It’s long been known that the Burmese have a deep reverence for the Abhidhamma, as the following citation shows:
There is a folk tale told by the Burmese that captures their predilection for the Abhidhamma. It is said that long ago a ship carrying the tipiṭaka foundered at sea. The ship sank, but the baskets of the Buddhist canon floated to the surface to be carried on the ocean’s currents. The books of the Vinaya floated to Thailand, and the suttas went to Sri Lanka.78 As one might suspect, the story tells that the books of the Abhidhamma washed up on the shore of Burma. Regardless of its doubtful veracity, this vignette captures the sense the Burmese have of themselves as distinctive in their appreciation for the Abhidhamma. While inscriptions suggest the Burmese placed great value on the Abhidhamma as early as the Pagan period,79 most scholars point to the seventeenth century as the time when a pronounced stress on Abhidhamma studies began in Burma.80 At this time, multiple translations from Pali to Burmese took place, particularly through word-by-word translations called nissayas;81 a system for memorizing the relationships among the dhammas was developed by a monk and subsequently promoted by the king;82 and a trend to translate religious texts into Burmese extended the reach of Buddhist learning, especially with the development of Burmese-language primers called ayakauk (a ra kok’).83
The curricula of monasteries prior to the twentieth century also reflect the importance of the Abhidhamma in the Buddhist scholarly tradition of Burma, and they offer a link from earlier times to the Paramatthadīpanī controversy. Prior to British rule, Burmese monasteries followed no common course of study, but over time a loose standardization had developed in the choice of texts and the levels of the students at which they were introduced. Abhidhamma study usually began for students between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, once they had made the decision to pursue their studies beyond the basic level expected of all boys. Study of the Abhidhamma started with memorization of the Saṅgaha. Although not speaking of Burmese culture in particular, the Sinhalese scholar-monk Hammalawa Saddhātissa expressed well the longstanding sentiment in Burma about the Saṅgaha: “Trying to study the Abhidhamma without first mastering this book, is like trying to construct a house without a suitable foundation.”84
Braun, Erik. The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism & the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (Buddhism and Modernity) (p. 63). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
This greater emphasis appears to have begun in the 17th century under King Thalun, who actively promoted its study, although it had already been explicit since the time of the Pagan Empire.
Additionally, the increased literacy that came about as a result of the Thudhamma reforms would have had a strong impact on the study of Abhidhamma in Burma:
The monastic reforms beginning in the 1780s likely also shaped the education of young boys. The Thudhamma reformers of King Bodawpaya’s time argued that the decline in the sāsana was due to the fact that novices were poorly trained in the Pali texts and insisted that new novices must learn the words and the letters of the texts.42 This concern created the curriculum of the Patamabyan Pali examinations discussed in Chapter 2 and elevated reciting Pali texts to the pinnacle of monastic practice.43 Reform ideals established curriculum and education as central issues for the sāsana and mandated memorization as a pedagogical method.
Turner, Alicia. Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory, 37) (p. 52). University of Hawaii Press. Kindle Edition.
Renaldo
