State and Kingship in Southeast Asia

This chapter discusses some conceptions of state and kingship in those parts of Southeast Asia where Hindu-Buddhist civilization prevailed. Yet, there is overwhelming evidence of the cosmological basis of state and kingship in this area. The chapter will be more complete in continental Southeast Asia, where the old forms of Buddhist state and kingship survived into very recent times. The whole idea and outward form of kingship in Southeast Asia, and specially in the Buddhist kingdoms of Farther India, was of course based on the conception of the Chakravartin, the Universal Monarch. Any account of the conceptions of state and kingship in Southeast would be incomplete without at least mentioning the great importance of regalia. These incidents may suffice to show how lively the ideas of cosmic state and kingship, of rebirth and prophecy, still are in Burma.