants in conflict are often attributed to Western origins, particularly the increasingly widening circles of empathy that grew out of the European Enlightenment and found international implementation in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, such limits were pursued or encouraged by many non-Western societies as well, particularly amongst indigenous Americans. The present article examines the case of Myanmar and the ways in which the Myanmar court set limits on violence in administration and limits on warfare. These limits were not an imposition of the West but emerged entirely within the Myanmar-Buddhist historical experience. It is argued that these provide an existing, discernible and indigenous model for limiting violence in warfare in Myanmar society. The article also explains why this model was forgotten. The removal of the king and disintegration of the standing army that came with the end of indigenous rule in 1885 did away with crucial moderating influences, while the violence of the brutal Pacification Campaign from 1885 erased from Burmese social memory the idea that there could be limits in warfare.

KEYWORDS:

• Buddhism
• Myanmar
• armed conflict
• state imaginaries

Disclosure statement

This article has been supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. For a comparable trend in early modern France, see Elias (1982). For a different view, see Carroll (2006).

2. See Lieberman (2003, 1984) and Koenig (1990).

3. From early modern Myanmar a vast variety of materials are preserved from outlying areas, in Burmese and in ethnic minority languages, that record local histories and accounts. Some of these manuscripts relate to the histories of temples, but others deal with local legend, literature, local family lineages and so on. Another important local source of information were revenue inquests, the headmens’ reports to the court. Some of the latter are reproduced in translation in Trager and Koenig (1979). Many of these kinds of sources were collected in the royal library, but many more were kept in local monastic libraries and private collections, helping to explain their survival to the present.

4. This is supported by many accounts of the campaign, including, for example, statements in ‘Personal Recollections of the Upper Burmah Campaign 1886–7 by Major Richard Holbeche (1850–1914)’, Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group Archive, https://sclhrg.org.uk/research/transcriptions/2182-personal-recollections-of-the-upper-burmah-campaign-1886-7-by-major-richard-holbeche-1850-1914.html.

5. See the example of highlanders fighting in 1891 that included the killing of ‘all’ women and children in affected villages (Watson 1967, 8).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael W. Charney

Michael W. Charney is a military and imperial historian specialising in Southeast Asia in both the premodern and modern periods. He received his PhD at the University of Michigan in 1999. After two years as a postdoctoral research fellow with the Centre for Advanced Studies at the National University of Singapore (1999–2001), he joined the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London.