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5 - The Viṣṇu on Garuḍa from the Nat Hlaung Kyaung Temple, Bagan
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- By Olga Deshpande, art historian in the Oriental Department, State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, Pamela Gutman, Honorary Associate with the Department of Art History, University of Sydney, Australia
- Edited by Goh Geok Yian, John N. Miksic, Michael Aung-Thwin
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- Book:
- Bagan and the World
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 01 February 2018
- Print publication:
- 30 October 2017, pp 66-87
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Summary
From Bagan to St Petersburg
For nearly seventy years, four Burmese stone sculptures dating to the 11th–12th centuries have been in storage at the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. They arrived in Russia after World War II, part of a large group of Asian art objects (from India to Japan and Indonesia) from two institutions in Berlin, the Museum für Volkerkunde and the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst. It was only after the radical political changes in the Soviet Union in the early 1990s that, after a long period of obfuscation regarding their background, Russia and Germany were able to begin to work together, and with other specialists, on these collections.
The Burmese sculptures comprise three images depicting events from the life of the Buddha: the cutting of the hair in preparation for his life as an ascetic; the Naga King Mucalinda sheltering him from a storm in the sixth week after the Enlightenment; and the taming of the raging elephant Nālāgiri. We discussed these images at the EURASEAA 14 Conference in Dublin in September 2012 and our findings will be published in the conference proceedings. The fourth image, examined here, represents Viṣṇu on Garuḍa, Viṣṇu Garuḍāsana.
These sculptures were sent to the Museum für Volkerkunde between 1894 and 1896 by a German geologist and palaeontologist, Friedrich (Fritz) Wilhelm Nötling (1857–1928), who at the time was employed by the Geological Survey of India and was working at the Yenangyaung oil fields near Bagan. Nötling studied geology and related subjects before graduating in 1885, after which he worked as a private docent (tutor) at the University of Königsberg. In the same year, he was assigned by the Berlin Academy of Sciences to go on a mission to Palestine, and he subsequently published his first paper for the Geological Survey of Prussia in 1886. Until the University Reforms of the late 1900s, palaeontology was not taught at English universities, and the Geological Survey of India from time to time found it necessary to resort to Germany to find suitable people to fill palaeontological posts. In January 1887 Nötling sailed to Calcutta and served in the Geological Survey until 1903. He became a prolific researcher on geological, paleontological, prehistoric and ethnological subjects and published over forty papers and three books (Struwe 2006, p. 33).
Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar
- Pamela Gutman, Bob Hudson, Kyaw Minn Htin, Kyaw Tun Aung
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This is a story that will appeal to all scholars involved with the interpretation of rock art. Figures depicted on rock surfaces in jungle terrain patrolled by soldier ants were thought in the nineteenth century to record an otherwise unknown early episode of invasion and resistance – and were widely published as such. A recent survey by a Myanmar-Australian team has made more correct records of the earlier forms and now offers fresh interpretations: the carvings are due to fifteenth-nineteenth century artisans working at quarries producing objects for the town of Mrauk-U, and they evoke local creatures and architectural echoes of the town and temples on which they worked.
15 - Symbolism of Kingship in Arakan
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- By Pamela Gutman, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra
- Edited by David G. Marr, A. C. Milner
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- Book:
- Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 01 January 1986, pp 279-288
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Summary
The kings of the obscure “Indianized” states of Arakan shared with their grander counterparts in Asia the need to explicate the link between their temporal position and the cosmological justification of their power. Their “oriental despotism” classically depended on the capability to control water. The agricultural base of the capitals from the 4th to the 18th centuries, the deltaic plains of the Kaladan and Lemro rivers, was swamped with water during the wet season but was dry for half the year. Surplus production could be maintained only through centralized water retention and drainage systems. The importance of a continued water supply is, naturally, the central motif of royal symbolism. The king's law, his dharma, was explained in terms of the cosmic law which guides the cycle of the seasons and guarantees fertility and prosperity.
While this theme has been explored time and again in Southeast Asian studies, two interesting illustrations show localized adaptation of Indian models: an inscribed stone with possible megalithic precedents, which had great significance for at least four dynasties between the 5th and 16th centuries, and remains important today, and two sculptures which we postulate represent Indra, king of the gods and bestower of water, whose celebrations are central to the Arakanese and Burmese new year festivities.
The Shitthaung Pillar
The city of Mrohaung (Ar. Mrauk-Ū), founded in 1430, was the last in a series of capitals along the Kaladan river, dating from around the 5th century. The Kaladan gives easy access to the Bay of Bengal, and the Arakanese capitals variously exhibit Gupta, Pallava, Pala and Moghul influence, although the impact of the Pyu and Mon-Burman cultures of Burma proper is also apparent.
The Shitthaungpara (Shrine of the Eighty Thousand Images) [1] was erected by King Minbin, (Sīrisuriyacandramahādhammarāja, fl. 1531-1553), twelfth king of the Mrauk-Ū dynasty, with the assistance of Bengali and Portuguese architects and engineers. Both a fortress and a pagoda, its purpose was to serve as a place of refuge for the royal family and retainers. By the time of its erection, the threat from both the Dutch and the Portuguese was very real, Mrauk-Ū being, in the words of the Viceroy of Goa “both rich and weak, and therefore desirable”. To the left hand of the entrance to the north side is a square stone pillar, rising to a height of 3.3 m from the socket, each side measuring 0.7 m across.