From Hindu villain to heroic Buddhist king: Dathagiri in the Thiri Rama

This paper analyzes the character of Dathagiri in the Thiri Rama, an 18th century Myanmar court drama. The Thiri Rama is the Myanmar version of the Rāmāyaṇa story – this play is a little-known work in Western scholarship. The most widely known version of the Rāmāyaṇa is Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, and in this story, the villain is Daśagrīvā. In the Thiri Rama, however, I argue that Dathagiri, Daśagrīvā’s counterpart, is not a villain, but a heroic Buddhist figure. Scholars of the Thiri Rama have labelled Dathagiri the villain of the story, taking, I suspect, a reading of Daśagrīvā and imposing it upon Dathagiri. But this claim does not withstand close scrutiny. I textually analyze the first few acts of the play—which contain Dathagiri’s coming-of-age story—to demonstrate that Dathagiri is a heroic, Buddhist king. Furthermore, to truly understand the complexity of the Dathagiri character, I make connections to the historical context of the Thiri Rama. The Dathagiri character also contains in it the voices of Siamese captives after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 and that of the Myanmar royal court defending its empire against a Qing invasion. My study of this relatively obscure text, I hope, enriches the scholarship on Buddhist kingship and the Rāmāyaṇa.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Religion

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Tu, Hpone Myint

Contributors dc:contributor

• Newman, Adam L.

• Buddhism
• Kingship
• Ramayana
• Authorship
• Myanmar History And Literature
• Southeast Asian History And Literature

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Hpone Tu

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129316

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129316