Kingship and Law in the Early Konbaung Period of Myanmar(1752-1819)
A Study of the Manugye Dhammathat – an eighteenth century major law book

コンバウン朝前期ミャンマーの王権と法

【Author】
Ryuji Okudaira

【Profile】
Ryuji　Okudaira（奥平龍二）

After diplomatic service in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1965 to 1981, he transferred to the Tokyo University of Foreign studies under the Ministry of Education as an Associate Professor in 1981 and was promoted to the Professorship in 1985. Since retirement from the University in 2002, he has been given the title of Emeritus Professor. His major field of studies is the pre-modern history of Myanmar, legal history and the structure of the ‘Theravāda Buddhist State’. His major publications are (i) Burmese Dhammathat (in) Laws of Southeast Asia (Vol. I) edited by M.B. Hooker (1986), (ii) Biruma Hoseishi Kenkyu Nyumon (“Introduction to the Study of Burmese Legal History”’) in Japanese (2002), and (iii) several theses related to Myanmar political and legal history in the pre-modern period, written in English.

【Foreword】
　　　Myanmar is widely known as Buddhist State in Southeast Asia, together with her eastern neighbours of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Since olden days majority of her population were believers of the Sinhalese Buddhism known as Theravada, the common language of which is Pāli. It has long been noticed, however, that Sanskrit tradition was also adopted as seen in the name of Manugye Dhammathat which is nothing but the Burmanized form of Mānava Dharmashastra., although the similarity remains only in the title; its contents having been localized that it has become far from the Sanskritic original.

　　　Despite of a plausible attempt by Dr. David Richardson who translated the Manugye Dhammathat into English as early as 1847, it is regrettable that so little has been done until recently to identify the extent to which the text had played in political culture of the subsequent Burmese kingdoms. The contribution of Professor Okudaira who has an admirable proficiency in Burmese, shall be found in the fact that he laboriously scrutinized different law texts thereby a solid foundation has been laid for the subsequent scholars to deepen their understanding of Buddhist polity of pre-modern Burma, all of which was organized upon the Manugye Dhammathat as its basis for legitimation.

　　　All future researchers who wish to study the history of not only Burma but also those of other Theravada Buddhist countries should be grateful to Professor Okudaira for his valuable contributions he made during the past decades in the field of textual study of the Manugye Dhammathat as seen in the following pages.