190
MICHAEL SMITHIES
the plots are largely traditional stories of love, transubstantiation and the magical. The music is strident and the voices, singing rhyming couplets, not without beauty. Not as lively as the Burmese pwe (the Thai version of which is the likay), the hoon krabawk is an interesting dramatic art which deserves to survive the rival but mundane attractions of the cinema and television.
The vestiges of the early Mon can be explored further by visiting the ancient sites of Sri Thep and Lampoon (the old Haripunchai) in Thailand and their present situation seen in villages in the Laadgrabang and Prapadaeng areas near Bangkok or, if one could get there, in lower Burma in the Ye or Kyaikkami (Amherst) district.
As a theme on which to build a visit to Burma with an extension in Bangkok the Mons, with their distinguished cultural past, may start as an excuse but become a justification; they established the earliest kingdoms in the mainland Southeast Asian region, were the first to be Buddhist and gave their religion to the incoming Burmese, Thai and Lao peoples, and built the earliest surviving religious shrines. Their influence can still be seen in the Buddhism of the region and in the use of the Burmese script. If today they are dispersed, dispossessed and disappearing, they have a noble place in antiquity.
Yogyakarta, January 1976.
190
MICHAEL SMITHIES
the plots are largely traditional stories of love, transubstantiation and the magical. The music is strident and the voices, singing rhym- ing couplets, not without beauty. Not as lively as the Burmese pwe (the Thai version of which is the likay), the hoon krabawk is an interesting dramatic art which deserves to survive the rival but mundane attractions of the cinema and television.
The vestiges of the early Mon can be explored further by visit- ing the ancient sites of Sri Thep and Lampoon (the old Haripun- chai) in Thailand and their present situation seen in villages in the Laadgrabang and Prapadaeng areas near Bangkok or, if one could get there, in lower Burma in the Ye or Kyaikkami (Amherst) district.
As a theme on which to build a visit to Burma with an extension in Bangkok the Mons, with their distinguished cultural past, may start as an excuse but become a justification; they established the earliest kingdoms in the mainland Southeast Asian region, were the first to be Buddhist and gave their religion to the incoming Burmese, Thai and Lao peoples, and built the earliest surviving religious shrines. Their influence can still be seen in the Buddhism of the region and in the use of the Burmese script. If today they are dispersed, dispossessed and disappearing, they have a noble place in antiquity.
Yogyakarta, January 1976.
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