Introduction
The royal imaginary is a part of modern state construction in both Thailand and Burma. In Thailand, King Bhumibol is still regarded by many as the embodiment of the Thai nation, its culture, religion and society: the King has considerable symbolic power, as shown by his role during political crises. In Burma, where the last king, Thibaw, was exiled by the British in 1886, humiliating the Burmese, General Than Shwe has erected statues of three famous Burmese kings as symbolic legitimacy for the new capital Naypyidaw (Royal City) and his rule. The military dictator is rumoured to consider himself a future king or Buddha.Footnote 1 In Thailand and Burma, the Karen and other ethnic groups struggle to carve out a space with some degree of cultural autonomy; part of this struggle involves the imaginary of a state and a nation in Burma as well as a moral leader founded in Karen tradition and notions of kingship.
This article analyses the Karen royal imaginary — not in the sense of an illusion, but as part of the aspirations of a cultural community and polity. Karen relations with kingship have always been ambivalent, as royal protection was needed yet feared. Historically, the Karen applied their version of Buddhist cosmology to produce models of the world and strategies to cope with its problems. The Karen employed an ambiguous strategy ‘between valleys and hills’ — hills being conceptualised as a non-state space partly beyond the control of royal or state power, a space for withdrawal and refuge or as a base for rebellions.Footnote 2
The Karen have accordingly oscillated between defensive and offensive strategies. The former consists of avoiding taxes, corvée labour and political suppression while subsisting on swidden agriculture, hunting and collecting forest products; in the latter, royal power is emulated to resist state administration and coercion while working to construct a Karen polity. Both strategies imply a quest for moral leadership founded on Buddhist ethics and entail an emulation, as well as a critique, of the respective monarchies and states whose borders the Karen dwell within. These are not contradictory systems or polar models, but varying strategies within the same political continuum.
An imaginary can be based on the memory of objects or persons, or the expectation of their appearance; it can form a cognitive frame for action, creating a relation between what is imagined and a specific existential condition. Put differently, an imaginary constitutes an ideal vision of the world, connecting past and present to imagine a future moral order.Footnote 3
The Karen imaginary is based on Buddhist cosmology including myths and legends. Buddhist cosmology constitutes an imaginary of the world, its origins, its forces and powers and the necessary moral means (notions and personal acts) to cope with suffering, misfortune and violence. It predicts the coming of the next Buddha and a righteous ruler (dhammaraja) who will prepare for his arrival with the help of the mythological King Indra and his angels (devata). The Karen/Buddhist imaginary creates an ontological model of livelihood and leadership, as well as the appropriate moral conditions for well-being. The core of this imaginary exists relatively independent of specific events and changes; it conjures up images of a prosperous future and symbolically reproduces the history of migrations, wars, great events and leading actors. It is also about the realisation of a new moral order, a new moral community. Hence the Karen imaginary is a tool for ordering experience, forecasting the future,Footnote 4 and is crucial for ethnic identification across the differences between Sgaw and Pwo Karen.Footnote 5
Steven Collins, in his monumental work on Buddhist utopia, used the term Pali imaginaire, which ‘is a mental universe created by and within Pali texts’.Footnote 6 According to Collins, the inner world prescribed in the texts becomes a description of the actual world and thus articulates a relation between subjects and their conditions of living. The main royal figure representing righteous rule in the texts is the Indian emperor Asoka. The Karen imaginary flows between textual (for example, as written in the Mon alphabet on bamboo or paper) and oral representations and their social context and not directly from text to context. Their religion is important as a fulcrum of social and historical memory and creates an index of landmarks that can be recalled in rituals, ceremonies, temples, stupas, sacred places, amulets and relics. But how can we generalise this imaginary without essentialising a ‘Karen’ mentality; and, second, what is the evidence for this generalisation?
During fieldwork among the Karen over the past 40 years, I have regularly observed the Karen imaginary of a future leadership (a king, the future Buddha, a ‘prophet’ or a political leader). I also discovered that ideas and myths travelled long distances between Burma and Thailand.Footnote 7 Moreover, I have found this imaginary described in colonial documents and in the literature on the Karen. It is not necessarily Buddhist, either: among Christian Karen there exists a similar imaginary, and many Karen believe that Christianity is their rediscovered lost knowledge.Footnote 8 The Karen imaginary appears with great variation on the same themes across communities. Yet, to postulate a collective imaginary for a group as fragmented as the Karen, a non-state people scattered across national borders, may be problematic. The Karen themselves maintain that they share common customs (ta a lu a la) while observing different religious rituals (ta a bu a ba). The traditional imaginary is now also competing or syncretised with modern political imaginaries among urban educated Karen. Despite the hazards of generalisation, I seek to provide some evidence for the existence of such an imaginary in the following examples from both Karen history and the present.
Historically, the Karen royal imaginary has aimed to establish a relatively autonomous moral space; at times, this has been the basis for organising rebellion, as in Burma.Footnote 9 In other circumstances it became a sacred refuge. For Karen in Thailand, the royal imaginary is still important as a part of aspirations for an improved livelihood and a righteous leadership. Nowadays, with the exception of the Christian Karen National Union (KNU), this imaginary is not primarily seeking to establish a separate state, but has been gradually adapted to the modern state and contemporary conditions.
Significantly, the desire for righteous leadership is shared with large parts of the Burmese and the Thai populations for whom leadership also rests on what could be called, paraphrasing Max Weber, the enchanted subjectivity necessary for creating an enchanted world.Footnote 10 Leadership is thus judged by a leader's spiritual and moral capital, which in Buddhism is founded on a person's karma. Morality and divinity are often projected onto charismatic individuals and their subjective agency. In modern Buddhist societies righteous leadership is also articulated through such notions as democracy and human rights.
Alain Touraine argues that there is an increasing global focus on moral subjective agency and an appeal to moral and divine qualities in political leaders.Footnote 11 Touraine also argues that the divine enters society in the personal qualities of leaders at the same time as the nation is declared a sacred community.
Resurgent religiosity as a mark of political legitimacy is often used to counter global forces such as capitalism, consumerism and social fragmentation. In Thailand, the resurgence of Buddhist cosmology can be explained by its allegorical function as a historical narrative and its ability to judge the present. The Karen version is like a palimpsest: they write the present into the past — or the past into the present — and derive a special cosmo-logic for the temporal world as well as for a future utopia. The Karen often say that they are a people without a nation-state searching for a ‘sacred land’ — a morally enchanted space under an enchanted leadership.
This article traces the Karen imaginary in Burma and Thailand and compares examples of its recent use in western and northern Thailand. The Karen mix myth and history, and they may leap from past to present and back, and some ethnographic details may also appear less important. While this may challenge the analysis and the reader, they are, however, part of Karen narratives related to me and considered relevant by Karen informants. The imaginary of their future king mirrors the position of the Karen as a minority, and connects to the struggle for political and moral leadership in Thailand. While this imaginary may appear to differ from current Thai ideas, notions of moral leadership and sacred communities among the Thai and Karen derive from the same Buddhist sources and have the same allegorical functions. The main difference is the strong utopian and millenarian dimension of the Karen imaginary.Footnote 12
Karen notions of kingship
Buddhist Karen concepts of royalty should be considered in relation to the bodhisatta ideal of world redeemer and as part of a quest for moral leadership, which are based on the Mon–Burman tradition emphasising the next Buddha. Several Mon and Burman kings — for example, King Alaùnghpayà (‘coming Buddha’) r.1752–60 — declared themselves as a universal ruler (cakkavatti), righteous ruler (dhammaraja) and bodhisatta.Footnote 13 In Thailand, according to the disputed official narrative, King Taksin (1767–82) declared himself an arahat (Buddhist saint) with supernatural powers. He also considered himself a bodhisatta and had monks flogged if they did not worship him as a coming Buddha. Despite his success in reorganising Siam after the fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese, Taksin was declared not to be a righteous leader, and he was deposed by his opponent (King Rama I) and executed, and is now conveniently described as insane. Although the tradition differs from the Burmese, this is still part of a modern discourse on the monarchy and royal authority in relation to the historical concepts of dhammaraja and bodhisatta.Footnote 14
For many Karen, as well as many Burmese and Thai, a ruler must abide by Buddhist ethics: when Buddhism declines, a universal ruler will cleanse the world of its vices and a dhammaraja following the 10 virtues or perfections (parami) will re-establish the doctrine. Failing this, they will not meet the next Buddha. The 10 duties of kings are: liberality (charity, welfare), morality, generosity (self-sacrifice), integrity (honesty), kindness (concern for the people), austerity (self-control), non-anger, non-violence, forbearance, and non-opposition or non-obstruction (to the will of the people).Footnote 15 These perfections are easily transferred and translated onto modern leaders, one example of whom is Aung San Suu Kyi.Footnote 16 In Thailand the 10 duties are directly or indirectly part of the discourse on monarchical authority.
Karen legends and poems with predictions of a ‘coming king’ were widespread in precolonial and colonial Burma, and are still alive. They are also widespread among the Karen in Thailand and recalled especially during crises, evoking the historical struggles between Burma and Thailand. The title of ‘coming king’ or ‘crown prince’ (chao rat) was also used for a famous Karen rebel leader, Duai Gow (Gwae Gau, in Thailand), who between 1856–60 organised a polyethnic guerrilla force against the British in Papun and Bassein.Footnote 17 In Burma he was called a mìn laùng (mau lay in Karen) — a Burmese word meaning ‘imminent king’, ‘pretender’ — a potential dhammaraja and forerunner of the next Buddha. He proclaimed that the Burman, the Mon and the British had had their time and that a Karen ruler would appear in Pegu. He possessed the 32 signs and 80 marks of a phra laùng (bodhisatta) and was believed to be invulnerable. Nonetheless, colonial forces conquered his headquarters in Papun in 1856 and confiscated its weapons and donations from supporters. Despite the loss, Duai Gow/Gwae Gau continued his struggle from the Kayah States and moved into Mae Sariang, in northern Thailand, where he was killed around 1860 after having attacked some Burmese working for British timber concessionaires.Footnote 18 He figures prominently as a culture hero in poems among the Karen in northern Thailand, in which he is presented as an orphan who obtained his knowledge from a hermit. Some narratives hold Gwae Gau to have been betrayed by his beautiful wife Naw Bô', and the fighting to have started because the British king wanted to marry her.
British documents say that Gwae Gau was the ninth Karen mìn laùng to appear during a period of about 100–150 years.Footnote 19 The first and most famous was named Saw Gwae Rañ, who it is believed will return as an avatar. They all constructed stupas near Papun in the present Karen State, Burma. And the tradition seems to have continued. As late as 1938 a Sgaw Karen mìn laùng appeared who called himself Phu Kwe Kaw (Phu Gwae Gau, Grandfather Gwae Gau), and built a monastery near Papun. The colonial frontier area administration called him ‘an enlightened agitator’. Martin Smith translates his name as ‘Honest Man’ (Grandfather Honest) and describes his mixing of Buddhism and Christianity as well as nationalism and religion, which brought him into conflict with Christian Karen in the Salween area.Footnote 20
It is important to note that the mìn laùng leaders were former monks or bu kho/boung kho (head of merit), Karen religious leaders whose role will be explained in the next section. They were persons of high moral standing. These leaders established what F.K. Lehman has termed a founder's cult: the ‘dynasty’ of a leader who must prove he can control the locality and its metaphysical forces — demonstrate moral force as an imminent ruler — before his following increases and he is able to expand his zone of control.Footnote 21
Why is this tradition important? In order to explain its significance we have to return to eighteenth-century Burma and Siam. Burma was in turmoil in 1740–57, and Ayutthaya, the Siamese capital, was looted and its inhabitants taken to Burma in 1767. War, hunger, and the displacement of thousands of Mon, Karen and other peoples were all signs of a crisis and lack of righteous leadership. Many Karen in western Thailand have an oral or written narrative of these disastrous years, referred to as ‘the Alaùnghpayà hunger’, alluding to the Burmese king.
In Burma in 1740, a mìn laùng appeared among the Karen in the village of Awaing north of Pegu.Footnote 22 He was said to be a son of a former prince of Pagan who revolted in 1714 and disappeared. He referred to prophecies of a righteous ruler who would follow the 10 Buddhist duties of a monarch. His name was Tha Hla and he was called Gwe Mìn (mìn, ‘king’ in Burmese) but he took the official title of S'min Dhaw Buddhakheti (dhammaraja Buddha field of merit). His royal status was expressed by a white elephant, a symbol of royalty in Buddhist cosmology signifying an auspicious era and the coming Buddha. His ethnicity is unclear: some sources say he was Karen, others that he was Shan or Mon and a Buddhist monk. But, as a righteous ruler, it is his moral habitus that is important, not his ethnicity. He had a significant Karen following and appointed at least five Karen to leading positions in his court and 17 as officials. He and his Karen followers have been referred to as Gwei/Gwae or Gwe Karen. This term has been discussed thoroughly elsewhere as an ethnic category.Footnote 23 However, it is not an ethnic term and may refer to Gwae as in Gwae Gabaung, the famous mountain in the Karen heartland near Pa-an — and it could be the same word as in names of the Karen mìn laùngs Gwae Rañ and Gwae Gau. In other words, it has a symbolic meaning with reference to a specific place (and persons).Footnote 24 The mountain was famous as a refuge and fortress during King Alaùnghpayà's pacification of the former Pegu kingdom in 1757–60. The Karen called it Doung Yaung (‘weeping city’). Today it is often depicted, for example, on Karen music cassette and CD covers.Footnote 25Mìn laùng typically appeared during political crises. Kwanchewan Buadaeng describes the still active Bo Paik San Karen movement centred in Toungoo, which was founded in 1888 by the prophet Bo Paik San. Susanne Prager argues that the idea of a future king was part of Burman nationalism and that Aung San was seen as a mìn laùng and Aung San Suu Kyi has also been considered as a potential bodhisatta.Footnote 26
The turmoil in eighteenth-century Burma resulted in an exodus of thousands of Mon and Karen. They received permission from the Thai king to settle in Kanchanaburi, Tak and Uthaithani, and were integrated in the Thai muang system as border guards, spies or tributary peasants (phrai suai) who collected sappan wood, cardamom, ivory or produced high-quality cotton. Karen were appointed governors in Sangkhlaburi, Sisawat and Mae Khlong with titles such as Phra Sri Suwannakhiri. Karen in this area still retain a narrative of the events and of how they met with the Thai king. They told him about their exodus and explained to him that they used to be forest dwellers and swidden farmers and thus preferred to settle in the mountains. They received the king's permission to settle in return for their allegiance. This was confirmed in 1873 when Baptist missionaries attempted to convert them. They declined and said they would never convert from Buddhism ‘mainly because it is the Thai king's religion’.Footnote 27 Many Karen were also brought to the autonomous kingdom of Lanna, centred in Chiang Mai. King Kawila (1790–1812) captured Pwo Karen from Pa-an to work in the forests; others came as refugees and many settled in Lamphun province, where they became known as Yang Suai Kabang or Karen from Gwae Gabaung (Shwe Kabin in Burmese).Footnote 28 It is significant that these Karen owed allegiance to Thai and Khon Muang (Lanna) monarchs, and were integrated in the muang administrative system while preserving their traditions and imaginary of a future Karen king. The mìn laùng rebellions resemble the Holy Men's rebellions in northeast Thailand, which were founded on the same cosmological notions.Footnote 29 These events and figures of kings and rebels have become part of the social memory, related in myths and poetry that illustrate the relationship between moral leadership and the Karen people in the Karen imaginary.
The Karen allegory of orphans in search of a leader
The figure of a coming king is not only part of the Karen version of Buddhist cosmological imaginary, but also connects to their cultural narrative of the leader, Thaw Mae Pha, the legendary leader with magic powers, who walked ahead of his people in search of a new prosperous land. His followers were slowly cooking a meal and lost his tracks. It is believed that he will return some day and gather the scattered Karen, who are like orphans. Jonathan Falla, in his study of the KNU rebels on the Thai–Burma border, writes that young soldiers used the story of Thaw Mae Pha metaphorically to explain their struggle. Translated into a postcolonial political narrative, the Karen's self-definition emphasises that they are a scattered nation, without leadership, without a land and a state, and thus searching for knowledge, leadership and status as citizens of a modern nation-state.Footnote 30
The Karen imagery of being orphans provides an important allegory: orphans have to cope without protection from parents and ritual support; so, they must be clever, highly moral and develop supernatural powers.Footnote 31 In poems, orphans are depicted as assisting their elders and giving them rice; one older woman turns out to be the rice goddess, Phi Bi Yu, who secures future crops for good Karen.
When God (Ga Cha Yuah) gave each of his sons a book of knowledge, the Karen son lost his book in a swidden field while his Burman, Mon, Thai and European brothers all kept theirs; however, it is believed that the ‘white foreigner’ younger brother (kho la wa) will eventually return the book to the Karen. Meanwhile, without leadership and knowledge, it is difficult to improve livelihoods or make merit. The only actor who can redeem the Karen and prepare for the coming of the next Buddha is a righteous ruler. Christian missionaries recorded Karen poetry on the coming king, including these verses about God abandoning the Karen, who then became slaves of the Burmans but remembered the old sayings:
The poem implies that after all the other kings have had their chance, it will be the Karen king who will reign and secure peace, equality and happiness. Initially, Christian missionaries were excited about this Karen narrative and considered the expectations of a future king as proof of a messianic tradition derived from the Old Testament and that the Karen could be one of the lost tribes of Israel. But when the Buddhist Karen gradually turned against the missionaries as in the rebellions of 1856 and 1886, they discovered that Karen prophecies were Buddhist and that their Messiah was a rebel and a mìn laùng.Footnote 33 Indeed, Karen recited these verses as a prelude to the 1856 rebellion. And the mìn laùng described combines the cakkavatti, the dhammaraja and the bodhisatta in one person and contains a fusion of the powers and perfections of these characters as the habitus of a righteous ruler. The first lines of the poem signify that under a righteous leader the Karen will become people of town, city and palace — becoming ‘citizens’ (in contrast to forest dwellers) in a translation of the imaginary to modernity, as in the example below. The Karen concepts also indirectly refer to the mandala model of a polity as used by the Burmese and the Thai, but in a utopian sense.Footnote 34
The cosmo-logic of the Lu Baung movement
Karen imagery of a moral leader, a king and the orphan reappear in a modern context. Events in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Burma and Thailand are recalled here in order to interpret present conjunctures.
The first example is from the Pwo Karen living in western Thailand. The Lu Baung (Yellow Thread) movement in Uthaithani and Kanchanaburi provinces is related to the Talakhoung (also Telakhon; Talaku) movement on the border with, and inside, Burma and other similar denominations.Footnote 35 The Lu Baung followers are Buddhist and pay respect to monks, but they believe that the moral powers of the monks are running out. Thus, they look to their own ascetic leaders, boung kho. As of 2005, they were engaged in a ritual revival of building stupas. Three men had declared themselves boung kho and organised ceremonies in an attempt to counter both Karen decline and increased Thai cultural influence on the community.
According to the Pwo Karen, the Buddhist law of existence and cosmic order (dhamma) are waning. This also happened with the five incarnations of the Buddha believed to have preceded the historical one. When material greed and moral decline increase, the world faces an apocalyptic transformation — a cleansing of lust by fire, of anger by water and of ignorance by winds. King Indra (Hs' Meing Eing) will send his messenger Hsu Thoe Naw, who will shoot his arrow of fire. He acts as a universal ruler (cakkavatti), before the advent of the Buddha, Ariya Metteya or Ariya. But only those of especially high merit will survive and have a chance of meeting Ariya.Footnote 36 The real Lord (ga cha) is Ariya, and the truthful guardian of the world is the Earth Goddess, Soung Th' Rui (Thai: Nang Thorani), who protects the Buddha against the attack from the evil Mara (Mja). The Earth Goddess, King Indra and the dei vea dau (devata, deities or angels) are benevolent guardians in control of human beings and various spirits in a complex relationship of merit and power. Likewise, spirits of ancestors who died a violent death are important participants in sharing merit, for they punish transgressions of Lu Baung rules. By worshipping these figures, the Pwo Karen feel that they have the strongest possible allies amongst the invisible forces of the world. However, before the arrival of Ariya, a righteous ruler, a dhammaraja (S'meing Dhaw), must arise and generate the appropriate moral conditions for the next Buddha. A hermit (Pwo: eing hsai) named Th'Soeng Ne Dje, a culture hero and a prophet, who was the founder of the Lu Baung, made these predictions in his teachings.Footnote 37 According to the Pwo Karen, King Indra sent him. Th'Soeng Ne Dje's version of Buddhism is the foundation of Lu Baung religion. He also appointed local leaders with the title ‘head of merit’ — boung kho (Sgaw: bu kho). This means that Karen people can still make merit with monks, but monks are no longer necessary for merit-making.
The work of boung kho will secure merit by making a ritually sanctified zone around a stupa for his followers. In this zone local spirits are pacified and strict morality must be kept. The boung kho are dressed in white, signifying purity. They have to preserve the ‘coolness’ of these zones and keep them peaceful and morally clean before the arrival of Ariya, who will recognise their identity by a yellow string (lu baung) around the wrist. The string also provides protection for individual souls. The most important remedies needed to reach the era of Ariya are ritual conversion and a puritan way of life. Th'Soeng Ne Dje instructed his followers not to feed and kill animals as a sacrifice to the spirits. Chickens and pigs in a village attract the spirits and would mean that meritorious acts are polluted and that rituals do not work. Further, his followers were to avoid eating pork and chicken and the leaders should abstain from eating meat at least during ceremonies. Consequently, the tradition of aung hrae (sacrifices to the household spirits) and animal sacrifices to the local lord and evil spirits have ended among the Buddhist Karen.Footnote 38 The Earth Goddess is now the main guardian deity. Collective moral behaviour and the avoidance of sin, especially premarital sex and adultery, are stressed in all prayers. A ritual conversion includes the construction of stupas and sanctified zones as described below. After the apocalyptic cleansing of the world, a Karen king will appear, a dhammaraja (‘righteous king’), and the Pwo Karen will become ‘citizens’ (doung pho, ‘children of the city’ [see the poems cited above]; doung is a Mon word and signifies a centre of knowledge and power). Their knowledge and wisdom will increase and they will become wealthy under a Karen king whom neither the Burmese, Mon, Thai nor Europeans can match. However, the prophet also warned against false leaders.Footnote 39 Two important themes are embedded in the cosmology of the Pwo: that they lack knowledge of the city and its people, and the city is a dangerous space of invisible forces — a view many upland Karen still share. They often express fear that their daughters may lose their knowledge of custom and morality and end up becoming prostitutes if they live in a city. Thus, their religion focuses on obtaining knowledge and on empowerment to counter these forces.
The Lu Baung movement mainly represents the defensive dimension of Karen life strategies. However, its followers have also resisted Thai intervention in recent years. Morality and moral leadership are the best assets, according to the Pwo Karen, as exemplified in the following story, which is a major source of royal imaginary among the Lu Baung.
A Karen king and the lost knowledge
One of the most popular legends is about the Karen king Phu Le Aung Hai and his encounter with the Buddha. Phu Le Aung Hai lived in the forests and mountains as a hunter. He was the leader and king of the Sgaw, Pwo and Pa-o but they had to withdraw to the mountains under pressure from Mon, Burmese and Shan (Tai).Footnote 40 They lost their knowledge and power and became poor and oppressed. The loss of knowledge also implies that the powerful others would not disclose or share their knowledge — a point often brought to my attention by Karen. There is a widespread feeling that they are denied the knowledge that is the key to improving their livelihoods and coping with invisible forces. Hence, they are waiting for hidden knowledge to be revealed, as in the story of ‘the lost book of knowledge’. In the missionary version, the younger white brother will return the lost book and help the Karen. In other versions, however, the younger brother stole the book and in one version, related to me in Mae Chaem, he even killed his Karen brother, a son of the Karen creator god, Yuah. Lost knowledge and wisdom mean both operational/technical knowledge as well as moral wisdom. This loss is also the reason why the Karen were reduced to swidden agriculture and hunting, and why their insights into the global forces of cities and states were diminished.Footnote 41
According to the legend, one day Phu Le Aung Hai meets the Buddha and his 4,000 monks, who are visiting the forest. This figure in yellow with a shaved head scares him. He shakes and is afraid that these people dressed in yellow are going to kill the Karen; ‘Is he the devil?’, he asks. However, he is gradually persuaded to follow the Buddha, his teaching (dhamma) and precepts (sila). He recognises that there exists a rare peace among humans and animals around Lord Buddha. Phu Le Aung Hai gradually understands the idea of merit-making and of giving food to the monks. He worries about a rotten fruit he gave to the Buddha — ‘wisdom (paungnja; Pali: puñña) comes slowly to the Karen’, he muses. ‘But when the Karen obtains it they will become strong and rich and rule in a city.’ He then becomes Buddha's guide on the Lord's journey back to Heing Mja' Waung (Himalaya) and the Buddha gratefully gives Phu Le Aung Hai four hairs after instructing him in merit-making: ‘Now you are the great Karen and with my hair no one can touch you and no misfortune will strike you,’ followed by ‘hsa thau’ (Pali: sadhu, it is well) — a concluding utterance used in prayers to signify the power of the words. At home Phu Le Aung Hai consults a hermit (eing hsai) in order to find the right hill and build a stupa for the Buddha's hair, as instructed.Footnote 42 Significantly, this legend mentions a hermit as the wise person in charge of knowledge, like Th' Soeng Ne Dje, the Lu Baung prophet. Building a stupa (chetiya, ‘reliquary’) is the highest meritorious act, and raising its spire is a sign of royal power.Footnote 43
The Buddha predicted that Phu Le Aung Hai will become a strong and rich Karen king after he makes merit and obtains wisdom. This combination of religious merit, knowledge, material prosperity and power is significant in the Karen worldview — Pwo as well as Sgaw — and described in numerous myths and legends told by elder Karen urging the young generation to ‘listen carefully to every part’. In prayers, Karen boung kho and his followers aspire to be modern without losing their customs and identity: ‘Give us education and wisdom in order that we may become “citizens” and wealthy and may we reach the era of Ariya.’ Karen friends and informants have persistently asked me if my research has identified Phu Le Aung Hai, and where and when he was king. ‘Is it his picture on this old silver coin?’ I was asked when shown an old silver coin from British India. As a man of modern knowledge, they felt that I should be able to verify this legend.
The legend of Phu Le Aung Hai illustrates and exposes what Michael Herzfeld has termed cultural intimacy — those parts of a culture and its notions of power which are both a source of authenticity in their self-identification as well as a source of embarrassment, vulnerability and inferiority — of Pwo Karen culture (for e.g. the orphan) and worldview as compared with those of the surrounding kingdoms, which the Karen seek to emulate.Footnote 44 The legendary narratives and their royal imaginary were used by the Pwo Karen in Uthaithani and Kanchanaburi in 1970–72 as well as in 2003–6 in order to explain recent dramatic events and crises, which they understand as a matter of the ‘shrinking of the globe’ (hraung kho mo eing laung).
Apocalyptic realities, sources for the imaginary: ‘The globe is shrinking’
Legend, history and cosmology participate in a modern model of the world and the aspirations and imaginary of a future world as a warped time. Powers wax and wane, the time of the Karen will come, new alliances will be formed. The paving of new roads into Uthaithani and Kanchanaburi provinces and the large-scale clearing of forests in the 1960s and 1970s were taken as a sign of a shrinking globe. The Karen lost their forest and land — swidden agriculture was banned and replaced by zones of forest reserve, regrowing forest and replanted zones fenced with barbed wire. A dam was constructed on Khwae Yai River and fear spread about a possible flood (water is the remedy that Indra uses to cleanse anger in the world). Even before the plans were officially published, worried Karen asked me if their villages would disappear under water. The Srinakharin dam flooded more than 100,000 rai (1 rai is equal to 0.16 hectares) and, in 1977, 10 villages, most of them Karen, were moved out of the Huai Haeng-Tung Yai Wildlife Sanctuary.
Many Karen became labourers for Thais in maize and pineapple fields. Most of the communally owned land was sold to Thais or occupied by migrants, while the loss of livelihood and relative poverty increased. Powers and cultures that used to be distant suddenly came into the villages, disturbed the community and exposed the cultural intimacy. Among the disturbers were the foreign ethnographers, who indirectly confirmed their vision of the world by asking about myths and legends. The apocalyptic prophecies were easily recalled in these years during the process of state territorialisation and nationalisation of forests as protected national parks — a virtual compression of space within a short time. ‘Will the Thai conquer (ma noeng) us?’ they asked (the term ma noeng implies also a loss of culture and identity and living in a non-state space).Footnote 45
Another sign of an approaching apocalypse is war (as opposed to ahimsa, non-violence). Before the fighting between the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and guerrillas reached western Thailand in 1970, the Karen asked if they too would be involved in fighting. In 1976, about 500 Karen moved further uphill in Tak province to the collective community in Dae Djaung village controlled by the CPT. Many families and friends were split in the process. Until the ceasefire in 1982, they suffered from daily rounds of shelling from the army and could not grow rice. In the village where I was based, there was a Thai army psychological operations unit stationed, and the majority of the villagers remained neutral. The army donated money for a stupa in concrete to be painted in bright colours. Local Thai officials embezzled much of the money and the concrete was of poor quality. Moreover, the Pwo Karen were not allowed to place an umbrella on the top and although the site of the stupa was consecrated by boung khos, it is now derelict and blackened.Footnote 46
In 1970 schools came to the area, and a new Thai-speaking generation with a modernist view of the world came to see the flaws in their ancestors' worldview and in their intimate cultural core, which many Thai consider primitive. The younger generation turned their backs on tradition and migrated to towns to earn a living and live modern lives. Social, moral and cultural decline ensued — yet another sign of the cosmologically predicted changes. It was exacerbated when teenage girls discarded their white dresses, donned jeans and danced to disco tunes after religious ceremonies and even after funerals. Other global vices entered the Pwo area. In the 1960s, Thais introduced opium as a payment for labour. Several men became addicted and their families suffered when they were unable to grow rice and spent all their earnings on opium. Moreover, Thai-style stupas have been erected, built by donations from wealthy people in Bangkok who obtain special merit by promoting Buddhism in poor villages. The Karen appreciate the donations, but worry that they are part of the Thai conquest of their culture and identity. Their space is not only shrinking, but is being encroached upon by Thai stupas and tourist resorts. As a result, Pwo Karen feel engulfed by a foreign culture of hedonism and consumerism while being denied elementary modern welfare. ‘The forest has disappeared, the tiger has disappeared — will the Karen disappear too?’ This question was often posed to me in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2005, the Karen still complained about the Thai conquering their space and culture and they discussed how to revive their customs and preserve their identity. During discussions about the past and the present, they asked me to return my knowledge (as with the lost book) about ceremonies and religious rules of the Lu Baung, which I had obtained during fieldwork. This was part of their search for knowledge about the largely hidden powers encroaching on their world. In the 1970s, the officials represented these forces; now they often do not see the persons behind the forces or money at work.
Karen compare these recent events with earlier events. Thus, cosmology and the royal imaginary serve as important sources of historical memory and for explaining the changing world, its powers, and their influence on their existence.
Ritual sanctification and moral fortifications
In their search for moral leadership, the Karen use rituals as means to strengthen their community. In 2003–5, the Karen in Ban Rai District began constructing three Lu Baung stupas of bamboo and a ‘meeting house’ or ‘temple’ (hsa ro). Two Karen have declared themselves to be new boung khos and other elder Pwo contemplated donning the white dress, which signifies purity. One boung kho is 62 years old and, as most boung kho, he has been ill, suffering from personal misfortune and alcoholism. However, he is reverting to a puritanical lifestyle after taking an oath. He and his wife, who became a female head of merit (boung mü), moved out of the village to avoid chickens, pigs and consumption of rice whisky, which are all taboo for a leader. In the buffer zone adjacent to the Huai Kha Khaeng National Park, he cleared bamboo and trees in order to build a la' — a pole with four arms and a fence. The la' is built in order to inaugurate the place and align with the spirits and King Indra who is symbolised by the pole.Footnote 47 This is a necessary preparation before building a stupa (Pwo: glông) and creating a sacred space (tjeing hri). The consecration is done by offering a symbolic gift to the Earth Goddess of a coin (0.25 baht), flowers, candles and a piece of white cloth. This offer is placed at the most important pole, the doeng thaw, the dhamma pole at the western entrance, and said to be the ‘heart of Lu Baung’. The offer ‘brings life’ to the place by ‘telling’ the Earth Goddess, who then establishes peace and protection as preparation for the coming of Ariya.
Another village followed the example and put up a signboard near the stupa saying ‘chedi, holy place’ in Thai and Karen. Recently, a ban on taking photographs of stupas has been imposed in order not to offend the spirits and preserve the cultural intimacy of constructions that the Thai consider primitive. A ceremony of merit (ma boung), attracting many traditionally dressed Pwo Karen from distant villages, was held during the full moon and the names of donors were inscribed on a plaque at the hsa ro, in imitation of Thai tradition. These events took place amidst the discussion of renewal of the communal spirit and morality. The debate vaguely referred to the Thai discourses on community culture (wattanatham chumchon) and local wisdom (phum panya).Footnote 48 And, again, the ritual acts were a preparation for the coming of Ariya and a dhammaraja (Pwo: hs'meing thaw) who will establish a righteous rule for Lu Baung followers, identifiable by the yellow wrist string.
In 2004, in the village Gwi Tha, Tak province, a Pwo leader told the villagers to stop growing and eating rice; so they began to collect food in the forest. The Karen in this area are under pressure. Their swidden agriculture has been restricted and with a drastically reduced fallow period, their crops are decreasing. The Royal Forest Department and the paramilitary Border Patrol Police (BPP) would prefer to move the Karen out of the forest. BPP soldiers have often transgressed Karen religious rules by carrying guns and bringing in alcohol and meat; and they have also destroyed stupas. The Pwo leader said that he was told by spirits, probably devatas, to stop agricultural activities and to stop eating meat and free all domestic animals. Rice was deposited in a communal store and 7,000 baht as well as their identity cards were deposited in a ‘safe’. These Karen are waiting for Ariya and their actions are purification in order to prepare for his coming. They are followers of a new boung kho who joined the CPT in the 1970s and who maintains principles of equality. However, not all villagers joined this radical movement and the BPP donated rice and tried to persuade them to eat it. ‘We are not protesting,’ said one Karen, ‘but I am angry with myself for being poor.’Footnote 49 This radicalism is an act of desperation on the part of marginalised Karen and recalls the memory of rebellions in Burma during colonial rule.
The royal imaginary is not only at work among the Pwo Karen in western Thailand. In the north a lay monastic movement has gained strength since the 1970s. It is not as heterodox as the Lu Baung, but also not entirely faithful to the centralised Thai Sangha tradition.
Royal imaginary and a sacred space in Lamphun
In northern Thailand, 10,000 Karen live within the Wat Phrabat Huay Tom, founded by Khruba Wong around 1971. Social changes in the early 1970s had a huge impact on the Karen in the north: national parks emerged and turned villages into illegal settlements, roads and dams were built, and the struggle between the CPT and the army engulfed many Karen villages. For many Karen the interventions were disturbing and impoverishing. Khruba Wong was a disciple of Khruba Khao Pi, himself a disciple of the famous Khruba Siwichai, who gained fame for resisting Bangkok authorities. Wong had been protected by Karen villagers and offered them his help in return. Khao Pi likewise helped the Karen in Lamphun in their resistance to the construction of the Bhumibol dam in the 1960s. Although a northern Thai, he was considered ‘the head of the Karen’ according to Peter Hinton.Footnote 50 These two charismatic monks urged poor Karen from mountain villages to settle in their monasteries in order to stop animal sacrifice, become Buddhists and participate in development projects. Until Khruba Wong died in 2000, moral rules in Huay Tom were strictly followed by the majority: no animals were kept, alcohol, drugs and weapons were banned, and followers were to adopt vegetarianism.Footnote 51 The Karen are living within the monastic compound patterned after a mandala as a royal residence and with a large shrine for the city pillar (lak muang) dedicated to King Indra. According to the Karen, Indra constructed this lak muang for his Karen orphans. The monastery is supported by the Thai royal family and the King secured the land for the Karen after visits in the 1970s. A royal project is situated in the vicinity. Huay Tom has a footprint of the Buddha (phrabat) and a holy spring. This place constitutes a field of merit (buddhakhetta), where the Buddha's power exists to reign in an immoral world. Thus, the khruba movement follows a more offensive strategy and has followers all over northern Thailand and contacts in Burma. Recently, the Karen completed a 71-metre-high stupa, a copy of the Shwe Dagon stupa in Rangoon. However, the official name in Thai is ‘The Great Victory City Stupa’ (Chedi Sri Wieng Chai, wieng meaning a fortified city). The place functions as a moral fortification in a globalised world, with royal protection and charismatic leadership. It is a relatively prosperous and peaceful community and receives huge donations from wealthy urban Thai and thousands of pilgrims. Wat Phrabat Huay Tom shows that the Karen royal imaginary crosses temporal, ethnic and geographical boundaries.Footnote 52 According to the Karen in Huay Tom, Khruba Wong gave them knowledge and development, thus ‘we are no longer orphans’.
In order to counter the influence of the CPT, secure political control and further nation-building, the government had launched a Buddhist missionary programme among the hill population.Footnote 53 The programme was also aimed against the independent khruba monks. However, the Karen followed local charismatic monks. One of these was the late Khruba Djau La', who came from Burma and gathered a large following in the 1960s and 1970s. Khruba Djau La' or Chao Raat (the coming king), a title similar to the Burmese mín laùng, was a Pwo Karen from Gwae Gabaung (Pa-an) in Burma.Footnote 54 In the beginning he associated with Khruba Wong and Khao Pi and followed the same rules, but adopted an even more radical strategy. He promised the Karen a homeland, a future king and a new religion (Buddhism). The poor Karen sold all their belongings to pay for his monastery and settled in Huay Salae near Chom Thong town, Chiang Mai province. He also declared that Lamphun — the capital of the legendary Queen Camadevi, who introduced Buddhism in northern Thailand in the eighth century — was the Karen capital and he arranged marches to this city with hundreds of Karen followers. During a demonstration in Chiang Mai, he prophesied that the time of the Thai was running out. Moreover, Djau La' is said to have sent a messenger to King Bhumibol and asked for land. The king, by virtue of his parami, understood the symbolic language of power (moon, stars, sun) used by the messenger as well as the plight of these poor Karen.Footnote 55 The Karen petition was in vain and the request resulted in an order from the dictator, General Thanom Kittikachorn, of a military intervention by helicopters to Djau La's temple. Thanom suspected that these millenarian Karen were insurgents and communists. The monk, however, avoided arrest and his followers were safe.
Among the many titles Djau La' used was Bhagava (‘noble lord’, an epithet of the Buddha used by disciples), Phu Ga Cha (Lord Grandfather), Ga Cha Yuah (God), Djau Pha (king) and Maharaja. He also said he was Thaw Mae Pha, the mythological Karen leader. In his prophecy, he said that after the apocalypse the Karen would obtain a peaceful land (‘five lands and 101 languages united’). ‘Look at me in order to recognise me when I return,’ he instructed his followers. The interpretation is that he would be reincarnated as a dhammaraja or even as Ariya Metteya. He died on his way to Burma and left his followers destitute and without leadership. The idea of higher reincarnations is part of the mìn laùng/chao raat narrative. At the same time, it emphasises the utopian perspective together with the prophecies. Recently, a young Karen monk claimed he was an incarnation of Djau La'. He promised his Karen followers 500 baht for every baht they donated. He also prophesied that he would marry a princess.Footnote 56
Prophecies of having ‘a land’ and of marrying royalty could be read as ridiculous mimicry, or as the anthropologist exposing their cultural intimacy — or even as insults against Thailand's monarch. However, for the Karen this imaginary is less revolutionary than it may sound. It means that the orphan is recognised as an equal and adopted without losing his culture. It should be emphasised that the Karen venerate the Thai monarch as a protector and recognise his moral capital or parami. Their prophecy addresses a utopian future and aims at using a specific symbolic power of emulating royalty as part of the advent of Ariya Metteya. In other words, the Karen imaginary of a future king is first of all a preparation for their encounter with Ariya Metteya.Footnote 57
Although they show many variations, I consider these movements as examples of Karen agency inspired by their cosmology. They are a manifestation of a struggle to obtain recognition, rights and a fair distribution of welfare.Footnote 58 The Karen do not merely react to outside pressure, but act according to the hopes expressed in their globally oriented cosmology, whose ritual instrumentality is aimed both at controlling the invisible forces and at expanding a sacred space as compensation for the compression. Aspirations to money, merit, morality, prosperity, knowledge, a leader or even a Karen king — a millennial modernity achieved by an ascetically inspired life — are perhaps utopian. However, if these aspirations die, then their world not only shrinks, but is lost altogether, and the Karen identity will disappear. A high morality compensates for their inferior social position and lack of economic and political power, however. Thus, the Karen's movements, which are based on Buddhist cosmology and royal imaginary, mostly remain defensive and avoid violence.
The reader may now think that the Karen act merely according to a traditional cosmology. This is not the case. To improve their lives, the Karen engage in modern non-governmental organisation (NGO) networking: for instance, villagers in Khli Thi, Kanchanaburi, have consulted the Karen Studies and Development Centre and human rights lawyers in order to get higher compensation for poisoning from a lead mine in the area. As I have argued elsewhere, the Karen struggle to be included and participate in Thai national society and resist being excluded and marginalised into a non-righteous space. They discuss Thai politics and act as democratic subjects.Footnote 59 It is not surprising that the Karen in Uthaithani and Kanchanaburi have voted for charismatic leaders such as Chamlong Srimuang and his Phalang Dhamma (Dhamma Force) party as well as for Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party. Both politicians signalled a moral leadership and an end to corruption, regardless of their actual deeds. Both referred to Buddhist ethics and were endorsed by well-known monks. That politicians and some religious leaders have also left many Karen disappointed does not affect their cosmological imaginary and its aspirations to a righteous world. Yet the Karen imaginary is not merely based upon cosmological notions but on historical experiences and reflects a changing, globalised, world while preserving its own cosmo-logic. In this logic, prophecy fails and leaders lose their moral powers, but new ones will appear. The Karen persist and participate in the ongoing debate on morally good persons and kunatham (moral integrity, honesty) in leadership.
A recent example is the struggle between Thaksin Shinawatra and King Bhumibol. The Thai royalist elite viewed Thaksin as a threat to the Thai nation, as expressed in Privy Council President Prem Tinsunalonda's 2006 speech, where he paraphrased the King's words, ‘supporting good people and keeping bad people from rising to power’.Footnote 60
Many Karen in Huay Tom, however, explain the ousting of Thaksin as an outcome of a struggle between two moral leaders with special parami. In the Karen imaginary, Thaksin's karma was running low (a point Thaksin actually confirmed by saying that he suffered from bad karma not of his own making) and was made an orphan by King Bhumibol, who exiled him. But they are confident that Thaksin will return. In one village these words were painted on a house in 2006: ‘We, the poor and deprived (Karen) wait for you, Thaksin,’ just as they wait for Djau La' or Khruba Wong to return.Footnote 61
The reason why so many Karen supported Thaksin was that he fulfilled his promise of village funds of one million baht for poor villages, low hospital fees, and support for poor elderly villagers. In all, he acted as a righteous ruler, and in villages his life-size poster, similar to posters of the King, shows Thaksin in his prime minister's gown, giving an impression of him as a ruler. In Huay Tom, his ‘One Tambon One Product’ (OTOP) policy was put into practice for the handicraft centre, which also sold yellow Karen blouses embossed with the royal monogram. However, Thai royalists construed OTOP as competing with royal development projects.
A struggle between charismatic leaders, however, does not mean that the Karen do not understand democratic institutions and rules, but that they regard them as depending on a moral leadership. Daily life in Karen communities is as much about mobile telephones, the economy, television soap operas and other dull compulsions as elsewhere. When it comes to leadership they often turn to their own poems and their Jataka-inspired stories of the past. An immoral leader is a threat to the entire social order. This is their historical experience, and that is why many Karen vote for leaders who refer to Buddhist ethics, such as Chamlong Srimuang and Thaksin Shinawatra. This mode of imagining may not be so far from that of urban Thais who also venerate historical kings such as Naresuan and Chulalongkorn and look to the present monarch as a dhammaraja.Footnote 62 Traditional imaginary is translated to a modern or even a postmodern imaginary.
The Karen imaginary is in fact very similar to the recent Thai discourse on moral leadership that is above temporal social affairs, as a means to control greedy and corrupt politicians. There is a widespread fear among Thais that chaos and confusion (wun-wai), violence and decline may destroy the nation and harm the monarchy. An enchanted leader radiating Buddhist ethics and acting with a personal parami is thus also a vital part of the Thai imaginary. The differences between the Karen and the Thai discourse are not merely founded in their symbolic expression, however, but in the vast difference between their respective historical positions.
Finally, it is important to emphasise that although leadership among the Karen is embedded in an ethnicised discourse, the actual ethnicity of the figure is not important. The identities of King S'min Daw and the mìn laùng were ambiguous, while Khruba Wong and Khao Pi were Khon Muang (northern Thai) and the Thai monarch is revered for his parami. A moral leader must be able to cross ethnic boundaries and become a universal ruler.
And yet the Karen have a highly ambivalent relation to leadership: they need political protection and emphasise their old alliance with the Thai monarchy. Those who came in the eighteenth century were allowed to settle in Siam and Lanna to work in the forests and maintain their own cultural and religious practices. Now such relative non-state spaces have been integrated in the modern state and the Karen space has rapidly been shrinking while their livelihoods are under pressure. Although the Karen widely accept being a part of Thailand, they imagine that a universal, moral leadership is a precondition for a more prosperous life and will protect them from an indifferent bureaucracy and the metaphysical powers of money.
Conclusion
Just as the old style Buddhist monarch's days have passed, so has the time of the charismatic prophet among the Karen.Footnote 63
I am not sure if the late anthropologist Hinton's prophecy above will be fulfilled in the near future. I would hesitate to subscribe to it. Both types of charismatic leaders seem to reappear, though in new versions. The Karen imaginary of enchanted leadership is deeply embedded in their social memory and preserved in legends, ceremonies and rituals.
For the Karen, a moral leader can perhaps guarantee a sacred space, a moral sanctuary as a temporal utopia — an improved livelihood, and perhaps in the distant future, ‘a homeland’. He can protect them from bad spirits or predatory officials and secure a cultural revival. He is not attached to a state or government and sometimes acts in a radical anarchist mode. When a leader appears, he will evoke memories of predecessors and evoke past experiences in order to connect them with cosmological concepts. The morally enchanted person is not fixed in time and place, but functions as the main symbol of the imaginary and its visions of power. When he appears, the imaginary merges past events and present realities into a powerful virtual reality.
The Karen imaginary may at first glance seem strikingly different from that of their Thai or Burmese neighbours. But the difference is perhaps not the imaginary as much as the Karen position as a non-state people. Their imaginary is utopian (millenarian) and not part of an actual national construction tied to a geo-body as the Thai and the Burmese versions are. The Karen have a fear of states and governments and look for enchanted leaders whom they can trust. Among the Karen the person has long been the moral centre. This belief comes to the fore in conjunctures of social and moral decline; and it reappears despite failures of leaders and prophets. Failures are not necessarily the sign of bad judgement of moral capital, because moral and spiritual capital are not permanent properties. They must been refilled constantly by meritorious acts. After all, Touraine's paradigm is perhaps not new — or have the Karen anticipated a postmodern imaginary? The Karen aspirations are perhaps as much a part of a global logic (and order) as they are derived from their own cosmo-logic. But their everyday concerns, social practices and strategies as a non-state people are still imagined and relayed through their cosmological imaginary. The strong emphasis on personal and moral leadership, positive or negative, can be a challenge to democracy — not merely in Thailand or Burma, but globally. He who poses as the saviour may easily turn into a destroyer, according to the Karen experience.
