For this reflection, we were asked to read over our previous reflections (and also our classmates' reflections). The key question to write about concerned our learning process: what skills, perspectives, and methods have we learned over the arc of the course so far? We reflected on the steps we've taken, the milestones in our learning, and the moments when we felt most creative or perceptive in our thinking. We also considered what questions remained for us, both about process and content, regarding our manuscript and the study of Buddhist magic more broadly.
One of the key perspectives I learned about in this class was the importance of treating manuscripts contextually, and in a way that respects the entire life of a manuscript. For example, I remember how, during the bus ride to Berkeley I realized how challenging it must have been to keep track of a calendar without modern technology. That completely changed my perspective on the importance and accuracy of the calendar portion of our manuscript. Entering the world of a manuscript includes trying to understand the stakes of all of the different activities in the manuscript. And that requires understanding the historical, literary, and technical context of the manuscript as well.
To that end, another area where I learned a lot of content knowledge was that I now understand more about the social and cultural meaning of different Buddhist practices. This was an interesting theme of the course for me because I think there’s this tendency among people who are new to studying religion (at least, this was true for me) to treat religion—theology, doctrine, etc.—as a well-defined epistemological framework. The challenge is that religion is messy and social factors contribute to its meaning and practice. From the beginning of this course, with van Schaik’s idea that magical practices are a window into the religious worlds of the everyday practitioner, my “well-defined” instinct for religion was challenged.
I also developed skills that would probably be considered more typical skills for analyzing manuscripts. I learned a lot about Southeast Asian languages, and would even feel comfortable transliterating something simple. I learned how to use tools to investigate the meaning and etymology of words in different languages. I probably improved more simple deductive reasoning and inferential skills, but that’s challenging to say—I’m not sure how to self-assess that, but it’s just a guess. I also learned about the multi-dimensional nature of manuscripts—we talked about the materiality, language, script, and numerology of our manuscript.
We also discussed questions surrounding our obligation, as a class, towards the object. I think, as Stanford students, we have tremendous privilege. We have access to Trent, we’ve made a lot of progress in understanding the manuscript and, well, we were able to purchase the manuscript in the first place. One question that I wish I’d learned how to approach, but still find myself puzzled by is: What is our obligation to this object? And how can we use our privilege to pay back to the communities who (willingly or unwillingly) have come to let us study this object? I think part of the answer will be in the way that we ultimately represent the document in the final group task, but for me, this also implicates deeper questions about how and whether we might have approached the document differently from the beginning, with this in mind.
I also learned a lot about knowledge construction in a social environment. I think learning, fundamentally, is a social endeavor, and one highlight of this class has been learning with an incredible, widely-talented group of people. It’s interesting how much knowledge in our class has been built dialectically, in conversations with one another. I think I learned a lot about how to articulate an argument, using evidence, in the study of religion.
I also definitely learned about writing. These weekly reflections have been a good way for me to practice process writing, which is a technique I use often in reflexive, ethnographic work. Each of the reflections has captured not only my final argument about the manuscript, but also the methodology, references, and logic behind those arguments. Looking back through the reflections is now an opportunity for me to see a procedural/methodological evolution and a content evolution. They also called on me to be more precise and more elaborate in my deductions about the manuscript.
Continuing with the metaphor of the multi-dimensionality of a manuscript, I am left wondering about dimensions that I don’t think we touched on too much. I’m still curious about the manuscript as a narrative object, or a magical object in its own right. And those aspects of the manuscript also connect to general questions that remain for me about Buddhist magic: We’ve talked about the ritual and recitational aspects to Buddhist magic, but what role do physicality or narrative play in Buddhist magical practice generally?
Finally, I’m left wondering about generalizing our study of Buddhist magic. We approached this object from a linguistic, numerological, and material perspective. To what extent are those ways of approaching any manuscript? They seem fairly generalizable, but I’m not sure. What elements of our approach were specific to Buddhism or this manuscript? And, I don’t want to be too existential, but what is the point of studying a manuscript like this one? Is it to develop knowledge about one particular manuscript? What does that shed light on? Is it about developing skills? Of course, the likely answer is “all of the above, and more”, but I think that’s a conversation worth having.
Now I’ll brainstorm some ideas about our final project. My first instinct is that it should be something accessible in English and the languages of our manuscript. But that’s a lot of work, which might fall disproportionately on Trent, so I don’t want to be too insistent about that. I’ll also throw out some more “out there” suggestions: we could make a podcast, where we each record a bit about our perspectives on the manuscript; I’m not immediately sure if this fits, but we could do some sort of map of the manuscript, with visual or textual information embedded in the graph; if we can find someone who is an expert on this, we could set up a time to talk with them and confirm/deny some of our hypotheses about the manuscript and that conversation could be a final project; we could put together a procedural guide to the manuscript, where the goal is educating other religious studies students about how to analyze and approach a text like this one, and where we organize our reflections to focus more on procedure; we could make the entire project more reflexive and compile a series of narratives about what the quarter was like for each of us (kind of like this reflection); we could work with Virginia or the library at Berkeley if we decide to put together an article or website to make sure that they can benefit or house it if possible.
Looking back over the past weeks and reflecting on the learning journey we’ve undertaken as a class, the aspect I’ve probably benefited from the most is the variety of different approaches we’ve taken to understanding our class manuscript. Having never undertaken any study of manuscripts before, I didn’t quite know what to expect from the process, and the image I had in my imagination was very much focused around the decipherment of script and language, and I had some concerns about studying a manuscript written in languages of which I had no knowledge. What I hadn’t expected was how important other approaches – like understanding the materiality, design, and context of the manuscript – are to the process of actually figuring out what a manuscript says, and why it says it. I’m impressed at how much we were able to learn about the manuscript and its contents without any direct knowledge of the languages it contains, or the scripts in which they are rendered, and the independent learning approach through the quarter really encouraged exploration with different means by which to piece together information about the object.
Looking back to my week 2 reflection, I set out to cast as wide a net as possible when it came to possible questions we might ask about the manuscript. I hadn’t really expected to be able to answer most of these questions, but now that I look back at them I’m very pleasantly surprised to see that we actually found compelling answers for many of the questions I posed. This is a useful lesson for approaching such manuscripts in the future – if one casts a wide enough net of inquiry from the outset, it’s quite possible to learn a great deal from a number of different angles by approaching the object in ways that are tailored to those angles.’
Weeks 3 and 4, in which my reflections focused mainly on script identification, were at times frustrating and confusing, but on the whole served not only as a good introduction to the process of transliteration and decipherment of a script, but also provided great background about the various scripts and languages found throughout South-East Asia. The trip to the UC Berkeley East Asia library was a real highlight, as we got to experience a broad range of manuscripts of different forms and functions, which provided very useful context for the environment of objects from which our manuscript stems.
Week 5’s focus on the calendar and its cover page was probably the most difficult but also the most rewarding week for me this quarter. I have a new appreciation for the level of technical and contextual knowledge required just to be able to transliterate (never mind translate) a manuscript like this, especially when dealing with inconsistent handwriting and stylistic elements. The process by which we uncovered the purpose of the calendar and its contents was definitely a highlight of detective work, and also provided the opportunity for some fascinating exploration around how cultural differences affect the perception of time.
In week 7, our exploration of the layout of the manuscript as a whole in our attempt to map it served as a great way to understand both the object in its entirety and also its individual components. Our process of piecing together how the text was recorded, which parts of it were used for which purposes, and how additions like marginal notes communicate those purposes was really enjoyable. Moreover, attempting to establish the chronology of the manuscript’s composition provided some valuable insights into its broader functions, and the life it may have had before it ended up in our hands.
Throughout the course of the quarter, I’ve also really enjoyed the context provided by our readings – both those that deal with Buddhist magic specifically and those that deal with the cultural and anthropological study of South-East Asian Buddhist communities. Learning about how such seemingly universal experiences as time, courtship, selfhood, and family differ immensely across cultural contexts gave me a new appreciation for anthropological study in general, and particularly for the fascinating worlds and lives of the South-East Asian communities we got to learn about. On the whole, the readings prompted me to explore Buddhism’s practice and implementation in lay and monastic life in a much more tangible and contextualized way than most of my other study of Buddhist philosophy and practice has provided, and I’ve come away from them with a new curiosity about how communities in different contexts adapt and integrate Buddhist teachings to better understand the world they inhabit.
Turning to questions that remain to me at the end of the course, my first one has to do with the manuscript itself: what will become of it now that we’ve finished the course? Will study of it continue, and if so what will we do with the findings such study yields? I feel some personal connection to the object at this point, so I’d like to know what else we learn about it and where its home ends up being. Secondly, regarding the topic of Buddhist magic, I have many lingering questions surrounding its academic study and general cultural reception. Throughout our readings and explorations, we have had to overcome a prevailing stigma surrounding the association of magic with Buddhism, at times from within the contexts of the text we’ve studied and overwhelmingly from the world of Western academia. I think the course has provided some really valuable insights for me about the complex understandings of mind, body, self, and world, that underly the magical practices we’ve explored, and I’d love to see more work done on understanding these practices in a broader Buddhist studies context. Also, considering Buddhism’s increasing proliferation in the West, I wonder about whether changes in the perception and study of magic from the academic sphere might have any effects on its popular cultural reception. What is the best way for members of Western societies, newly interested in Buddhism, to encounter, understand, and enter a relationship with magical practices that have formed an important part of Buddhist community practices for many hundreds of years?
Coming into the class, I had no prior knowledge or experience in decipherment, translation, or foreign language/script interpretation. I had taken a class on Zen Buddhism, but that one-quarter class and some further exploration through books on my part was the extent of my knowledge. Because the idea of Buddhist magic and decipherment of an ancient manuscript was so new to me, the first thing that I thought about when approaching the problem were my own biases. We talked about this during the first couple of classes and it is something that I found myself coming back to throughout the course.
I thought about my expectations around what I might find in a manuscript on Buddhist magic and whether these expectations are well-founded. I was cognizant of the power of confirmation bias. I thought about my modern, western lens which falsely understood magic to be a small and almost niche piece of buddhist practice. I now understand its significance as a large part of buddhism. As something widely practiced as an instrumental piece of daily life for Buddhists around the world, throughout history. Moving forward, I would like to continue learning about magical practices in the modern context.
Moving into decipherment, possessing no knowledge on scripts or foreign languages, my first thought was actually of a parallel to ancient Greek mathematics. I thought about the ancient tablets of Mesopotamia and Greece and their illustration of the progression of thought as it has been translated into shape and relations/ratios later in Euclid’s elements, then finally to symbolic numbers. From images to symbolic letters and words. I thought about the meaning lost in each jump from the abstract to the limited concrete and about the meaning potentially lost in the future translation of a language that I do not understand. A word is not simply a definition. I worry that without fully understanding magic’s place in the people’s lives that utilize our manuscript, their position in time, space, and culture, and without understanding the nuanced connotations of their language, I cannot really understand its meaning. This is why I really tried to not only focus on the decipherment of the manuscript itself, but also on the context around the manuscript and Buddhist magic in general. This is the area I ended up learning the most, I think.
Personally, I felt that I could not contribute to the linguistic aspect of this course as much as many other people in the class but it was very interesting hearing what my classmates had to say, as well as Trent. The symbol-by-symbol decipherment of the script was the most difficult aspect of the course for me for a few reasons. One being that it was hard to be sure whether my translation to roman script was correct (there were many symbols that looked similar and I’m still pretty unsure of the rules around how vowels are written around consonants and might cancel each other out). Another place I got stuck was the further translation between already semi-accurate roman script in an unknown language, to English. This was especially difficult because the spellings of words in their original language did not necessarily match up to those that would be documented in a modern dictionary or online database.
One of the most satisfying moments of the course for me was feeling very stuck in making any progress on the translation, then finally identifying my first word making any sense, “ Girimikhalam” (a one-eyed elephant referenced in Sri Lankan Mythology). Once I made that connection, I was able to identify a greater chunk of text as being part of the Buddhist chant Buddha-jaya-maṅgala Gāthā, or Verses of the Buddha's Auspicious Victories. This was very exciting to me and I felt like I had made a huge breakthrough in understanding through this admittedly small discovery. I wish we were able to decipher more of the text in completion, but I understand why we couldn’t given the constrained period of time we had to work on it.
I was most intrigued by the translation done by Trent with the help of one of my classmates of a small portion of text on the page of images. They determined that it says (roughly) “Made for use in Palli school in Luang Prabang”. Again, I was most interested in the context around the manuscript and its potential original utility, so this finding really piqued my interest. Like I said in my last weekly response, I wanted to gain not only a better understanding of our manuscript through our translation, but also Buddhism and magic’s relation/importance to the lives of people in Luang Prabang. Especially now in the context of its students. I’m interested in learning more about the role of religion and magic in schools at the time this was used. Although through our course reading we have contextualized magic quite a bit in terms of buddhism, I would like to learn more about its role in education.
Final Task: I think that the online compilation of work is a good idea. I would appreciate a physical printout of the manuscript - maybe even annotated - but if I got a printout of everyone’s writing throughout the course this might be too much. I would appreciate being able to reference them online but I just don’t know how useful a physical version would be. I would also love to get Trent’s final/in-progress interpretations/overview! A physical manuscript printout with basic annotations would be cool.
Looking back at my first weekly reflection, I am struck by both the stark differences and remarkable similarities between how I conceptualized our manuscript at first sight and how I view it now, many Friday afternoons later. Striking especially is my initial uncertainty regarding the script, as I originally mentioned writing systems from across Southeast Asia as possible contenders. After closely examining our manuscript as well as others at Berkeley, I now feel much more confident in immediately differentiating Lao from Tham from Khmer from Burmese. In fact, previously I would not have been able to tell you what the Tham script was, much less its place of origin, regional variants, or the language(s) it is used to write.
This broader understanding of the linguistic, orthographic, cultural, and religious makeup of mainland Southeast Asia is probably the part of this class that will stick with me the longest. This is a region which I’ve been interested in for quite some time, but my knowledge was relatively limited. For example, I had some conception that Thai and Lao exist on a dialect continuum, but now I have names for these regions and dialects, such as Thailand’s Isan in the northeast and Lanna in the north. The historical geographic reach of the Tham script also transcends national borders from Thailand to Laos to Myanmar to China (specifically Yunnan).
I find that the best way to gain this sort of bird’s eye view of a region and its cultural composition is in fact not to look from a bird’s eye view at all. This leads to the memorization of specific facts and dates which quickly fade from the mind without anything to attach to. However, by diving deep into a particular component of the region’s major religion, and even more specifically by doing so through the lens of a single manuscript, my aerial view of the region has actually seen the most improvement. On the other hand, I think I have more questions than I will ever have answers to in relation to our manuscript. How did it end up in the Netherlands? For whom was this spellbook initially created, and how was it used in the school in Luang Prabang? Which section came first, the “front,” “back,” or calendar? What is the relationship between these various sections? What are the mysterious scribblings on the very first page? From front to back (whichever side is which), it remains an enigma, not least because of my Tham illiteracy.
Conversely, I think the initial approach which I proposed in week one is more or less what led me to the most success in making sense of our manuscript. Since linguistically decoding the manuscript was (and is) outside of my current capabilities, I suggested that getting a sense of what other similar Buddhist manuscripts look like would help me to conceptualize ours. Reading the Tibetan spellbook in Buddhist Magic by van Schaik gave me a sense of the layout of a magical Buddhist text. This understanding of the layout, in terms of blocks of text in the main language followed by short Indic recitations, is what supported my orthographically based hypothesis in later weeks of the languages of different sections of our manuscript.
The moments in which I felt the most creative or perceptive, however, were when I was not completely grasping in the dark but had something to ground an idea or analysis on. This was mostly my knowledge of northern Indic languages. This allowed me to easily identify strings of transliterated words as Indic or not and gave me an understanding for the way in which the script functioned as an abugida. Additionally, it helped me come to the realization that Indic vowel inventories are much more limited and thus the diversity of vowel diacritics should be poorer in any Indic sections of text.
A perspective I gained is a different view of Buddhism than what is presented in most American media or popular discourse. Although I did not attend the talk on Buddhism and violence, I think that the concept of challenging this discourse is extremely valuable. Buddhism is not simply an unchanging philosophy spread across much of eastern Asia, rather, it is highly influenced by local practices and national narratives, some of which may seem to directly contradict the peaceful conception of Buddhism. Previously, my study of religion had been largely focused on Islam, and so this is the lens through which I view religious studies in general. Islam faces copious amounts of criticism, especially from the West, for misogyny and “regressive” ideas. I have rarely heard such charges leveled against Buddhism, especially as one of the main talking points which people bring up in relation to the religion. In this regard, Monks and Magic by Terwiel was especially eye-opening for me. Among the many points presented on Thai society and religious life include quite a few which seem fairly misogynistic from a Western perspective, for example, women’s energy being seen as in direct opposition to monk’s positive energy. I am not arguing for or against claims of sexism; I simply mean to highlight the aspects of Buddhist practices which do not neatly fit into positive Western conceptions of Buddhism and are often left out of the Western narrative.
I think that the Eberhardt reading was my favorite, as its themes of culturally determined psychology and Buddhist conceptions of the course of life are especially interesting. I would be interested to learn more about Buddhist magic within this framework, and I would also be interested to connect it with more modern concerns. How are such traditions perceived by younger generations, especially those in cities? Which practices remain pervasive (and why) and which have perhaps begun to fade away?
It’s indeed been a crazy journey full of learning and surprises since the beginning of the quarter. I really had no idea what to expect coming into the course, especially given that I’d never taken a course in religious studies before and came from quite a different academic and professional background. Needless to say, I learned a fantastic deal from this course, and most of these learnings were quite unexpected in a positive way. From my attention to detail and interpretive skills to personal and communication skills, I’ve grown significantly and was challenged in a way that I’d never experienced before in other endeavors.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from this class is the method of taking something unknown—whether it be a language or a manuscript—and parsing it into something known. This is done in a series of general but effective steps, starting with pure observation: with all of the manuscripts we’ve dealt with, we always first list interesting observations about them, from the physical attributes to the characteristics of the scripts used, without trying to conclude anything from such observations. This aids in remaining unbiased and enhancing observability by honing our focus on just one task. Only after these observations are made do we proceed with analysis on a micro level, analyzing bits and pieces of the manuscript separately, such as trying to identify the script and language used, dissecting drawn images and mapping them to entities we’ve seen before, and pinpointing the time and geography of the manuscript by looking at its binding and style. Finally, we analyze at a macro level, piecing these individual micro-analyses together to understand the origins and story of the manuscript. In particular, the make-up assignment handout guidelines were quite helpful in describing these steps. This methodical approach is quite flexible but very actionable, and different from what I’ve been taught in technical courses where everything is supposed to have an indisputable right answer.
A by-product of this first takeaway is that I’ve learned how to better make neutral observations without inadvertently drawing conclusions. We all enter discussions and situations in life with a certain context and mindset that is incredibly difficult to leave at the door when it’s time to be unbiased. Doing so becomes especially important for a course like Buddhist Magic (or when studying anything novel or unknown about history), since the status quo we’re used to likely isn’t applicable to societies of the past. For instance, when we were mapping the manuscript in class, I assumed that the front of the manuscript featured the longer cover, arguing that it’s easier to open the cover when it’s longer than the rest of the manuscript. However, a counter argument was brought up, suggesting that the longer side could be the back of the manuscript given that it would protect the rest of the pages when laid down and read. This skill of delaying conclusions is, in my opinion, a great proxy for learning to be more empathetic and more willing to understand different (and often dissenting) perspectives and opinions, of which I think we can all agree the world needs more.
This brings me to a different type of learning that I appreciated, which had more to do with mindful communication. Given that so much of the course is discussion-based, it’s inevitable that we all might have different and contrasting viewpoints about the readings, or about what a particular aspect of the manuscript might say about how it was used and the nature of its content. Our frequent discussions have taught me not only how to convey my thoughts respectfully and concisely, but also how to disagree in a deferential way while acknowledging others’ opinions. These interpersonal skills are invaluable in countless life situations—from meetings at work to conversations with loved ones—and were certainly honed, especially given that none of us knew much about the manuscript but all brought unique perspectives and fields of expertise to the table. Our collaboration was phenomenal and can certainly be remembered and learned from.
Some other learnings include being able to filter for important information, such as being able to tell when a phrase in the manuscript is graffiti or a Buddhist verse; starting with visual information like pictures and drawings since they tend to convey the most and are easier to understand; and developing our own (potentially novel) analysis techniques, such as when I learned to compare the most complicated characters between a known and an unknown script to maximize the differences and easily rule out non-matching scripts.
I’d love to learn more not only about how the manuscript was created, but about why it was created by hand, given that it’s dated to the mid-1900’s when easier, faster, and error-free methods of printing were available, and whether the decision had to do with cultural reasons. Also, I’d be interested in seeing more of how modern day Southeast Asian monks and societies employ Buddhist magic in their everyday lives.
What skills, perspectives, and methods have you learned over the arc of the course so far?
After reflecting on my first weekly response and that of my classmates, I concluded that there are multiple ways to approach solving a complex problem when given little-to-no context. In this case, my classmates and I, having no prior technical knowledge, had different methods when it came to initially interpreting the manuscript. For instance, one of my classmates compared the female deity holding the flag in the manuscript to Phra Malai and drew conclusions about the manuscript’s language based on this comparison. On the other hand, when examining the Lao lunar calendar, I highlighted (what would be 7-day week and decimal system) repeated characters to note any patterns. From there, I interpreted that this portion of the manuscript (later revealed as the Lao lunar calendar) is related to astronomy in some manner. There are multiple ways to approach a complex problem, some of which include drawing methods from epistemology— using previous knowledge on a topic adjacent to the present problem— or analytics— formulating a method to recognize patterns and trends. From a scholarly perspective, I think the initial methods we use may be contingent upon our studies and/or academic interests (for instance, a historian’s initial method may be similar to my classmates’ while that of a mathematician may be similar to mine). I’ve learned there are multiple ways to approach a problem, and no approach is universally true.
I have learned to embrace these diverse perspectives. A world in which only like-minded people solve problems is a world in which no problem will be solved at all. I can attest to this statement. One of my classmates had a linguistics background, so they were able to internalize the nuances of languages and decipher the languages and scripts on the manuscript quickly. Additionally, each classmate was able to contribute something to the discussion of the manuscript and spoke about a facet of the manuscript that no one else did. I genuinely don’t think I would’ve been close to my current interpretation of the manuscript, had it not been for the diverse perspectives of my classmates and instructors. I’ve concluded from this course that diverse perspectives are critical to being a step closer to the truth. This statement not only applies to the manuscript, but also to life more generally.
On a similar note, I’ve learned that having a background in linguistics (and/or proficiency in the language that directly relates to the manuscript) is useful for this type of project. I say linguistics is useful since it was helpful seeing the overlap between south and southeast Asian languages; it allowed the class to synthesize potential scripts and languages and transliterate words to make meaning from the manuscript.
When one doesn’t have a background in linguistics, then they should seek resources from a mentor, instructor, or trusted website to help them decode the message on the manuscript. For instance, Professor Walker provided the class with the unified transliteration system for Khmer, modern Thai, modern Lao, Tham Lanna, Tham Khun, and Burmese scripts. Furthermore, Professor Walker provided the class with a website that would transliterate characters from the manuscript to English from Lao. Some useful skills I’ve gained are quickly reading the unified transliteration system and inputting words into the virtual transliteration generator from Lao to English.
Personally, I experienced a steep learning curve during the language portion of the manuscript. I realized that transliteration (particularly for south/southeast Asian script and languages) is highly analytical. The constants across Khom, Thai, Lao, Lanna, Khun, etc. appear the same. It was also difficult knowing when the words begin and end since the script appeared to be one long chain across the pages.
I’ve concluded that it takes a lot of patience when learning the linguistics of south/southeast Asian languages and decoding the messages on the manuscript. There’s either a lot of verbal and visual overlap between the languages or rules and nuances of the languages to master. However, once I gained proficiency in transliteration tools and the foundation of south/southeast Asian languages, it was truly a rewarding experience decoding the messages on the manuscript.
On a personal level, I felt the most creative during Week 1, when I decided to highlight the Lao Lunar Calendar to find any patterns and trends. Another moment where I felt creative was during Week 2, when I interpreted the roles the full moon and new moon phases had in Buddhism. Professor Walker revealed to the class that the Lao Lunar Calendar recorded the new moon and full moon. After doing research on the significance of the moon, and using some previous knowledge about Buddhism, I interpreted the calendar was recording when Buddhists would be at their purest state or their “fullest self” (which would occur on a full moon), or when the next bodhisattva would arrive. Although my interpretation was incorrect (since it was later revealed to be a Lao lunar calendar), I felt a sense of agency when using my previous knowledge about Buddhist philosophy to creatively interpret the manuscript.
There were several questions that came across my mind as we were closer to the end of the project. What methods could we use to date the manuscript had the date not been included on one of the pages? What methods would we use to determine which Luang Prabang school this manuscript originated from? Can we approximate how long it will take us to decode the entirety of a manuscript? I hope to have these questions answered either in this course or in future courses and/or research (perhaps the research is not about Buddhist magic but analogous in nature).
Please add a final short paragraph in which you brainstorm ideas for the final course website/alternative group task.
I have several ideas for the final course website. For starters, we could have the layout look like that of the Stanford philosophy website. We could have a total of 10 slides (since we have 10 students) and each slide would take the audience to another tab showing the student’s reflections throughout the entire quarter, should the audience choose to click on that slide. Perhaps the website could be programmed to have each slide replicate a single page from a book, so then all of the slides look like they belong to a manuscript.
Another idea is to create a roadmap of our interpretations of the manuscript throughout the entire quarter (via Jamboard). We could organize these interpretations by each week of the quarter. The purpose of this is to have a visual representation of how our ideas developed over a period of time. This visual representation may be posted on the website.
Part I
The main skill I gained over the arc of the course is using inductive and deductive reasoning to support my findings, even if I am not sure it is correct. For example, when it came to figuring out the script of the language, I had no previous knowledge of linguistics or Southeast Asian or South Asian languages besides Vietnamese. Thus, I needed to step out of my comfort zone of being able to stake a claim and take risks with my hypotheses, even if my answer could be completely wrong. An example of this was on Assignment 2, where I tried identifying the scripts used in the manuscript. While my conclusion of one of the scripts being a Tibetan script was wrong, the practice of using analytical reasoning challenged me in a way that I had previously had not been. In other classes, I would refrain from taking bold claims if I was not sure if I was right. It was also great that collaboration was deeply encouraged during the class discussions to uncover the manuscript better, since I was able to compare my analytical thinking with others and see where my thinking diverged from theirs.
Another example where I decided to take risks was by trying to find relevant research with the weekly reflections. While we were not required to do outside research for our weekly reflections, it did provide me comfort to find some secondary sources to support my proposed ideas. The simple act of doing research was extremely helpful in understanding more about Buddhism in other countries outside of Vietnam, even if it was not used in the weekly reflection. Furthermore, the practice of comparing other Buddhist artifacts and manuscripts to ours was extremely interesting, considering that we did not necessarily need prior knowledge of any languages to do so.
While we learned a variety of perspectives on Buddhist magic, one particular perspective that stood out to me was Terwiel’s argument on how class differences in Thailand affect one’s relationship with Buddhism. The affluent people in Thailand viewed the Buddha as more of a philosopher where one could use the lessons of the Buddha as a part of intellectual study. Terwiel argues that this contrasts with how the rural farmers and villagers viewed Buddhism with the Buddha being viewed as a god-like figure or deity. Thus, Buddhist magic is integrated as a part of daily life in almost all tasks, where even lay people use Buddhism magic for themselves. Of course, the usage of Buddhist magic does not necessarily mean one could not be an affluent member of Thai society, nor does viewing the Buddha as a philosopher preclude one from being a villager. The main reason why Terwiel’s argument caught my eye was that even prior to entering this class, when I was asked the question: “Are you religious,” I used to answer the question with something along the lines of “Kind of. I tend to follow the philosophy more so than the mystical elements like reincarnation.” While I no longer answer that question the same way, Terwiel’s argument made me reflect on my own positionality relative to Buddhism. Because I grew up in an urban area in Washington State, am I more likely to view Buddhism as more of a philosophy? I will admit that prior to entering the class, an underlying assumption I had about Buddhism was that the religion was more “rational” than others. I believe that meant that I had more trouble accepting the more “magical” parts of Buddhism like the spells and magical practices. Taking this class opened my eyes to other sides of Buddhism I did not accept with open arms as much. I now have a more inclusive understanding of Buddhism.
Part II
Some questions I still have about the process of our manuscript concerns what we should do now. So far, we have been able to transliterate some text and have a good idea of the usage of the manuscript. However, surely there are some people near Luang Prabang that could interpret the manuscript more accurately and faster, especially when it comes to modern interpretations of the text compared to older interpretations. For me, I would love to learn more about how we can understand/translate a text to take it from a modern interpretation to an older one to get the true meaning of the spells. I also wonder how different the spells in our manuscript are from the spells we read in our class readings like in Schaik’s book. I am curious if these spells follow a similar pattern in terms of pacing, ingredients, and procedure.
As for Buddhist magic in general, I would love to discover Buddhist magic in Vietnam and in the United States. It looks like most of our rich texts had origins in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. I am curious if this means that there hasn’t been as much research in Vietnam and in the United States, or if Buddhist magic is just not as commonly practiced in these regions. I suspect that it is not as commonly practiced in the United States, mainly due to the lack of practitioners of Buddhist magic. In the video we saw in class where a White woman came to a village in Southeast Asia to partake in a healing spell is an example of foreigners traveling to Southeast Asia to meet these Buddhist practitioners. I also wonder if Europeans and Americans are concerned about authenticity and view that American or European practitioners do not have the same level of power as the ones in Asia.
A reason why I am interested in learning more about Buddhist magic in the United States is because while I can do the readings and understand the importance of Buddhist magic in other areas, I am still having difficulty “believing” in it. I am very much open to it and do not necessarily need to “see it to believe it,” but I do want to feel the experience in any way I can.
Upon reflecting over the course work we as a class have done I am blown away at how far we have come. The manuscript was once an obscure, far-away document beyond our comprehension. Through thorough analysis and hard work, those walls of mystery have fallen and we (mostly) know its origin, its use(s), the year and time sections of it were written and its cross-cultural nature as a document written in multiple languages. We have reason to believe that the calendar in the manuscript was written in 1949, that it was used in school as a recitation manual and to track the phases of the moon. We know that the manuscript is composed in Pali, Lao and Tham Lanna and written in three separate sections and likely at different times. It is likely that the two sections closest to the short cover are related while the section that begins at the long cover was probably written later. As a class we refer to those sections as sections 2 and 3 and section 1 respectively. Careful attention, time spent on translation sites, assigned readings and lots of help from Prof. Walker all combined have illuminated the inner world of the manuscript over the course of nine weeks.
The beginning of the course was colored by mystery and painted in broad strokes as we stepped as a class into the world of Buddhist Magic. We did not identify that the manuscript was from Lao until about five weeks into the course. Until then we were left to the devices of the readings, Prof. Walker's knowledge and our collective guesses as to what was going on in the manuscript. In order to crack the manuscript’s code, we had to hone the skills of paying close attention to specific symbols within the text and spending careful time identifying them and translating them. Once that occurred, around about weeks six and seven, the world of the manuscript starting to get a bit smaller, thankfully.
Looking back over my own work here is what I have noticed. I knew very little about Southeast Asian languages coming into the course and found the script sections of the manuscript entirely unintelligible. My only access point, really, was the calendar. I notice in my week 4 reflection that I was able to make more sense of the calendar after our initial class meeting, but also because I have familiarized myself with the phases of the moon and can recognize its tracking when I see it. Investigating the calendar was integral to identifying one main purpose of the manuscript and the title page that is included with the calendar in section 2 revealed a great deal about the timing of the creation of that section. I remember the moment in one of our first classes in the old room when I felt excited and intrigued by the mystery of the calendar. Looking up at pdf images of the manuscript projected on the wall I wanted to know everything I could about it. That day I felt particularly creative.
My classmates’ analysis abilities shined this quarter and I learned a lot from them. I recall learning much in class about Pali pronunciation and structure from Sylvia and also a lot from Sean about the religio-social setting of Southeast Asian countries as they were mentioned in the assigned readings from Sean. All our heads combined elicited quite a bit of progress each class section. I believe we each came in with our own curiosities and knowledge about the manuscript and could fill in the gaps within one another’s thinking to shed more and more light on the content of the manuscript as the hours of each class continued.
I still have many questions about the manuscript itself and Buddhist Magic at large. I am most curious about the context of the manuscript, as in, what it did for the people who engaged with it and how common such manuscripts that are similarly diverse in composition are in Laos and beyond. I have questions about why seventy years ago manuscripts were used to catalog documents for schools - what else was recorded on these types of manuscripts? Who else needed them and used them? Regarding Buddhist Magic more broadly, I am curious about its presence specifically in Burma today. I am drawn there because of the panel at the Humanities Center that focused on the genocide of Muslims that’s occuring there presently. What role, if any, does Buddhist Magic play in that conflict? How has Buddhist Magic shifted and transformed in Burma as a result of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that pervades the country today?
Overall, I know this experiment - investigating a mystery manuscript - will be one I always remember. This has been a very illuminating and educational experience for me, one I’ve not encountered before in any class, Religious Studies or otherwise.