Re: Factual errors, Ashoka, S.E.A. migrations, etc.

In reply to L.C.,

> 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.

*Ahem* --it is an explicit statement of the view that I am in the procress
of refuting.  However, "as you asked so nicely":

The toponym Suva.n.na-giri does appear in the Ashokan edicts --not quite
Suva.n.na-bhumi, but this is encouragement enough for some.  The double
".n.n" of course appears as ".m.n" in Ashokan script; however, the Thai
government is not about to change the name of the new airport on account of
such a scholarly detail.  Responsible scholarship takes this
"Suva.n.na-giri" to be in peninsular India; irresponsible scholarship
invokes it as corroboration of the Suvannabhumi = Thailand/Burma thesis
  --the main point of which (again) is to substantiate the claim that Ashoka
sent missionaries to Thailand/Burma.  He didn't.

Thus, there is a sense in which Suvannabhumi does (and doesn't) appear in
the edicts --and/or in the eye of the beholder.

Even if there were not this crumb of encouragement, the fictional assertion
of the identity of other toponyms found in the edict with places in Thailand
& Burma respectively would continue --and it was against this myth that I
was arguing (i.e., I am not disputing the actual contents of the
inscriptions, but only some of the propaganda that is loosely based upon
them --I had thought that was abundantly clear from my former messages).

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

Simply put, toponyms change in a period of over 1,000 years.  You may
compare the debates over "Tambapa.n.ni" = Sri Lanka.

> So it is. But nothing says that people necessarily retain their
> original language under such circumstances.

This is spurious; I hope that in your heart of hearts you know that it is
spurious, and are not disregarding the solid scholarship of men like Michael
Vickery and Hans Penth on the basis of a semantic assertion that language is
not identical to ethnicity.

> Many, if not most,
> present-day Thai speakers will have had ancestors who spoke other
> languages.

Not "most", "all"; the modern central Thai dialect is basically a 20th
century invention.  Before the centralized state school system extended into
the provinces, Thai literacy was a highly decentralized affair involving
monks and (yes) basic education in Pali; this monastic system of education
tended to preserve local dialects very well --the modern system tends to
suppress and obliterate them.  Between this and the colourful history of
recent anti-regionalist/anti-communist hysteria that has gripped Bangkok,
we're looking back at a century of rapid, forced assimilation in many of the
outlying provinces.  However, the lingual change is almost purely in written
language; the Khmer still speak Khmer, they only read and write in Thai. 
And, of course, the ethnic differences are even more durable.  The Thais
themselves have an acute awareness of the degrees of ethnic difference that
divide the nation; many foreigners are blind to it --but so what?  The
average Thai is unaware of the secret shame of the average Yorkshireman
living in London.

>>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.

> 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.

Genetic research has shown the reverse about Nepal, etc., as mentioned.  I
don't know how to break this to you, L.C., but Britain is an island that was
on the outermost fringes of the Roman empire; the kind of ethnic interchagne
and migration over the same period in mainland Asia is a much different
story.  Why would they be comparable?

There are significant regions in Northern Thailand and Laos where (e.g.) the
Lu or the Akha are the majority; and we know (for many of those regions)
that 200 years ago they didn't live there at all --they were further north
in China.  These are substantial migrations that have had very palpable
effects on the ethnic, lingual, and cultural composition of the area; and,
in the area mentioned, the influx of "new blood" from the north was often
(reciprocally) related to the fact that there was forced migration westward
into Burma --i.e., war captives.

On the rainy isle of England, by comparison, war captives (primarily taken
by the Vikings) were sold into slavery in the ports of the Roman empire;
thus, we have a well documented history of britons as slaves (that nobody
talks about) that had some effects in changing the ethnic composition of the
medeterranian.  The same can be said for eastern europeans bought and sold
in Rome.  The examples of Romans setting up colonies in the opposite
direction (and, thus, effecting ethnic change) is more often talked about in
Britain; they ought to relocate parliament to the city of Bath, as they're
so proud of it.  The Swiss still have a few towns where a dialect of Latin
is the official language --and where the local "ethnicity" traces direct
descent from Rome.  Conversely, there are not a few Swiss towns where the
ethnic legacy of the brief Mongol invasion can also be traced ... but nobody
wants to talk about it.

E.M.


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
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Those who are afraid when there should be no fear, and are not afraid when
there should be fear, such men, due to their wrong views go to woeful
states.
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