仏塔建立と聖者のカリスマ―タイ・ミャンマー国境域における宗教運動―

Abstract

U Thuzana is a Karen monk from Myanmar who has been constructing many pagodas on both sides of theThai-Myanmar border. His pagoda construction is made possible by donations from political, economic, and military leaders, on the one hand, and through the labor and devotion by local followers, especiallyamong the Karen, on the other. This paper analyzes the dynamic process of this saintly leadership, followers’devotion, and pagoda construction, which must be understood in the context of the layeredreligiouspractices found in this cross-border region since the nineteenth century. In Myanmar, U Thuzanahas become involved in ethnic politics even as he claims to maintain political neutrality. In Thailand, he isentering into a terrain where the khruba tradition is still alive with expectant followers.The paper examines three issues: firstly, it questions foregoing discussion that understands millennialisticreligious movements and saintly monks enterprises as resistance to the state, and reexaminescategorical understanding such as non-Buddhist versus Buddhist, hill versus valley, or resistance versusaccommodation. Rather than explain the movements in relation to states, as in previous studies, this paperwill look at these movements from its own logic. Secondly, it examines the dynamics that constitutecharismatic power of the saints through pagoda construction by focusing on the relationship between thesaintly figures and their followers, of which there are two major types: the donors and the devotees.Thirdly, it situates this process in the construction of sacred space in the modern state territory.