2

Longevity of Weikza

Juliane Schober

32-53

"both types of htwet yat pauk, be they ashin htwet or athay htwet, may choose to become manifest in people's dreams or meditative visions and reveal secret knowlege and messages to their human weikza followers who, upon being initiated into their teachings, translate their message for others through practices that range from alchemy to healing. Some of these devotees become accomplished weikza themselves and ... communicate regularly with their departed teachers."

"weikza practices promise to harness power through spells (in) and ... inspire a Burmese ... to gain alchemistic mastery that offers magical protection through datlon".

"In this regard, the reader is referred to the excellent discussion ... by John Strong (2004) and also in Schober (2001)."

"to visit ... a site described by E. Michael Mendelson (1961a, 1961b, 1963b) ... a find a bamboo palace and a community that was steeped in alchemy".

"about htwet yat pauk beings and their kin ... to realize their elusive quality ... expressed in the transcendent longevity of their htwet yat pauk teachers, in the cult-like popularity they enjoy among devotees, in the diversity of teaching manuals composed in secret code, and in their remote locations within the sacred geography of Burma."

"Bo Bo Aung confounded the power of the king through his knowledge of runes (in) by inscribing on the palace walls an indelible letter O (wa) which is thought to have intrinsic mystical qualities."

"The literature on weikza topics ranges from manuals of esoteric knowledge for the initiated, to instructions for disciples by their adept teachers, to biographies that expound {the} miraculous accomplishments of weikza and hwet yat pauk beings. Many of these ephemeral texts are kept hidden and are only selectively transmitted to the next generation of disciples in a language of hyperbolic allusions, secret codes, and encrypted diagrams. ...

While many of these texts remain extant {only} in the form of palm-leaf manuscripts, contemporary print culture has allowed for the proliferation of a literature about a colorful cast of characters and their secretive and alchemistic practices. This literary genre narrates the heroic feats of protagonists who gain access to hidden powers and wealth on account of their weikza abilities. Their stories continue to capture the imagination of Burmese readers and they are readily available for purchase ... at pilgrimage sites ... . ... Burmese is devoted to weikza and hwet yat pauk masters, their narratives are pervasive throughout Burmese culture as almost everyone is familiar with their characters and mythic feats. The popular fascination with weikza practices has engendered a ... genre ... about a vast cast of characters : weikza, zawgyi (eremitic magicians), and hwet yat pauk beings, all belonging to a class of beings called thathana saung (dispensation's caretakers or guardians) who await the end of the current dispensation {that of S`akya-muni or whomever} or the start of the next {that of Maitreya or whomever}. The plot of these stories usually involves a guardian of the treasure (thaik saung) who often appears in the form of a naga, the mythical snake. ... In Theravada mythology, the naga is capable of carrying the treasure of knowledge from one realm of existence into another due to its ability to shift between human and animal forms."

"one man I interviewed identified himself openly as a sorcerer (auk-lan hsaya) and ...

described his need to tame ghosts with food ... in order to get them to focus on their case. ...

{cf. "weak and beggarly element[al]s", likewise allegedly involved in enslavement (Epistole to the Galatai 4:9)}

Sorcerers tame, entrap and enslave weak beings with little personal power through food and trickery. {But do not those supposedly "weak beings" consider the "self-identified sorcerer" as having been entrapped by them when lured by them to offer food to them?}

{According to this New-Testament account, anyone dealing with such ostensibly "weak and beggarly" elemental-spirits will, in fact, become enslaved by them -- but evidently unbeknownst to the enslaved! Therefore, are not such Burmese "sorcerers" actually unwitting slaves to the elemental-spirits which they mistakenly suppose to have enslaved to themselves?}

Their evil {self-alleged to be "evil", that is} messengers include ghosts (tahsay) and ogres (bilu). In these stories {which may well be more-or-less-factual accounts by "sorcerers" of their own doings}, unsuspecting {alleged by the "sorcerers" to be "unsuspecting", that is} maidens often become captives of {i.e., fall in love with} the sorcerers and their evil messengers {fall in love with a ghost? -- more likely these maidens have actually converted to the religion of spirit-mediumship, a practice which would be forcibly suppressed by the government if it were practiced openly, because it would win too many coverts}.

As a result of sorcery, they may lose their butterfly spirit (leipkya) in their sleep and become enslaved to their masters."

{This assertion by "sorcerers" (and by their maiden converts to spirit-mediumship) may well be simply a roundabout way of disclosing that the maiden spirit-media visit, in their dreams, the Fae:ryland inhabited by butterfly-winged fae:ries, wherein they themselves are (while in such a dream-world) likewise butterfly-winged, and "lose themselves" to joyous delights (becoming "captivated" with joy) in such a marvellous realm.}

"Greedy {scil., for mystic knowledge} persons, evil {self-styled as unworthy and "evil", i.e., actually exceedingly humble} spirits, and others ... may work with sorcerers or masters of the lower path (auk-lan hsaya) to steal these treasures.

{Such praeternatural treasures can subsist in, and be witnessed at, only the subtle worlds of trance and of dream, where to "steal" them would be only in the mode of acquiring vast merit in compraehending occult mysteries.}

To accomplish their dreadful deeds, sorcerers use such objects of sympathetic magic such as nail and hair clippings, pieces of clothing,

{Such finger- and toe-nails, along with their hair and their final garment, would signify "the only earthly remains of a siddha upon achieving the so-called "rainbow body"".}

and even body parts, such as severed heads and limbs."

{Such mysterious relics might be found in occult dreams about divinities who discard such portions of their own body as charity.}

"Burmese have asserted ... that htwet yat pauk masters came from the Gandharan and Himalayas regions where they prefer to sojourn and that their secret manuals were initially composed in the Tibetan language. Weikza adepts and their followers tend to congregate there to ... practice alchemy. Meditators said that htwet yat pauk beings fly from there to visit their disciples in pilgrimage sites on ... remote areas in Burma. Especially popular pilgrimage sites include ... Mt. Popa, the volcanic pipe southeast of Pagan, and Hpo Win Hill, near Monywa in Upper Burma, where the htwet yat pauk master U Hpo Win is said to hae entered the final path stages. It houses a cave complex dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries carved in the stony mountainside that houses Buddha images in the style of the Ava dynasty (1364-1527)."

"Initially developed as a pilgrimage site by the hermit U Khanti (1867-1948), it is a solitary place of practice where small monastic forest enclaves are scattered throughout. In 1982, the hill was still administered by the Yahan Pyo Association, a monastic organization known for its anti-western {more specificly, anti-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and anti-Episcopalian} stance during the colonial period. Two nat (spirit) shrines were dedicated to the Shan Brother and Sister Nat and to the Medaw ({Matr.} female divinity) who guards this hill. ...

To wit, a gilded statue of a fish ... is housed in the grotto that constitutes the main destination for many visiting pilgrims. He is accompanied by the disciples ... who are also represented as gilded fish."

{These "gilded fishes" would surely relate to the goldfishes which (according to legend) metamorphose into dragons at the so-called "Dragon Gate" in China ("GKFFSh", "HKBD").}

p. 45

"I discovered additional hidden caves within the mountain that also house ...

p. 48

resident forest monks, hermits, and other meditators. The iconography and topography of the complex recalls Tibetan practices associated with the veneration of ... caves."

p. 53, n. 18

"See especially Huber's account (2008) of underground tunnels believed to lead Tibetan pilgrims from the Himalayan Plateau to ... various points along the Ganges river valley."

{Such cavernous Bodishly-connected subterranean realm is conventionally known as /Agartha/, as amply long-promoted in litterature of the the Theosophical Society.}

"In his study of tantric ... Bengal around the first millennium CE, Ronald Davidson (2002) describes vijjadhara and mahasiddha practices that resemble those of contemporary Burmese weikza.

Charles Duroiselle (1915:93) identified the "Ari" as adherents of Shaivite tantric practices and asserts their continuous presence in Burma from the Pagan period to the early nineteenth century.

John P. Ferguson and E. Michael Mendelson (1981), who follow Charles Duroiselle (1915), also point to the "Ari" monks ... as historical precedents for contemporary weikza practices.

F. K. Lehman's observation (2006:133) that Sanskrit tantric texts were introduced to Pagan from Bengal and through Mon traditions ... suggests a wider presence of tantric traditions in Southeast Asia.

This view is also echoed in studies by Kate Crosby (2000; 2009) who writes extensively on

non-canonical Theravada traditions

{Any scripture alleged to be "non-canonical Theravada" is far more likely to be not actually Sthavira-vadin, but rather proprely to belong to some other Hina-yana denomination, whether Dharma-guptaka, Mahis`asaka, or whatever -- all of which were forcibly suppressed by haeretical falsifiers spuriously calling themselves "Theravada" (which is not even a traditional designation).}

and by Franc,ois Bizot who explores the influence of tantric ideas expressed in Pali texts from Cambodia {Kama-bhoja} and

Northern Thailand."

{/Lan-Na/ is the correct designation of this region, which historically hath not been any part of Syama (LKChM).}

p. 49

"nat veneration is the domain of women who act as spirit mediums (nat gadaw, called spirit wives in Burmese) or as their clients. Spirit wives embody {i.e., their bodies are entred and occupied by} the spirit lord {i.e., their spirit-husband} who speaks through them {i.e., through their bodies} to grant clients permissions and favors. The veneration of nat involves ... offerings (P. puja), often in the form of certain cherished foods {the favorite food of the spirit-husband, who will eat it through means of his occupancy of her body, using her mouth}, and ... of spirits "riding" on mediums {so that the medium is the /vahana/ 'vehicle' of the deity} who ... embody them

p. 50

in trance. ...

Men who participate in the veneration of nat ... assume a subordinate role in their union with a ... female spirit ... ."

{The mortal human body is always subordinate to the deity who is occupying it. If a female deity (goddess) is occupying a male mortal's body, then that goddess is deemed the spirit-wife of that man.}

"Weikza adepts do not embody hwet yat pauk beings in in the same way that spirit mediums (nat gadaw) embody spirit lords (nat). {This could perhaps be said of a live weikza; whereas a dead weikza is capable of being embodied by a spirit-medium in the same manner as any other Natha.}

{How-be-it, as for dead vidya-dhara-s, upon being ritually invoked, "the weikza come", so that "The possession" is able "to produce an actual presence ... . ... . ... it would be more appropriate to speak of "embodiment." ... . ... the weikza appears ... to possess an individual." (IFIBB, p. 35)}

At least in Upper Burma, weikza adepts ... instead receive {from praeternatural sources}

messages that are delivered to disciples and devotees in visions, dreams, and meditation."

{When appearing in the dream-world to a disciple, the divinely-informed vidya-dhara can then propound the portentous message to the devotee.}