ИСТИНА

The eighteenth century saw intensification of transregional contacts between Buddhist communities relying on Pāli texts. One of the prime examples of this was the reestablishment of monastic ordination tradition in Laṅkā with the help of Ayutthayan monks and the formation of Siyam Nikāya, the earliest of the three major monastic fraternities currently existing on the island. Upper Burma was not an exception to this general trend with local monks displaying growing interest in interacting with their peers in Rakhine and Laṅkā. The paper will address this development by taking a look at a career of monk Sāralaṅkā from Tenasserim who moved to Ayutthaya, allegedly took part in Siamese monastic mission to Laṅkā, came back to Tenasserim via Ayutthaya, was taken to Upper Burma and lived there for 14 years before returning to Tenasserim. During Sāralaṅkā’s residence in Upper Burma his testimonies were recorded several times of which at least two survive. The paper will compare manuscript copies of testimonies of Sāralaṅkā dating to about 1767 and the 1780s and discuss the differences between them. I will try to reconstruct the context in which these testimonies appeared and analyze how Sāralaṅkā’s position might have changed to motivate him to present himself and his visit to Lanka differently. Testimonies also provide a basis for a discussion of mechanics of translocal Buddhist monastic networking in the eighteenth century and identities of persons involved in such exchanges. They remind us that 'orders' are more than the sum of individuals comprising them, since these individuals both shape and respond to shifting perceptions of monastic institutions and their goals. The case of Sāralaṅkā offers insight into the understandings of translocal Buddhist monastic connections across the eighteenth century.