Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 21, No.

2, 2000

A Socio-cultural Analysis of the Burmese

Shin pyu Ceremony*
MATHIEU BOISVERT
Departement des sciences religieuses, Universite du Quebec a` Montreal, CP 8888,
succursale centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada translated from the French
by Sharon Gubbay Helfer

ABSTRACT In this article we will analyse the temporary admission of young monks to the
Burmese Buddhist monastic order, together with the ritual ceremony that frames this
important act, and the socio-cultural context in which it is set. In order to circumscribe the
Theravada Buddhist context, we will make connections to the ancient Pali texts that still
govern the Burmese Buddhist tradition and we will also, from time to time, draw parallels
with surrounding societies, Singhalese, Khmer and Thai.

Anyone who goes to the Union of Myanmar (Burma) soon notes the vibrant
presence of the Theravada Buddhist tradition. The vast majority of the population
are in fact Buddhists and the religion plays a predominant role in daily life: people
go regularly to the temple to make offerings, to pay homage to the monks, and to
mediate. At rst sight, what appears to distinguish the Union of Myanmar from the
other Theravada countries, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam,
is the impressive number of young, even very young, Buddhist monks. This article
presents the results of a study that we carried out in the spring of 1999 on these
young Burmese monks of the Theravada tradition. We will analyse the temporary
admission of young monks to the Buddhist monastic order, together with the ritual
ceremony that frames this important act, and the socio-cultural context in which it
is set. In order to circumscribe the Theravada Buddhist context, we will make
connections to the ancient Pali texts that still govern the Burmese Buddhist tradition
and we will also, from time to time, draw parallels with surrounding societies,
Singhalese, Khmer and Thai.
The novitiate admission ceremony, shin pyu, is by far the most important Burmese
ritual. As the term signi es (from the Burmese to make [of the layman] a novice),
this ceremony makes a boy into a novice within the monastic tradition. To begin
with, we must clarify the distinction between novice (Pali: samanera) and monk
(Pali: bhikkhu). The novice need respect only ten precepts, while the monk must
rigorously observe 227. It is usually required that one be a novice before becoming
a monk. Further, one cannot be ordained a monk before the age of 20. This means
that, according to Western criteria, the postulant would have to be 19, since
ISSN 1361-7672 print; 1469-9362 online/00/020203-10

2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

204

M. Boisvert

Buddhist tradition calculates age from the moment of conception and not from the
day of birth.
In the Union of Myanmar, as in Thailand and pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodia,
every man was required to become a novice for a period of time varying from one
week to his whole life. Although contemporary Thailand, like the Union of Myanmar, celebrates a traditional novitiate admission ceremony, it takes place much later
in the life of the young man, usually not long before marriage (Levy-Ward, 1997,
p. 228). However, before the public school system was instituted in Thailand, Thai
children became novices much earlier so that they could have access to an education
(Tambiah, 1976, p. 270). This contrasts with Singhalese tradition, in which joining
a monastic community as novice or monk is considered a lifetime commitment.
Hence we nd far fewer young monks in Sri Lanka. If all male children had to
become novices, and then monks for life, the Singhalese population would disappear
after one generation.
The contrasts are even more striking when one compares Theravada Buddhism
to the Hinduism of the Sastras. Here the individual could not in theory become
nyasa) before ful lling the conditions associated with the three prea monk (sam
liminary stages of life (asrama): student (brahmacariya), householder (gr? hastha),
and forest dweller (vanaprastha). As Edith Parlier-Renault points out (1997,
p. 24), a number of bas-reliefs from the Gandhara period (second to seventh
centuries) show the Buddha himself inviting young boys to join the monastic
order. These iconographic representations suggest that the Buddha was positioning
himself against the Hindu prescriptions of the epoch. By contrast with the prescriptions in the ancient law codes, contemporary Hindu practice is much
more exiblecould this be because people are now more familiar with the
doctrine of reincarnation, and might assume that a young boy had ful lled the
conditions for the three preliminary stages in a previous life? Like the Hindu
upanayana ceremony, in which the twice born (dvija) are of cially admitted to their
social class (varn? a), the shin pyu is a rite of passage that fosters integration into
Buddhist society.
A variety of criteria set the minimum age for becoming a novice. According to
canonical tradition, the young boy must either have reached the age of 15, or be big
enough to frighten away the crows (Vinaya, I, 79). This nal criterion lowers the
minimum age for becoming a novice considerably. Nevertheless, contemporary
Burmese tradition does not admit boys until they have reached their seventh year.
Until the total repression of religion carried out by the Khmers Rouges in 1975, the
Khmer tradition had been very close to the Burmese, with young boys between 7
and 12 years of age being encouraged to join the monastic life temporarily as novices
and later to rejoin for a time as monks, before getting married (Martin, 1997, p.
316). The admissibility of a young candidate was determined, according to La Vie
du paysan Khmer, by his ability to touch his left ear with his right hand, passing his
arm over his head rather than by his capacity for chasing off crows (M. A. Martin,
1997, p. 319).
In addition to being seven years old, the future Burmese novice must be able to
correctly pronounce the Pali sentences required for admission. He must also have

Socio-cultural Analysis of Burmese Shin pyu Ceremony

205

obtained his parents permission, for reasons we will turn to shortly. Once he has
become a novice, it is in theory up to the boy to gauge the opportune moment for
his return to the lay community, if there is such a moment. Although a minimum
age is set, there is no age limit for becoming a novice. For the parents, though, it is
important, if not crucial or even imperative, that each of their sons become a novice
before they die. It is likewise unthinkable for a man to marry before having been a
novice. The shin pyu ceremony, and the novitiate experience that follows it, allows
each Burmese boy to experience the ideal life that monasticism represents in the
Theravada countries, at least for a while.
Shin pyu is the most meritorious ritual that can be carried out in Burmese society.
To begin with, the boy must scrupulously follow the ten Buddhist precepts: he must
abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, taking intoxicants, eating
after noon, dancing, singing or playing a musical instrument, adorning oneself with
garlands, perfume or other form of make-up, using an elevated or luxurious chair or
bed and, nally, handling silver and gold (and by extension, using money). This
moral conduct (sla) ensures an incommensurable acquisition of merits (punna) for
the boy. Apart from the enormous acquisition of merits through his moral practice,
each novice has the opportunity to learn the paritta (protective verses), to familiarize
himself with the major canonical texts, and to learn the fundamentals of meditation
practice. If the boy remains a novice for a prolonged period, the nature of his
education will be determined by the monastic lineage within which he is ordained;
he will receive either a more academic training (pat? ipatti), or a more rigorous
training in meditative practice (pariyatti). Whether the boy decides to stay in the
monastery or not, the accumulated merits are immense. They will assure him, at the
very least, an excellent condition in his future life; at best, his monastic practice will
allow him to realize Buddhisms highest ideal, nibbana.
In addition to the bene ts for the boy, the shin pyu ceremony is extremely meritorious for the parents, as is also the case in Cambodia and in Thailand. In
Cambodia, custom has it that the boy must be ordained twice before of cially
entering adult life. According to M.-A. Martin, the rst taking of the robes as a
novice (neen), between 7 and 12 years, aimed to acquire merit for the mother; the
second ordination, as a monk (phiku), taking place not long before marriage, aimed
to acquire merit for the father (Martin, 1997, p. 316; see also Bernard-Thierry,
Enfances Khme`res 1997, p. 338). In Thailand, the novitiate is a way of transferring
merits to deceased parents or grandparents (Tambiah, 1976, pp. 269270). M.E.
Spiro points out that the Burmese candidate traditionally must remain a novice for
three lents, that is to say three years; the merits associated with each of the years are
transferred respectively to the mother, the father, and the boy (Spiro, 1970, p. 236).
The karmic force of these merits is so strong that it even ensures that a sinner not
be born again in hell, even though by his profession he contravenes the rst
Buddhist precept not to kill. The shin pyu is a source of merit for the parents to the
extent that it is associated with the act of charity (dana). The road that leads to
nibbana is often represented by the Noble Eightfold Path (ariyat? t? han gikamaggo),
itself divided into three sub-categories: morality (sla), concentration (samadhi) and
wisdom (panna ). At the same time, it is often speci ed that lay people must develop

206

M. Boisvert

charity before being able to master the three sub-categories of the Noble Eightfold
Path. The nancial investment that the novitiate admission entails is the occasion for
parents to manifest charity. To begin with, a copious meal is offered to the entire
monastic community (san gha) that is receiving the newcomer, a community that
may contain a considerable number of monks. Furthermore, robes, begging bowls
and other necessary goods are offered to the majority of the members of the san gha.
Nevertheless, the nancial contribution is in nitesimal considering the fact that the
parents are offering the monastic community their most precious possession: their
son.
A few canonical episodes demonstrate the importance attributed to the son. There
is of course the legend about the admission of Rahula, the son of Buddha, in which
the child is represented in a negative manner, as a source of attachment and, by
extension, of suffering (dukkha). After Rahula had been admitted to the monastery,
his grandfather Suddhodana demanded that the Buddha formulate the rule of
parental consent. According to Suddhodana, the affect felt for a son is far from being
super cial: it pierces the skin, the muscles and the bones to lodge in the depths of
the marrow. Thus it is desirable that parents agree to the admission of their son, lest
entry into the monastic order abolish parental ties (Vinaya, I, 82). Another example
illustrates the renunciation of Siddhattha Gotama. This episode holds a primordial
place in Buddhist hagiography. Following the announcement of the birth of his son
Rahula, Gotama is said to have become aware of the constraining power of
emotional ties to a son; he is then said to have decided to break the ties at once,
before they could become too strong. Together with the four sights this is taken to
be one of the principal motivations behind Gotamas renunciation.
Although we certainly do not need the foregoing hagiographic episode to convince
us that the ties that bind a son to his parents are strong, the incident nevertheless
highlights the traditional Buddhist view of the subject. Returning to the shin pyu
ceremony, we may af rm that in agreeing to let their son become a novice, Burmese
parents are, literally, offering him to the san gha. This constitutes a high act of
abnegation, the most meritorious gift a lay person can give, in that parents are
renouncing, even though usually in a temporary way, the parental ties that bind
them to their son.
In many traditional Asiatic societies, sons are responsible for looking after their
parents in their old age. We may think in particular of the Indian model, where
parents live in the family home until they die; when the oldest son marries, he
becomes the master of the house. Daughters leave when they marry and are replaced
by the daughters-in-law who come to join their husbands. Burmese society is very
different. The situation of women in Burma is privileged compared with that of
women in neighbouring countries, notably India. Burmese women could engage in
economic activity outside the family home, could dispose of their goods as they saw
t, could defend themselves, prosecute and even be head of the village. As Tilak
said, Burmese society was characterized by freedom of religion, education of
women, late marriages, widow remarriage, a system of divorce (Ram Goppal,
Lakamanya Tilak, New Delhi, 1956, pp. 220; cited by Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom
from Fear, p. 92; See also Mimi Khaing, The World of Burmese Women, and

Socio-cultural Analysis of Burmese Shin pyu Ceremony

207

Marie-Hele`ne Cardinaud, Femmes et contes en Bimanie, in: Etudes birmanes en

homage a` Denise Mernot, p. 385). Women do not automatically leave the family home
to join their husbands. After they marry, depending on their nancial situation, the
couple may either set up an independent household or stay with the parents of either
the husband or the wife. Women have more of a tendency to take care of elderly
parents. Nevertheless, men are in no way exempt from this responsibility: the
Buddhist texts stress the importance, for the son, of taking care of his parents. As the
text that describes the beatitudes of lay life stipulates: To take care of ones father
and mother, cherish ones wife and children, have a peaceful occupation; this is the
highest beatitude [Man galasutta, Sn. II, 4]. In offering their son to the san gha,
parents are renouncing the security that he could offer them at the end of their lives.
This double renunciation, of the lial tie and of security, is interpreted as an act
highly productive of merits and, therefore, the act of charity par excellence.
Two other, more contemporary, examples highlight the meritorious aspect of the
admission ceremony. During our stay in Myanmar, a Burmese man con ded to us
that his mothers deepest regret was that his father died before he became a novice.
His father was not able to gather the merits associated with the admission of a son
into the Buddhist community, and his mother was overcome with grief. This
attitude is corroborated by the commentary of Hla Maung which stipulates that
Burmese parents cannot allow themselves to die before their sons shin pyu has been
accomplished (Hla Maung, n.d. p. 14). It also happens that a relatively well-off
couple who have no sons may sponsor the shin pyu of a poor boy or an orphan. By
symbolically adopting the child (katimatha), the couple acquires the same merits as
though they had sponsored the ordination of their own son (Khaing, 1996, p. 49).
These two examples con rm that the giving of a son to the san gha is understood to
be a highly meritorious act.
Preparing for the admission event begins at least one week before the ceremony.
Spiro gives a detailed description of the shin pyu (pp. 234247); we are therefore
limiting our discussions to selected points that we judge to be important. This being
said, we note important differences between Spiros descriptions and our observations. A number of reasons could be put forward; let us simply mention that his eld
study took place almost 40 years ago, and that the ceremonies that he observed all
seem to have been carried out in relatively wealthy settings. Ours come mainly from
relatively poor, rural environments. Most of our data were gathered in Tihanshwe,
on the outskirts of Taunggyi (Shan state); we have also gathered information based
on ceremonies observed in the two main cities, Yangon and Mandalay. The whole
of the extended family is involved, since a large part of the village population is
invited to the ceremony. We note a clear hierarchy. The wealthiest invite members
of inferior social strata to the ceremony, mainly in order to acquire extra merits; the
poor on the other hand restrict themselves to a smaller number of guests. The
quantity and quality of food required to invite higher-class families and social strata
is a drain on nancial resources. The number of guests is directly linked to the social
status of the parents. Several days before the ceremony, the women of the house
begin to prepare the dishes that will be served rst to the members of the monastic
community, then to the guests, once the monks have nished their meal.

208

M. Boisvert

New suits are prepared and ceremonial costumes pressed. The candidate goes to the
monastery to learn how to pronounce the Pali formulas required for his admission,
and to prepare himself mentally for the drastic changes that will soon take place.
The monks teach him the daily schedule that he will have to follow and the different
rules he will have to obey.
On the day of the ceremony, a procession is organized to accompany the young
man across the village before taking him to the monastery. The boy wears a royal
costume, and a parasolthe South Asian symbol of monarchyis placed above his
head. Although traditionally boys from rich families were transported by elephant
another symbol of royaltyboys from the majority of families are carried on
horseback, or on a chariot pulled by a water buffalo. Children from poor families are
carried on their fathers shoulders. Usually the father follows behind his son carrying
the monastic robes and bowl, that is, if his son is not on his shoulders; in the latter
case, the uncle would carry these articles. The mother carries other goods necessary
to monastic life: soap, sheets, etc. A fanfare enlivens the procession. In urban centres
today, i.e. Yangon, Mandalay, Taunggyi and Mawlamyine, it is more common for
the child to travel in a motorized vehicle. Imagine the scene: a procession of cars, led
by a pick-up truck on which our future novice is enthroned, moves at high speed
through the streets of the capital. The fanfare is replaced by loud speakers on one
of the vehicles.
When they arrive at the monastery, the parents and boy are presented to the
community. A monk is designated to shave the candidates head, thus symbolizing
dispossession and rupture with the boys lay personality. While the shearing is taking
place, the candidate must meditate on the ephemeral character (anicca) of existence
and the non-attractiveness (asubha) of the 32 parts of the body, the hair being one
of these. Having asked for and received permission to join the order, the boy offers
the community the articles every novice needs (parikkhara): a begging bowl, monastic robes, a belt, a razor, a pin and a seive. Next he asks the community to return
these items to him, and to confer initiation upon him. The boy then removes his
royal robes, puts on the monastic robe and formally asks permission to enter the
san gha; the request is repeated three times. If none of the members objects, the boy
promises to follow the ten precepts and to take refuge in the Three Jewels: Buddha,
dhamma and san gha. A preceptor is named to supervise him. Finally, the newly
admitted novice pays homage to the community as a whole. Thus the admission
ceremony of cially comes to an end.
To the foregoing are added a few important elements. In Buddhist societies, each
of the Three Jewels commands a profound deference. To this inescapable threesome, Burmese culture adds parents and teachers: [The Three Jewels] were
transformed into an authoritarian framework of total deference and obedience by
adding the two other secular personalities of parents and teachers. In fact, these ve
authorities are considered to be ve omnipotent and supreme objects of veneration
equal in status and rank, although it is not certain that Buddha himself had
mandated this ranking (Maung, 1991, p. 1213). We note a similar attitude in Sri
Lanka, where the children adore the feet of their parents. As Elizabeth Bopearachchi points out, Les deux stances que lon recite pour honorer ses parents sont

Socio-cultural Analysis of Burmese Shin pyu Ceremony

209

les premie`res recitations quapprend lenfant. En distant Jadore les pieds de ma

me`re, il recite matu padan namami [sic], en disant jadore les pieds de mon pere,
il recite pitu padan namami [sic]. Les enfants adorent les pieds de leurs parents en
posant leur te`te sur leurs mains jointes posees sur le sol (1994, p. 237). While the
child must always demonstrate unconditional reverence towards his parents, a role
reversal follows the shin pyu: thereafter it is the parents who prostrate themselves
before the novice, this individual who has just acquired a very new status, one well
above that of his parents. In fact, the novice is no longer considered to be the son
of his parents; he has become a son of the Buddha. Next comes the meal that takes
place in silence and in great simplicity, even though the dishes are more re ned and
more numerous than for everyday fare. Spiro mentions that the meal for monks and
guests takes place before the shin pyu ceremony; however, in the shin pyu ceremonies
that we observed, the meal always came after (Spiro, 1970, p. 239). After the meal,
each guest returns home; the novice remains with the monks, within the con nes of
the monastery, until he decides to reintegrate into lay society.
In our day, the majority of admissions to the novitiate take place in April, during
the Burmese new year (thingyan), at the end of the school year. This makes it
possible to remain a novice until the beginning of the new academic year, and so not
to compromise the school programme. This is not a strict rule, since it is possible
that a boy may want to remain a novice, sometimes even against the wishes of his
parents. Several years in the monastery can, in the contemporary context, endanger
normal progress in secular education. It is equally important to stress that because
the shin pyu and the consequent state of being a novice are considered to be highly
meritorious, and that the novitiate is not perceived as an unpleasant experience, it
often happens that the same individual has himself admitted into the monastic
community more than once in his life.
We are of the opinion that the shin pyu ceremony has played a crucial role in
maintaining the vitality of Buddhism in Burma. We do not contest Spiros data; they
demonstrate a clear decline in the number of monks and novices in the Burmese
tradition. We are nevertheless of the opinion that the shin pyu is one among
numerous factors, among them of course government policy, that have considerably
attenuated the decline of the tradition. We can envisage three reasons for this
impact. First, the ceremony maintains and strengthens the societal links woven
around the monastic community. Second, the shin pyu encourages each boy to have
a personal experience of the monastic tradition. The novice thus comes to develop
profound respect for a way of life that he will henceforth know to be arduous and
worthy of homage. Third, and in our view most important, the shin pyu brings the
hagiography of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, to life. Carrying the candidate to
the noviciate across the village on a palanquin, replays, by analogy, the renunciation
scene of Prince Siddhattha. Right before his renunciation, Gotama did a tour of the
town during which he witnessed the four sights that incited him to leave worldly
life: old age, sickness, death and nally, an ascetic. During the Shin pyu, the
symbolic presence of Siddhattha in the village reinvigorates the religious fervour of
lay and monastic communities. In the hours that follow this young man will
renounce royalty, symbolized by the clothes he wears, the parasol and the palanquin,

M. Boisvert

210

to involve himself in a search that will bring him to the supreme awakening. This
scene reminds us of a passage in the Dhammapada:
Come, look at this world, adorned like a royal chariot; While it swallows up
the ignorant, the wise are in no way attached to it [Freely translated by the
author: Dh.xiii, 5].
This symbolic staging of hagiographic passages from the life of Siddhattha Gotama
is not the sole preserve of the shin pyu, far from it! As Guy Menard emphasizes, the
purview of a rite is exactly to re-present the myth, to portray its gesture or setting
(Menard, 1999, p. 75ff.). We nd this ritual need in the majority of religious
traditions. The shin pyu allows every Burmese Buddhist family whose son joins the
san gha to have among them, symbolically, the individual who has become a Buddha.
Note
*A more complete version of this paper was published in French in Sciences & religieuses/Studies
in religion, 29(2).

References
AUNG, S.S.K. (1995 [1991]) Freedom from Fear (New York, Penguin Books).
BERNARD-THIERRY , S. (1997) Enfances khmre`s dhier et daujourdhui, in: F. BLANCHON (Ed.)
Enfances, Asie IV, CREOPS, pp. 337344 (Paris, Presses de lUniversite de Paris-Sorbonne).
BOISVERT , M. (1996) Maran.asati: textual interpretation and contemporary practice, Budhist
Studies Review, 13(1), pp. 3754.
BOISVERT , M. (2000) Early forms of Buddhist and Christian monasticism, in: W. JOHNSTON (Ed.)
Encyclopedia of Monasticism (Chicago, IL, Fitzroy Dearborn).
BOPEARACHCHI, E. (1994) LEducation bouddhique dans la societe traditionnelle du Sri Lanka (Paris,
LHarmattan).
BUDDHIST LEGENDS (1979 [1921]) Translated from the original Pali text of the Dhammapada
commentary by E. W. BURLINGAME, 3 vols (London, Pali Text Society).
CARDINAUD, M.-H. (1998) Femmes et contes en Birmanie, in: P. PICHARD & F. ROBINNE (Eds)
cole Francaise
Etudes birmanes en hommage a` Denise Bernot, pp. 385391 (Paris, E
dExtreme-Orient).
GOMBRICH & CONE (1997) The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessantara (Oxford, Oxford University
Press).
HLA MAUNG (n.d.) My Early Monastic Education (Yangon, International Institute of Advanced
Buddhistic Studies).
HTUN HMAT WIN, S. (1986) The Initiation of Novicehood and the Ordination of Monkhood in the
Burmese Buddhist Culture (Yangon, Department of Religious Affairs).
KHAING, M. (1996 [1946]) Burmese Family (Bangkok, Ava House).
KHAING, M. (1984) The World of Burmese Women (London, Zed Books).
LEVY-WARD, A. (1997) Trois jours, lenfant des esprits, quatre jours, un etre humain; les rituels
de naissance et denfance en Thalande, in: F. BLANCHON (Ed.) Enfances, Asie IV,
CREOPS, pp. 217233 (Paris, Presses de lUniversite de Paris-Sorbonne).
MARTIN, M.-A. (1997) Les Enfants au Cambodge: de la tradition a la modernite, in F. BLANCHON
(Ed.) Enfances, Asie IV, CREOPS, pp. 310335 (Paris, Presses de lUniversite de ParisSorbonne).
MAUNG, M. (1991) The Burma Road to Poverty (New York, Praeger).
MAUNG, M. (1998) The Burma Road to Capitalism (New York, Praeger).

Socio-cultural Analysis of Burmese Shin pyu Ceremony

211

MENARD, G. (1999) Le Petit traite de la vraie religion (Montreal, Liber).

PARLIER-RENAULT, E. (1997) Limage de lenfant dans lart bouddhique de lInde, in: F.
BLANCHON (Ed.) Enfances, Asie IV, CREOPS, pp. 311336 (Paris, Presses de lUniversite
de Paris-Sorbonne).
SPIRO, M.E. (1970) Buddhism and Society: a great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes (New York,
Harper & Row).
TAMBIAH, S.J. (1976) World Conqueror and World Renouncer: a study of Buddhism and polity in
Thailand against a historical background (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).