Burning of a Chief Priest

A detailed vision of the cremation of a prominent Burmese Buddhist monk.

Creators: Unknown Burmese artist

Date of Creation: Late 1830s

Place of origin: Tavoy, Burma (Dawei, Myanmar)

Physical measurements: 1 page

Materials: Watercolor, paper, pencil, ink

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: American Baptist Historical Society.



Further Reading

Isaacs, Ralph. 2009. “Rockets and Ashes: Pongyibyan as depicted in nineteenth-and twentieth-century European sources.” Journal of Burma Studies 13 (1): 107-136.

Lopez, Donald S. 1995. Curators of the Buddha: the study of Buddhism under colonialism. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press. 
Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism, University of Chicago Press.


Information contributed by Alexandra Kaloyanides.