PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Hansen: The Nature of World 107the figure of Siddhattha, and second, with the contest for power betweenthe two princes. Like a worldly king—but again to a hyperbolized extent—Mårå is himself a morally ambivalent figure who is at once powerful,potentially malevolent, duplicitous, and selfishly jealous. In Khmer vernacularusage, he is understood abstractly as an “obstacle to progress ormovement” or as death itself; he is also referred to as “the enemy of theLord Buddha” and one who actively prevents others from “allowing meritand benefit to arise.” 98 Yet he is also clear-sighted enough to be able torecognize the superior merit of the Bodhisatta and he is sufficiently intelligentand merit-filled to concede defeat and take refuge in the spiritualpower of the Buddha.The Bodhisatta rejects Mårå’s offer to become a căkravartin because “itis impure, like urine and saliva.” A Buddha’s power, derived entirely frommerit and purification, is far more potent than a king’s power, overwhelmingthe kind of violent force (even in its hyperbolized form) that kings areable to generate. But in spite of the clear hierarchy in this two-tieredconception of power, the inter-linking also ends up affirming the meritoriousidentity of kings, as scholars of the Theravåda have long noted. Kingsmay have to undertake some nasty actions in order to fulfill their duties askings, but they are still regarded as meritorious beings in order to havetaken rebirth as kings.The poem’s depiction of the comparative rankings of worldly andspiritual power asserts the “traditional” mores of Theravådin ideas concerningkingship, authority, and merit. Worldly power was supposed to beexercised, albeit reluctantly, by a virtuous prince who ruled according toDhammic principles. His rule was just and created harmony and prosperityfor his kingdom’s inhabitants. Dhammic power, greater than any formof worldly power, was the ultimate authority, giving order and meaningto existence. The harmony and prosperity of individuals in theworld thus depended on the Dhammic linking of merit and power tocreate justice.Nineteenth-century Khmer representations of the world privileged adepiction of the individual, world, and time itself as interconnected,morally charged, and created by moral action. Embedded in a social andpolitical context in which the map of a world containing the invertedMount Meru was being contested by the introduction of new colonialgeographies of identity, 99 works like the vernacular poem Ry ° açPa†hamasambodhi and the Jåtaka surveyed in this essay served as literarysites in which Khmer intellectuals and scribes could articulate a vision ofmodern identity inscribed in Buddhist terms. The poem Pa†hamasambodhiaffirms the image of a world that makes sense according to Buddhisttheories of how reality functions, with the present, past, and future determinedby moral actions that predictably but unexpectedly ripen and bearfruit, much like the spontaneous generation of the jeweled throne formed