KHAMTI BUDDHISM By:- Dr. Lila Gogoi.
KHAMTI BUDDHISM
The Khamti
process the Theravada faith after Burmese church. As early as 1841 William
Robinson observed in his ‘Descriptive Account of Assam’ that “their customs appear
precisely the same as those of Ava.” The Khamti, in fact, brought their
Buddhism from Burma. The 16th and 17th centuries’ were
not happy times in the history of Buddhism in Burma, and questions over rules
of discipline as set forth by the Buddha raged in the country throughout the 18th
century, there was not yet perfect peace on the religious front – much less than
in the political sphere. It is with the formation of the Burma Samgha in the
early years of the 19th century that things religious came to an
order. The Khamti Buddhists have all along been maintaining contact with Burma
and thus even been refreshing their knowledge about their faith and its
practices. Dalton notes in 1872 that the Khamti have “regular establishments of
priests well versed in the recondite mysteries of their religion.” Cooper,
however, gives (pp.145-f) another picture of Khamti Buddhism when he writes:
“In religious they affect to be strict followers of Burmese Buddhism, but,
excepting among the priests, their religion is little more then polytheism
under a thin veil of Buddhism. They kill and eat all animals, and use the flesh
and milk of cows and buffaloes without scrapple. The priests are men of great
importance and their influence is greater even than that of the chiefs. No
undertaking is commenced without first consulting them, and by pretended
divinations they select and announce an auspicious day. These priests receive
their office from Buddhistic institutions in Burma, and are, without exception,
strictly orthodox among themselves, though they seem to indulge the whims of
the Khamtees in many religious forms and ceremonies foreign to Buddhism.” It
may only be added that Khamti Buddhism has much improved since Cooper by
constant insistence on the early forms of discipline. The Report on the Census
of Assam for 1881 (Calcutta 1883) also complained: “The doctrines of their
religion are contained in sacred books written in Khamti character, but
believed in some cases to be of the Pali language. They have not, however, any
very definite notion of the religion they profess.” In this we have only to
consider the level of education here, for there were no schools except in the
limited form maintained by the bhikkhus in the small vihara in a village.
Every Khamti
village has a vihara temple, which they call kyang or chong and which is
prominent among the houses of village by its height and, sometimes, Burma –
like roofs. Describing the ordinary houses, Dalton writes: “The temple and the
priests’ quarters are also of timber and thatched, but the temple are
elaborately carved, and great neatness and taste are evinced in the arrangement
of the internal fittings.” On a high pedestal are placed a number of Buddha’s
generally brought from Burma and some parts of South-east Asia. Pictures of
scenes from Jatakas and Vimanavatthu and Petavatthu also adorn the inside of
the changes.
One can’t think
of a Khamti village without the bhikkhu priest. He has to administer to the
spiritual needs of the people and guide them in the religious festivities. He has
to administer to the spiritual needs of the people and guide them in the
religious festivities. He controls the social life of the villagers. “The
priests have shaven heads and amber-colored garments and rosaries. The office
is not hereditary: any person may enter upon it after the necessary novitiate
and instruction in the bapuchang, as the priests quarters are called, but they
must, so long as they wear the sacerdotal habit, renounce the world and devote
themselves to a life of celibacy.” (Dalton, loc, cit.). it is the
responsibility of the villagers to provide food to the Bhikkhu and samanas if
any, who may also receive gifts of the barest necessities, and accept
invitations to meals. But his food is generally sent to him by the villagers by
turns in the forenoon, for he has to keep up his vikala-bhojana-veramani
sikkhapad. In earlier days the bhikkhu had to go out in the village for his
food, as is described by Dalton: “Every morning the priests move quickly
through the village preceded by a little boy with a little bell, each holding a
lacquered box in which he receives the offerings of the people, generally
presented by the women, who stand waiting at the door with a portion of their
ready cooked food.”
The priests have
a great responsibility other than his strictly religious ones. “They are also
the schoolmasters, every freeborn Khamtee youth being compelled to attend the
school in the temples, where he learns to read and write his own language, and
often Burmese, using the Burmese written characters for both the languages.” (Cooper.
P.145)
There are
several festivals amongst the Khamtis going round the year. Dolton’s account of
two of these festivals may be found interesting: “The Khamtis have also two great
festivals in the year, one to celebrate the birth, the other to mourn the
death, of Gautama. At these ceremonies boys dressed up as girls go through
posture dance, for which I belive, Burmese women are celebrated, and at the
anniversary of the saint’s death the postures are supposed to be expressive of
frantic grief; but as a distinct commemoration of the birth, a lively
representation of the birth, a lively representation of an accouchment is
acted. One of the boy-girls is put to bed and waited on by the others.
Presently something like the infantile cries are heard, and from beneath the
dress of the invalid a young puppy dog is produced squeaking, and carried away
and bathed, and treated as new-born babe.”
The (samkyen)
water festival is another great occasion for the Khamtis. It comes at the
juncture of the months of Caitra and Vaisakha. The village youths make
preparations for the festival from some fifteen days ahead of it by rehearsing
the songs of the festival (lik-samkyen) and setting up a temporary temple for
the images (kyang-phra) with a indigenous mechanism for spraying water around
from a boat (hang-lin). The Buddhas of the vihara (Chang) are taken out by the
priests and kept for bathing in the kyang-phra. There in the first morning of
the festival the priests recite the Mangalasutta, and young men and women of
the village sing the liks. The priests are given a wash, and the pouring of
water on the Buddhas in the kyang-phra goes on as the boys and girls throw
water and color and mud at each other. In the evening the villagers come to the
chang and light innumerable lamps. On the following day the washing of the
Buddhas (san-phra) goes on, and there is much anna-dana, puspa-dana. At the end of all this the
priests give the last wash to the images and put them back in the vihara. There
are much decoration, feasting and prayers, all people singing the pancasila and
tisarana formulae in unition.
No comments