ABSTRACT
The necessity of material survival and the equally pressing need to live in a meaningful universe are the motivational springs underlying the drive to modernity in contemporary Southeast Asia and in many of the poor nations of the world. From the West the idiom of socialism —with its stresses on equality, production, an end of oppression, the brotherhood of man, and the belief in the forward surge of history where classes, states, and exploitation will be but memories —is obviously appealing to the new nations. Theravada Buddhism in Burmese history is virtually coterminous with the forging of the ethnic and national identity of the Burmans. Under Anawratha in 1044, Theravada Buddhism became the official religion of king, court, and realm. Religion needs to be institutionalized in such a manner that the mundane demands of the everyday world are tenuously and ambiguously defined and related to sacred precept.
