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

In the absence of our moderator, we should probably exercise
self-discipline. This thread seems to be expanding into all sorts of
other areas and is in any case probably well beyond the remit of this
list group. So I will respond one more time and leave it at that.

>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":

I think you need to read more carefully what you actually write. In
the guise of criticizing an article of Dr Saddhatissa, you appear to
be actually attacking various other views with which you disagree.

>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.

This is a red herring. Dr Saddhatissa did not suggest in the article
you cite (nor anywhere else, I suspect) that Suva.n.nagiri has
anything to do with Suv.n.nabhuumi. We can agree that forms
equivalent to Suva.n.nagiri in the inscriptions of Asoka occur in an
entirely different context to the lists of places with which Asoka
had some kind of diplomatic and/or religious contact. I do not
believe that any serious scholar thinks otherwise.

>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.

600 years or much less, if based on lost sources.

>You may
>compare the debates over "Tambapa.n.ni" = Sri Lanka.

A difficult question on which I have a whole draft article.

>  > 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.

Much  of this is irrelevant. The point I was making is that the
peoples ruled by the ancient Pyu kings, the Mon rulers of Raama~n~na
and the Mon (and Khmer) rulers of various parts of present-day
Thailand are part of the ancestry of present-day Thai speakers.

>  >>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?

Because people used to adopt precisely the model of constant invasion
to interpret the history of the British Isles. We now know it is not
so simple.

>
>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.

But what language do the descendants of those captives now speak ?

>
>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;

Viking raids begin around the ninth century; so I am not sure what
you mean by the 'Roman Empire'. But given the size of Viking ships I
doubt that overall numbers of slaves taken can have been that large.

There were of course Morrish slave raids in the 17th century. Even
then, although the numbers taken (and not ransomed) were significant,
I doubt that they were that large in relation to overall populations.

>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.

Some, but probably not very much.

>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.

You still don't seem to understand that difference of language is not
evidence of historical difference of race. By the evidence of
language the vast majority of present-day Americans are English or
Spanish or Portuguese. That means that a very large number of
immigrants and aboriginals have now lost their original language.
'Twas always so.

Lance