The Emergence and Evolution of the beidin [inline-graphic 01] Category in Burma: The Transition of the Long Nineteenth Century

Abstract:At the crossroads of the history of science and knowledge, and the methodologies of intellectual and conceptual history, this article proposes an evaluation of the development in late modern Burma of the beidin category (astrology and divination) through an appraisal of Burmese astrological literature. It will examine some of the earliest Burmese sources dealing with astrology and divination, before assessing a range of past and present collections of beidin-related texts to gauge the changes the category underwent during the "long Burmese nineteenth century," stretching from the 1780s to the mid-1890s, focusing especially on the last two decades of the eighteenth century, a time of military conquest and of intense circulation of people, ideas, texts, objects, and practices. In an attempt to "re-Brahmanize" royal rituals, King Bodawphaya (r. 1782–1819) sent several missions to India to retrieve Sanskrit manuscripts, and then ordered his Head monk Maung Daung Hsayādaw (1753–1833) to translate them into Burmese. Astronomical texts represent a third of the beidin corpus brought from India between 1786 and 1810 and almost half of Maung Daung Hsayadāw's translation work. Royal collections of beidin manuscripts were also updated with classical texts (sixth–twelfth centuries) and "modern" versions and commentaries from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries on horoscopy, catarchic astrology, and divination. This paper concludes by arguing that this transition period laid the foundations for the modern Burmese concept of astrology, both inside and outside the royal court.