[palistudy] Re: Factual errors in an article titled "The Advent of Pali Literature in Thailand" (Ven. H. Saddhatissa)

replying to Eisel:

>  > 2. There is no mention of Suva.n.nabhuumi in the inscriptions of
>>  Asoka.
>
>  *Cough cough* --my reply quotes Saddhatissa's claim to the contrary.  I
>stated at length that there were no S.E.A. toponyms in the Ashokan edicts;
>however, Saddhatissa (like all the Thai National Museums) puts forward the
>myth that the Ashokan edicts name some such place in modern Thailand or
>Burma.  The Burmese (and, yes, the Mons) also have modern myths involving
>the creative interpretation of the toponyms in the edicts.

I have again looked at the article and it makes no claim that the
word Suva.n.nabhuumi is found in the Edicts of Asoka. If I have
missed something, please cite the exact passage.

At 4:40 pm +0600 13/9/05, navako wrote:
>There is no respectable scholarship that supports the
>identification of Ashoka's use of the word "Suvannabhumi" with Thailand, nor
>Burma.

This is an explicit statement on your part that Asoka used the word
"Suvannabhumi". I do not recall seeing that in the inscriptions of
Asoka.

>  I am indeed aware that there are statements in the commentaries identifying
>a place called Suvannabhumi as somewhere separated by "7 days' voyage at
>sea" --however, what my brief message stated very clearly, is that this has
>nothing to do with Ashoka, and was written more than a thousand years later
>than him or his edicts.

This depends on the authority one gives to the evidence of the commentaries.

In fact, the story of the missions occurs first in the Diipava.msa
which dates to around  the end of the reign of Mahaasena (301 or 361,
depending on chronology). Let us say around 600 years. For those who
believe that the commentaries are Pali renderings of earlier
commentaries the traditions will be much earlier.

>  > We need not doubt
>>  that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it
>>  was two thousand years ago.
>
>That would be hilarious if this were a laughing matter.  You can pick up any
>sociology textbook at a Thai University and take a look at the hard
>demographics; the ethnic makeup of modern Thailand has *RADICALLY CHANGED*
>in the past 200 years --not to mention the past 2000.  One of the most
>obvious changes has been the massive influx of Chinese since the 19th
>century; perhaps 30 million "modern Thai" are the products of Chinese
>intermarriage, and about 12% of the population is Chinese "per se".  This
>migration basically dates from the mid-Qing dynasty; and it has completely
>transformed the ethnicity and culture of central Thailand.  The process of
>this transformation has been much smoother than (e.g.) the settlement of
>Chinese in Malaysia in the same period --but I've never met anyone in
>Thailand who was unaware of the ethnic difference between "central Thais"
>and the rest of the country that this history has produced.

Yes, I should have excluded the relatively recent immigration of Chinese.

>
>This is only the most modern example, L.C.; anyone with a passing
>familiarity with the history of Thai-Burmese relations will know that each
>and every war between those two sides involved the forced relocation of
>large populations (i.e., large relative to total population).  Land was not
>scarce in this region; manpower was the scarce resource, and wars were
>fought with the main prize being labour --both slaves and free persons--
>brought back at the end of the war.  The dramatic effects of conflicts with
>the burmese in establishing new population centers, and depopulating others,
>as well as suddenly shifting the ethnic composition of different regions in
>the North, is VERY WELL DOCUMENTED in the history of S.E.A.

So it is. But nothing says that people necessarily retain their
original language under such circumstances. Many, if not most,
present-day Thai speakers will have had ancestors who spoke other
languages.

Note that where (as in S.E. Asia) manpower is a scarce resource it is
most unlikely that ordinary peasants were slaughtered on a large
scale.

>[section omitted]
>
>Brief conclusion: contrary to L.C.'s statement that
>>  We need not doubt
>>  that the genetic makeup of Thailand today is largely the same as it
>>  was two thousand years ago.
>One might instead say that we should indeed doubt that the ethnic
>composition of Thailand has anything at all in common with 2,000 years ago.
>The same can be said of Nepal, Yunn, or even Egypt, and many other countries
>around the world, where massive ethnic changes have transpired in the same
>period.
>
>E.M.
>

People used to say the same about the U.K. but genetic tests have
shown that the bulk of the population has in fact remained
genetically similar since before Roman times. (But I must exclude the
large-scale immigration of recent decades.) It is the ruling groups
that tend either to displace one another or to merge.

Lance Cousins