Nat (spirit)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The nats (Burmese: 
; MLCTS: nat; IPA: [naʔ]) are spirits worshipped in Burma (or Myanmar) in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the rest (i.e., spirits of trees, water, etc). Almost all of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who met violent deaths (a sein-thei, lit. "green death"). There are two types of nats. Lower nats are dewas of the lower six heavens, while higher nats are in the upper six realms. Much like sainthood, nats can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions. Nat worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas, and is predominantly practised among ethnic Bamar. Many houses contain a nat sin or nat ein, which essentially serve as altars to nats. Villages often have a patron nat. A coconut (nat oun) is often hung on the main post (ဥရူတုိင္) in the house, wearing a gaungbaung and surrounded by perfume, and is an offering to the Min Mahagiri (Lord of the Great Mountain) nat.
Nats have human characteristics, wants, and needs. They are flawed, having desires considered derogatory and immoral in mainstream Buddhism. During a nat pwè, which is a festival during which nats are appeased, nat kadaw (nat mistresses or mediums) dance and embody the nat's spirit in a trance. The roles of nat kadaws are often fulfilled by transvestite men. Music, often accompanied by a saing waing (orchestra), adds much to the mood of the nat pwè, and many claim to be entranced.
Worship of nats predates Buddhism in Burma. After Buddhism arrived, however, the nats were merged, syncretistically, with Buddhism, with the Buddha considered to be the greatest nat, and with nats presiding at the birth of the Buddha. The merging of native religions with Buddhism is not only not uncommon, it is ubiquitous. Shakyamuni (Sidhartha Gautama) Buddha recognized and incorporated the native Hindu religion of India into his teachings and practice so as to lead to a more comprehensive understanding to his students. In form, the Buddhism of Burma is similar to the Buddhism of Japan. A Buddhist Saint, Nichiren, incorporated the native religion into teaching and practice. It is interesting to note similarities in the native religions which prosper in Buddhism, such as having "lower" and "higher" realms, containing men, gods, demons, and Buddhas. Indeed, there is no such thing as "pure Buddhism," but rather types of Buddhism which inevitably contain characteristics of locality in which it is taught.
The most important nat pilgrimage site in Burma is Mount Popa, an extinct volcano with numerous temples and relic sites atop a mountain 1300 metres, located near Bagan.
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[edit] List of official nats
King Anawrahta designated an official pantheon of 37 nats, after he was unable to sanction banning of nat worship. The official pantheon is made up of predominantly those in the royal houses of Burmese history, but also contains nats of Thai (Yun Bayin) and Shan (Maung Po Tu) descent. Listed in proper order, they are:
- Thagyamin (သိက္ရား), considered King of the Nats, is identified with the Buddhist deva Śakra and the Hindu deity Indra.[1]. He is often portrayed atop a three-headed white elephant, holding a conch shell in one hand, and a yak-tail whisk in the other.[1]
- Mahagiri, The son of the famous blacksmith, U Tint Daw. His given name was Maung Tint De (Nga Tinde). He was extremely strong, able to break the tusks of an elephant. The King of Tagaung was worried, least he attempt to usurp his throne, so Maung Tint De hid himself in a village. As a stratagem, the king married Maung Tint's sister, Saw Me Ya, who became one of his queens. He persuaded Saw Me Ya to ask her brother to come out of hiding so that he could be given a high office. But when Maung Tint came out of hiding, the king had him arrested and burned alive under a Champac (sagawabin) tree. His sister (see below) also died with him and the two became evil Nats resident in that tree, periodically feasting on people who happened to come near the tree. The King of Tagaung (Tagaung Min) had the tree cut down and cast into the waters of the Irrawaddy where it floated, coming to rest in the King Thinligyaung's kingdom in Pagan and the two Nats appeared in a dream apprising the king of their plight. King Thinligyaung had the trunk carried to Mount Popa, divided into two parts (one for each Nat) and carved with human features. Later kings, had golden heads made of the two Nats and had these heads mounted on pillars at Mt. Popa (the ones from 1812 are still worshiped at the mountain).
- Hnamadawgyi, or Goldenface. Her given name was Saw Me Yar, the eldest sister of Maung Tint De. She became the queen of the King of Tagaung. When she saw her brother being burned alive, she lept into the fire, but only saved his head. She died of her burns and became a Nat. She is portrated standing on a dias upon a black elephant, with her right hand on her chest with a plum between her thumb and index finger, with her left hand at her side.
- Shwenabay was a beautiful woman of the village who married a Ngga. Later, her husband deserted her and she died of heartbreak. Another story says that she was actually the wife of Maung Tinti De. She is portrayed standing, wearing Ngga headwear, with her right hand on her chest and her left hand at her side.
- Thonbanhla (Beautiful in three ways This woman was a native of a Mon village called Takunnwan. She was (sic) "beautiful in three ways within one day." She was given to King Dndataung of Pyay. Bit the queen was jealous of her beauty and told the king that she was actually very ugly and so fat that she couldn't fit through the city gate. Hearing this, the king refused to marry Thone-ben-hla who then died in despair. Another story says that she was the younger sister of Maung Tint De. She married King Samein Htaw Yarma of Ut Thaala and gave birth to a daughter, Shin Mine, but then died of a sudden illness. She is portrayed standing on a dias with an elephant support. She wears a top-almot and has her right hand on her chest and left hand at her side.
- Taungoo Mingaung, a minor governor of Taungoo and the son of Min Ye Theinkthu, the royal attendant, he died of illness. He is portrayed sitting crosslegged on a simple (sic) Hoonl wearing royal garments, holding a fan in his right hand and resting his left hand on his knee.
- Mintara, the King of Ava, he was hunting in the forest where he met a fairy, then became insane when the fairy disappeared. While he was insane, one of his followers, Nga Nawks, murdered him.He is portrayed sitting on a throne, wearing his royal garments with a fan in his right hand and his left hand resting on his knee.
- Thandawgan, a royal messenger of King Min Gaung of Taungoo, his given name was Ye Thyar. He went into the forest to collect flowers, contracted malaria, and died. He is portrayed sitting on a lotus pedestal holding a fan in his right hand and his left hand resting on his knee.
- Shwenawrahta, the grandson of King Min Gaung II of Inwa. His servant tried to assassinate the king of Inwa, but was caught and put to death. Because of Shwenawrahta's collaboration in the plot, he was also put to death.He is portrayed sitting with one knee raised upon a simple throne, holding a golden ball in one hand and a golden stick in the other.
- Aungzaw Magyi Also called Bo Aungzwa, he was a commander for King Nara Pali Sithu of Pagan. He was killed by the king when he showed disrespect to the king, who had failed to keep his promise of rewarding him with one of his maids.He is portrayed sitting on a throne, playing a harp and wearing headwear and a sash.
- Nga zishin (ငားစိးရ္ဟင္)
- Aungpinle Hsinbyushin (ေအာင္ပင္လယ္ဆင္ဖ္ရုရ္ဟင္)
- Taungmagyi (ေတာင္မက္ရီး)
- Maung Minshin (The swing rider)The grandson of Alaung Si Thu, son of Min Shin Saw who was deposed. While he was still a novice swing rider, he fell from the swing and died.
- Shindaw was a (sic) novice in Inwa and died of a snake bite. He is portrayed standing on a pedestal with headwear, and a yellow robe. He holds a fan in his right hand and counting beads in his left.
- Nyaung Gyin The descendant of King Mamuha Thaton. He died in Thaton Pagan from leprosy during the reign of King Anawrahta. He is portrayed standing on a pedestal with a topknot, lifting his left hand and holding a staff in his right.
- Tabinshwehti (တဗင္ရ္ဝ္ဟေထီး)
- Minyè Aungdin, the husband of Princess Shwe Sin Tu, the daughter of King Thar Sun of Inwa and the queen, who was daughter of Soublwa of Mo Ne in Shan States. He died from smoking opium excessively. He is portrayed sitting on a pedestal with a topknot and holding a harp.
- Shwe Sitpin (ရ္ဝ္ဟေစစ္ပင္)
- Medaw Shwezaga, the mother of Shwe Sitpin, she died of heartbreak over the sorrowful plight of her son. She is portrayed sitting on a pedestal with her right hand on her bosom and her left hand resting on her lap.
- Maung Po Tu (ေမာင္ဘုိးတူ)
- Yun Bayin (ယ္ဝန္းဘုရင္)
- Maung Minbyu (ေမာင္မင္းပ္ရု)
- Mandalay Bodaw, a son of Brahmin, he was killed for not properly supervising Shwehpyin Naungdaw and Shwehpyin Nyidaw, who were neglegent in their duties. He is portrayed standing on a pedestal with a sword on his shoulder and a hand raised, pointing his finger.
- Shwehpyin Naungdaw (ရ္ဝ္ဟေဖ္ယင္းနောင္တော္)
- Shwehpyin Nyidaw (The sons of Byatta, the royal messenger, and Me Wunna, the flower-eating (sic) agress(?) during the reign of King Anawrahta of Pagan. They were killed for neglecting to guard an opening in the brick walls of the Taungbygone Pagoda, which was built by King Annawrahta. They are portrayed on pedestals, one lying down and the other upright with his sword shouldered arrogantly.
- Mintha Maungshin (မင္းသားမောင္ရ္ဟင္)
- Htibyusaung (သိးဖ္ရုေဆာင္း)
- Htibyusaung Medaw (သီးဖ္ရူဆောင္းမယ္တော္)
- Bayinma Shin Mingaung (ဘုရင္မရ္ဟင္မင္ခောင္)
- Min Sithu His given name was Alaung Sithu, the King of Pagan and the successor of King Anawrahta of Pagan. He was assassinated by his son who usurped his throne.vHe is portrayed sitting on a throne with one knee up and his foot on the seat, wearing royal garments.
- Min Kyawzwa, also known as U Min Gyaw, he was the son of the lord of Pyay and Kuni Devi. He was a drunkard, cock fighter, and excellent horseman. He was killed by the (sic) devils who had been his victims.
- Myaukhpet Shinma (ေမ္ရာက္ဘက္ရ္ဟင္မ)
- Anauk Mibaya (အေနာက္မိဘုရား)
- Shingon (ရ္ဟင္ကုန္း)
- Shingwa
- Shin Nemi (ရ္ဟင္နဲမိ)
[edit] References
- Salek, Kira. "Myanmar's River of Spirits", National Geographic Magazine, 2006-05, pp. 136-157. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
- U Kyaw Tun et al. (2005-01-15). Nat in My Classroom!. Tun Institute of Learning. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
- Temple, R.C. (1906). The Thirty-seven Nats-A Phase of Spirit-Worship prevailing in Burma.
- Hla Tha Mein
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Hla Tha Mein. Thirty-Seven Nats. Yangonow. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
[edit] External links
- The Nats - Online Burma/Myanmar Library
- Friends in High Places Preview of a documentary film by Lindsey Merrison
- Mintha Theater Dance theater in Mandalay, Burma.
- Spirit of Burma 2006
- Nat Pwè recordings
