The Burmese also began to see themselves as protectors of the sāsana (especially under colonial rule) and knew that preserving the Abhidhamma was the first step in preserving the sāsana:
A European visitor to Mandalay in 1861, Adolf Bastian, gives us another example of the particular importance of the Abhidhamma to King Mindon. He records that one day he came upon workers in one of the palace courtyards engraving the Abhidhamma on stone posts that the king had ordered set up as milestones along all the roads of the kingdom.142
As mentioned in the introduction, the Paṭṭhāna, as the very first book to vanish, stood in an exalted place as the bulwark against the loss of the Abhidhamma and, by extension, of Buddhism as a whole. Nine years after inscribing the Abhidhamma on posts, Mindon built a Paṭṭhāna Hall, where a three-month-long discussion of conditional relations, the subject of the Paṭṭhāna, was held among respected sayadaws, presumably as a way to insure its longevity and, generally, to avert dangers to the kingdom through its apotropaic properties when recited.143 In modern times the ascendancy of the Abhidhamma in Burma remains obvious, and especially the great esteem for the Paṭṭhāna. I noted at the start of the book that many taxis in Yangon have the twenty-four conditional relations printed on CDs hanging from their rearview mirrors, and that they show up on posters, calendars, monks’ fans, and above the entrances to monasteries, among other places.144 In 2004, when I visited the Shwedagon on the last day of the summer rains retreat, I was reminded that it was an official holiday: Abhidhamma day.145
Braun, Erik. The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism & the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (Buddhism and Modernity) (pp. 72-73). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
Renaldo