This chapter examines two overlapping Buddhist nationalist discourses in Burma/Myanmar: a nationalist ressentiment discourse and a cultural nationalist discourse. It demonstrates that Buddhist nationalism is more than merely anti-Muslim discourses and that it comprises a complex set of discourses, many of which can be traced back to the colonial period. These include Buddhism being intertwined with an ethnic identity, a national identity; protection of the Buddha's sāsana against the perceived demographic threat of interreligious marriages, and against business competition; Burmese Buddhist cultural-historical narratives about the “Golden Myanmar”; Burmese Buddhism as a source of national pride, and the like. These discourses can be encountered in contemporary Burmese Buddhist nationalist movements seeking to protect the Buddha's sāsana , their nation/race, their Buddhist cultural traditions and their heritage against perceived threats.

While the predominant forms of Buddhism in Southeast Asia are enchanted, some novel interpretations of Buddhism are disenchanted rejecting anything supernatural and metaphysical. One such case is the teaching of the controversial, blue-robed monk Ashin Nyāna in Burma/Myanmar. The aim of this article is, first, to examine Ashin Nyāna's own objectives of his doctrinal and moral reform of Buddhism, and how his followers make sense of his teaching. Second, it argues that Ashin Nyāna's reformist Buddhism, which is characterized by a this-worldly orientation and an absence of supernatural, metaphysical, and transcendent dimensions, can be understood as disenchantment in the Weberian sense and referred to as disenchanted Buddhism or a disenchanted Buddhist discourse that has emerged through a critique of enchanted forms of Buddhism, and in interplay with modern urban life. Third, the article suggests that the concept of a disenchanted Buddhist discourse might have some advantages as a comparative concept.

In the so-called transition period (2011-2021) in Burma/Myanmar, riots between Buddhists and Muslims broke out (2012-2014), and in response monk-led Buddhist nationalist, anti-Muslim movements emerged. Monks frequently delivered anti-Muslim sermons in the public sphere to protect the Buddha’s dispensation (sāsana) from the threat perceived to be posed by the Muslim minorities. The aim of this article is to examine some cultural, social, and historical conditions that enabled the popularity, rapid spread, and broad impact of these movements. The article argues that the impact from the colonial period has created a sense of collective victimhood, especially through social memory, and that later shaped anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, as well as Buddhist nationalist sermons. Finally, the article examines how the nationalist monks employed an Orientalist discourse of Buddhism as peaceful and tolerant as a response to criticism, and how it has been utilized, together with the portrayal of the Buddhist majority group as collective victims, as a strategy to escape responsibility and to depict Buddhists as merely acting in a defensive manner against a putative aggressor.

In Myanmar, Buddhist nationalist movements created a pan-Burmese anti-Muslim moral panic in response to the political and economic liberalisation starting in 2011 and to riots between Buddhists and Muslims that erupted from 2012. Based mainly on Buddhist nationalist sermons and speeches, but also on interviews and fieldwork, the aim of this article is to examine the historical and cultural roots of the anti-Muslim moral panic and its political ramifications. This article argues that Buddhist nationalist sermons contributed to moral panic in three ways. First through aspects of monastic authority by which nationalist, anti-Muslim discourse was authorised. Second, an anti-Muslim conspiracy theory going back to the 1950s and an ingrained historical narrative feeding a sense of collective victimhood and vulnerability among the Buddhist majority created fear that provides justification of discrimination and violence. Third, is a perceived existential threat to Buddhism and Myanmar’s sovereignty considered to be posed by groups of Muslims (local and international) that were interconnected in the nationalist imagination; a sense of threat that was reinforced by a globalised Islamophobia. 

The Buddhist nationalist movements that emerged during the political and economic liberalization of the second parliamentarian period (2011–2021) in Burma/Myanmar provide unique material for the study of monastic authority. The aim of this article is to examine two overlapping dynamics regarding how monastic authority is established and undermined. As for the first dynamic, the article examines three strategies in Buddhist nationalist sermons aiming to provide legitimacy for the nationalist monks. The second dynamic is a political outgroup criticism that became more common during the period in question. The article makes a distinction between generic monastic authority, which is the fundamental one, and nationalist monastic authority, as they are legitimized and established in different ways. Finally, the article argues that recognition of monastic authority by laypeople is based not merely on trust and respect but tends to be a more complex process.

In 2012, Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar started to emerge, disseminating a Buddhist nationalist discourse that aimed to protectively demarcate their nation from the perceived threat posed by Muslims. In sermons, monks exhorted their audiences to make nationalist vows to protect their nation, country, and Buddhism. The aim of this article is to investigate some ritual, discursive, and performative aspects of Buddhist nationalist sermons, and the social dynamics they entailed. The article first examines and analyses three recurrent discursive complexes of the Buddhist nationalist sermons delivered in 2013–2015; it will also look at how the monks drew on their social power and on discursive and performative power to create a boundary around their Buddhist nation and to mobilize Buddhists to protect it, thereby performing their nation. Second, the article examines two ways in which sermons that aimed to protect the Buddha’s dispensation (collectivistic religion) contributed to creating social cohesion and community.

The notion of the vidyādhara, “bearer of wisdom/practical knowledge/ritual lore,” was a common figure in various Indian traditions and appeared in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain texts, as well as in Indian narrative literature. Originally, these beings were depicted as semi-divine, youthful figures flying about in the atmosphere between heaven and earth, endowed with supernormal powers. Later, this figure came to be viewed as a soteriological state that a human being could attain in his/her present life through religious practice, thereby becoming a kind of superhuman, god-like being. This interpretation was mainly encountered in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain tantric traditions. In Indian Buddhism, the ideal of becoming a vidyādhara came to be linked to a variety of practices, including alchemy, meditation, and the recitation of mantras, by which supernormal powers could be acquired. Such practices were also performed to achieve spiritual success by a bodhisattva on the long path to buddhahood. The concept of a vidyādhara as a soteriological ideal for humans to realize in their present lives has been emphasized not merely in Indian but also in Tibetan and Burmese traditions, where it became localized and adapted to the local culture and society.