Buddhism and violence

This post presents chapter 58 of the ရုပ်စုံ ပုဒ္ဓသါသနာဝင် (Illustrated History of Buddhism), published by the YMBA. The image below accompanies the text. Vocabulary and my translation are included below.




Vocabulary:

စစ်ချီ ။ to march to battle
ပင့် ။ to respectfully invite
အနှောင့်အယှက် ။ n disturbance; trouble; interference.
ကျည်း ။ a native of South India (the YBMA text translates it as “Tamil”)
ထွန်းပ။ to be bright, to shine
စိမ့် ။ particle suffixed to verbs to denote fulfilment of some purpose
ငှာ ။ postpositional marker suffixed to verbal nouns indicating intention
ဖူးမြော် ။ to pay obeisance (at a shrine or to a monk).
ဆောင်ရွက် ။ to carry out
လှံဖျား ။ spear tip
ထာပနာ ။ to enshrine (a relic)
ဆောင်ပုဒ် ။ motto, slogan
တည်တံ့ ။ to be steadfast; be stable; endure; continue to exist

Translation:

58 | King Dottagamani respectfully invites the Sanha to go marching to battle

On the island of Sri Lanka King Dottagamani Abhaya was a religious propagator king who resolutely protected the [Buddhist] teaching.

One day, just before going out to battle [with] the kings of Southern India who were causing disturbances for the [Buddhist] teaching, went to a monastery and said to the senior abbots, “[your] royal supporter must go to the [other] side of the Ganga [river] in order to make the [Buddhist] teaching shine. In order that [I am] not cut off from paying homage to monks, [I] want [you] to follow.”

At that time 500 senior abbots of a good age went along. The king of the Law [Dottagamani], while donating alms and medicine in reverence carried out the matter of purifying the [Buddhist] teaching. As for that king, he enshrined a relic of the Buddha in the tip of the spear which he himself held. His motto was: “[I] strive not for wealth, [but] for the [Buddhist] teaching to endure.”