Sarkisyanz traces the long history of “the royal ideal of a welfare state” (56) in Burma, from Ashokan influences, through Kyanzittha’s proclamations that “‘all the people … shall eat plenty of food, … shall enjoy happiness'” (50), to Mindon, who “refused to arm his forces with modern weapons in order not to be responsible for the destruction of life” (97). This lineage culminates, in Sark’s narrative, with the syncretic Marxist Thakins, but even more so in Nu, who eliminated the death penalty (221) and was seen by monks interviewed in 1959 as the “closest approximation to the ideal of the perfect Buddhist ruler in the Ashokan tradition” (226). Ultimately, Sarkisyanz attempts to adduce in this tradition an “aspiration to base the state on an ethical maximum” (236), although he does at least admit that the Ashokan ideal must contend with other models of kingship: “Against the background of ruthless power practices of numerous historic monarchs, the Bodhisattva ideal of kingship proved only a partial ideational foundation for the royal charisma” (80). Indeed, as a BSPP ideologue gloated after the 1962 coup, “U Nu’s government did not know ‘what it means to care for the people, far less capable of carrying out what little it knew …’  It was elected by a majority of the people. But: ‘Sometimes what a man desires to have is not what he actually needs … It happens that what a man desires is actually dangerous for him and for society. So also with nations …’” (234). The BSPP and the SPDC after it would endorse a form of “tough love” that would re-center the ruthless power imperatives of rule. Nu, it would appear, was just too soft (နု)…

Sarkisyanz, Emanuel. Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution, Springer, 1965.

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