The 'Treatise on the Lineage of Elders' (Vamsadipani): Monastic reform and the writing of Buddhist history in eighteenth-century Burma

This dissertation is a critical study and annotated translation of the Vam&dotbelow;sadipani ("Treatise on the Lineage of Elders"), a Burmese Buddhist chronicle written in the late eighteenth century during a reform of the Burmese Theravada Sam&dotbelow;gha known as the Sudhamma Reformation. In explicating this text, I explore the assumptions concerning Burmese Buddhist historiography and the dynamics of Buddhist reform that inform our understanding of Burmese Buddhism in the pre-modern period.; The introduction begins with a discussion of the authorship, date and provenance of the text. The Vam&dotbelow;sadipani was written ca. 1799 by the Vinaya jurist, Mehti Sayadaw, while he resided in the city of Taungoo. The author was sent to the city by the Sudhamma Ecclesiastical Council to reform the local Sam&dotbelow;gha and bring it under Sudhamma control. The Vam&dotbelow;sadipani documents the implementation of the reform within the broad context of Buddhist history as conceived by the Theravada, citing historical and legal precedents stretching back to the lifetime of the Buddha to justify the Sudhamma agenda. In my analysis of the Vam&dotbelow;sadipani I show that it belongs to a genre of juridical and historical writing called sasana-katikavata and as such represents a continuation of a Buddhist literary tradition traceable to the 12th- and 13th-century reforms of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka when the first of such texts were written. I further show that the Sudhamma Reformation was the culmination of a historical trend that began in the same period; namely, the ascendancy in Burma of Sinhalese style reformed Theravada, which was first introduced into the Burmese kingdom ca. 1181. The introduction concludes with a comparison of the Vam&dotbelow;sadipani with three subsequent Buddhist chronicles composed in Burma during the 19th century, all written from the Sudhamma point of view but reflecting shifts in belief and historical perspective that anticipate 20th-century Burmese Buddhism. The annotated translation of the Vam&dotbelow;sadipani that follows is accompanied by notes and appendices describing in detail the sources and narrative strategies used by Mehti Sayadaw to render the Vam&dotbelow;sadipani an instrument of Buddhist monastic reform.