ABSTRACT
It is a matter of definition that any monarchy surviving under Western colonial rule will have been an example of ‘Indirect Rule’. That is, the Western colonial power had seen the advantage of operating behind a façade of traditional legitimacy, rather than exposing the radical new reality of administration to the gaze of the masses, or indeed removing the cornerstone of social cohesion and stability. The British learned too late – but not at any great interval – the folly of abolishing the Burmese monarchy, when the Buddhist monkhood, deprived of its supreme authority, became a hotbed of unrest and political subversion.
