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La notion de reste dans le choix du nom personnel en Birmanie (Myanmar)

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Francois Robinne at French National Centre for Scientific Research
Francois Robinne
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Abstract

The Burmese have no patronymic. They have instead multiple personal names which, in combination, generally form two or three monosyllables. These names are either given by others or chosen by the individual and are selected using a widely-known system called mahābut. This paper examines how, according to the internal logic of this system, the name bears a dual aspect of fatality and free will. All calculations, including those related to astrology, begin with a number generated by taking the remainder of the year of birth divided by seven. By the association of the numbers produced by the various calculations with a chart of syllables, it is possible to assemble a name. The remainder (from which the name is generated) introduces a notion of randomness or freedom which minimizes the belief in karmic predestination.
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La notion de reste dans le choix du nom personnel en
Birmanie (Myanmar)
François Robinne
To cite this version:
François Robinne. La notion de reste dans le choix du nom personnel en Birmanie (Myanmar).
Aséanie, Sciences humaines en Asie du Sud-Est, 1998, pp.91-105. �halshs-01866964�
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Theatre of death and rebirth: Monks' funerals in Burma
Chapter
  • Apr 2012
Theatre of death and rebirth: monks’ funerals in Burma. Abstract. RITUAL REWRITING OF THE BUDDHIST CANON. Temporary substitute for death. Among the nine Buddhist congregations officially recognised in Burma, the Tudhamma congregation has the largest number of saṅgha members. It is particularly renowned for the size of its ritual performances which include the funeral ceremonies of a superior monk. To my knowledge, only two vernacular texts describe these in detail. The one concerns royal funerals – but also those of monks and Shan sawbwa – at the court of Ava from the second half of the seventeenth to the first half of the eighteenth century (Sīri Ujuanā 1962), the other the funeral of a monk who lived in the nineteenth century under the Konbaung dynasty (Anonymous 1 1988). Valuable information is sometimes contained in the eulogies published on the death of a monk: besides the deceased’s biography, we also find in these the texts recited on the occasion by the Buddhist community and the groups of women as well as a detailed account of the festivities (Anonymous 2 2003). Though these vernacular documents are extremely valuable, they are not sufficient to make up for the lack of anthropological analysis.
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