2025/12/25 by Olivia Porter · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Indian and Buddhist Studies #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.20495/seas.25010
openalex publication_date 2025/12/25 · openalex created_date 2026/03/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
This paper investigates the 350-year-old Tai Zawti Theravada tradition and its distinct lay practice of keeping Buddhist texts, rather than Buddha images, on a dhamma altar inside the home. Drawing on Zawti-authored texts as well as interviews with Tai Zawti monks and laity, it examines the rationale for the altar, its function and position in the home, the nature of the texts kept on the altar, and how this marker of distinction is blurred by new challenges. While the Zawti tradition offers important insights into the nature of pre-reform Burmese Buddhism and premodern Theravada more broadly, by focusing on the nature of the lik long texts kept on the Zawti dhamma altar, the paper demonstrates how the Tai Zawti are firmly situated within the wider Tai cultural context.