The Movement of Khruba Khao Pee in Thai Yuan Community, Karen State, Republic of the Union of Myanmar

Abstract

This article emphasizes on describing the cross- border pilgrimage of Khruba
Khao Pee in Thai Yuan community, Karen State, Republic of the Union of Myanmar
during 1922-1930 to illustrate the Buddhist movement. This place is an area in which
where the common cultural characteristics of the Lanna Buddhist tradition were
conserved. The overviews are presented in this paper as follows: 1) the social context
of the Thai Yuan community, Karen State, where Khruba Khao Pee ran his movement,
2) the place, position and interaction of Khruba Khao Pee with Thai Yuan people, Karen
State, 3) an analysis on the movement of Khruba Khao Pee in the Karen State, by using
the Buddhist ideology, culture and the area studies to be a guideline to describe the
Khruba Khao Pee's movement- phenomena. The results showed that Khruba Khao Pee
has his pilgrimage movement to propagate Buddhism in the Thai Yuan community,
Myawaddy, Gawkaret. Ja- insetji, Kyaiktong, Karen State, with the construction of
religious sites and religious heirs. A the meantime, the allegation from the Mae Ramat
District Authorities was a forcing factor that drove Khruba Khao Pee to temporarily
escape from border area. He was still propagating Buddhism and creating relationships
with the Thai Yuan’ s network. In this regard, from the occurred phenomena of
movement, it had shown the locations of the Thai Yuan community, a group of Thai
Yuan people who had faith in Khruba Khao Pee in the past, the traces of the Thai
Yuan’s Lanna Buddhist traditions interacted with Khruba Khao Pee as an representative
image the Messiah or the Ton Bun (a Holy One) of the Tai and lastly the present
perception of Khruba Khao Pee amongst Thai Yuan people in the Karen State.