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The place of Gordon Luce in research and education in Burma during the last decades of British rule
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
There is a good deal that is tantalizing and rather sad about the life and work of G. H. Luce who has a claim to be considered the most distinguished British scholar to explore Burma's past, with only Sir Arthur Phayre as his peer. Both were pioneers. Both explored Burma's history with deep sympathy and insight. Phayre left as his monument a complete history from the earliest times to the British occupation. In certain respects, for example in his scheme of periodization, this remains the model for his successors. Luce produced a corpus of specialized studies which greatly extended knowledge of the sources of Burma's early medieval history and the details of its infrastructure - far beyond the range of Phayre's researches. Yet he did not nurture his work to full fruition.
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NOTES
1 Lieut General SirPhayre, Arthur P., History of Burma; including Burma Proper, Pegu, Taungu, Tenasserim and Arakan; from the earliest times to the end of the first war with British India, London, 1883.Google Scholar See also comments by the present writer in “Arthur Phayre and Henry Yule: two soldier-administrator historians” in Historians of South East Asia, ed. Hall, D. G. E., Oxford, 1961 (hereafter cited as Hall, Historians), esp. pp. 273–4.Google Scholar
2 Luce, G. H., Old Burma - Early Pagan, 3 vols, Locust Valley, N.Y., 1969–1970.Google Scholar
3 Recall the conclusion to A Passage to India: “India a nation! What an apotheosis. Last comer to the drab nineteenth-century sisterhood.”
4 For an account of that celebrated evening, see the present writer's The Ordeal of Love; C. F. Andrews and India (Delhi, 1979), p. 56.Google Scholar
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8 The Burma Research Society became an Associate Society of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1924.
9 See Journal of the Burma Research Society (hereafter JBRS) Vol. I, Part I, 06 1911.Google Scholar Furnivall contributed “Matriarchal Vestiges in Burma”, “Harvest Home in Burma”, “The Burmese Calendar”. Part II, December 1911 included his “Foundation of Pagan”
10 Curzon's intention was partly foiled: the Club still occupied part of the old palace in the 1930s: see Glass, Leslie, The Changing of Kings; memories of Burma, 1934–1949, London, 1985, p. 79.Google Scholar
11 The Superintendent was on the scale Rs 300–800 per mensem. An Assistant Commissioner (a young man between 22 and about 30 years of age) received Rs 450–1000 per mensem. Beside the Superintendent there was an Assistant Superintendent, an Archaeological Assistant, a Conservation Assistant and an Architectural Surveyor. The first received Rs 265, and the others Rs 175 or Rs 150 per mensem. There were also two pundits on Rs 50.
12 See Chapter II, “The Remains at Pagan”, Narrative of the Mission…to the Court of Ava in 1855, London, 1858.Google Scholar Eighty years later, Luce was still citing this work as his main authority on Pagan.
13 Koninklijk Instituut voor der Taal, Land, en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsche Indië.
14 In fairness to the memory of Sir Stamford Raffles, he ordered the first survey of the Borobodur while Lieutenant-Governor of Java.
15 Hall's memoir of Luce in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. XLIII, Part 3, 1979 (pp. 581–8Google Scholar) provides a wealth of information. Its tone is appreciative throughout: the present study attempts to be more detached.
16 Luce's version was reproduced by Harvey, G. E. in his History of Burma, London 1925, pp. 249–50Google Scholar but without any acknowledgment of his source.
17 As the Journal is unlikely to be available to many readers, where relevant, reference will be made to Burma Research Society, Fiftieth Anniversary Publications No. 2, Rangoon, 1960Google Scholar (hereafter JBRS 1960 reprint) “The Greater Temples” and following poem are on pp. 169–78,Google Scholar illus. addl.
18 Luce said that he wrote out poems to safeguard his sanity. The impression was created that he was in the firing line: well, “old men forget”.
19 “The Smaller Temples of Pagan”, JBRS 1960 reprint, pp. 179–86.Google Scholar
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22 These events are treated at greater length by Cady, John F., A History of Modern Burma, Ithaca, 1958, pp. 201–12.Google Scholar
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24 In retirement, Craddock became an M.P. and played a leading part in the Diehard opposition to the Government of India Bill, 1935.
25 Thus, J. A. Stewart, a member of the ICS was married to a Burmese lady. He also commanded the Burmese company of Sappers and Miners which served in Mesopotamia, 1916–18, and took part in the crossing of the Tigris under murderous fire. His distinguished career in Burma included warm support for BRS and in retirement he became Professor of Burmese at SOAS.
26 Luce was fond of citing Pelliot's “Deux Itinéraires de Chine en Inde á la Fin du VIIIe Siecle” (Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient, Vol. IV, 1904Google Scholar) as a fundamental contribution to t he early history of South East Asia: see JBRS, 1960 reprint, p. 187.Google Scholar
27 Tin, Pe Maung and Luce, G. H., trans., The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, Oxford, 1923, pp. 164–5.Google Scholar G. E. Harvey in his History includes many passages in an identical style with just an occasional change of a word: compare Harvey, pp. 68–9, and Pe Maung Tin/Luce pp. 177–79, for one example.
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31 His proposal was reproduced in JBRS, XII, 1922.Google Scholar
32 In his memoir, Hall implies that the transfer took place much earlier and that Luce was given a Readership (BSOAS, XLIII, Pt 3, p. 583Google Scholar), while Luce stated that the Professorship proposal was accepted “by a narrow margin” (Cowan, & Wolters, , op. cit. p. 31Google Scholar). The India Office and Burma Office List shows Luce as a lecturer to the end of his IES career.
33 ISC, XI, pp. 136–8.Google Scholar
34 It seems that only Kyaw Min, b. 1895, member of an Anglicized Arakanese family, secured entry into the ICS by open competition. He was educated at St Xavier's College, Calcutta and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
35 ISC, XI, p. 153.Google Scholar
36 JBRS, “Fu-kan-tu-lu” (XIV, ii, 88–99Google Scholar), “The Tan (AD 97–132) and the Ngai-Laö” (XIV, ii, 100–37)Google Scholar, “Countries Neighbouring Burma” (XIV, ii, 138–205)Google Scholar. All included in JBRS 1960 reprint, pp. 191–306.Google Scholar
37 JBRS 1960 reprint, p. 221 n3.Google Scholar
38 Hobson Jobson (ed. Yule, H. and Burnell, A. C.), London, 1903,Google Scholar calls “Chin Chin” a salutation in the pigeon English “Much used by Englishmen” in the Treaty Ports of China, a corruption of ts'ing ts'ing “a term of salutation”. Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (5th. edn.London, 1961)Google Scholar, relates it was used as a toast, “common in club society by 1909”, and popularized in the 1914–18 war.
39 Maung, Maung, Burma in the Family of Nations, The Hague, 1956, p. 29.Google Scholar
40 Maung, Maung, Burma's Constitution, The Hague, 1959, p. 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 See Tinker, Hugh, ed. Burma: the Struggle for Independence, Vol. II, “From General Strike to Independence”, London, 1984:Google Scholar when he departed, Sir Hubert Rance was permitted to walk on the upper platform of the Shwe Dagon excluded from general use. He then penned his “last message to Burma” (p. 837).
42 JBRS, XIV, 138–205,Google Scholar XXIX, i, 264–82, XXXX, i, 283–335. All in JBRS 1960 reprint, pp. 307–75, and 385–403.Google Scholar
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46 Cady, J. F., op. cit. pp. 376–83 and 400–40,Google Scholar also U Nu, Saturday's Son, New Haven, 1975, pp. 61–82.Google Scholar
47 The Luces had a little bungalow near Taunggyi, from whence he conducted his field studies. At this time physical anthropology was emphasized; classification into racial and tribal types. Luce adopted this approach and accumulated a collection of skulls, classified as “round heads” and “long heads”. When the Japanese searched his bungalow and discovered this collection they imagined he must be some kind of monster. Needless to say, Luce delighted in telling this story.
48 Thus, the Japanese scrupulously looked after the apparatus and equipment in the medical college, but the R.A.F. “liberated” the lot. It was subsequently restored.
49 Cowan, and Wolters, , op. cit. p. 36.Google Scholar
50 Essays offered to G. H. Luce by his colleagues and friends …eds. Shin, Ba, Boisselier, Jean, Griswold, A. B., Ascona (Switzerland), 1966.Google Scholar For Luce's essay in honour of Hall, see Cowan and Wolters: “Sources of Early Burma History”.
51 BSOAS, XXX, Pt. 3, 1967, p. 731.Google Scholar