ရဟန်းတော် (မော်ဒန်တောရ)

Aug 21, 2010

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1/ 12. Royalty under Law

၁၂။ ဥပေဒျဖင့္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေသာ ဘုရင္စနစ္

In describing a king, a distinction is made between a “king by consecration (muddhābhiseka) ” and an “ordinary king”. A king who has water poured over his head according to custom is called a “king by consecration”. 

Otherwise, he is merely an “ordinary king”. King who is consecrated by kings’ consecration which succeeds with three features (possession with tradition-performance, bringing of king’s condition and becoming of consecration on top of head) perfects king’s majestic, power and authority.

The ruler, who is perfect include the ten-fold law of royal conduct and the four rules of saṅgaha of which we have spoken , may indeed be called a king. If, however, a single one of the country's "limbs" is lacking to him, the kingdom cannot amount to much and he may lack the respect of its people as a whole. The mass of the people will be divided into separate interests.

We must take another look at the system of government that was undergoing change from the beginning of King Mindon's reign. Under this King, the officials and their leaders were working within the law to devolve upon themselves all the powers invested in the absolute monarchy. 

Foreign relationships, in which the king would have special expertise, would by law be in his personal control, under considerations of prudence. There was therefore a strong movement towards making changes by stages. 

The evidence for this is that, right from the time when the King assumed the throne, changes were made removing certain of the King's powers, which were taken up by the parliament; for example the improved methods of tax collection and the system of ruling through four separate ministries, among others. 

To see how far these changes went, we have to say that, in the matter of King Mindon's appointment of the Thonnzel, Methkara and Nyaungyan Princes as governor, the appointment, made without the agreement of the parliament, was only effective until the Princes were arrested and placed in confinement. 

There was then an intention of changing the mode of government but it cannot be said that the parliament had yet gained complete control of the changes. It might be said that the above-mentioned business of appointing the princes as governor by the King only amounted to a death-bed action and the power of the parliament was fully effective. 

In fact, the governing powers had not yet been firmly established in the parliament. However, the basic rules of government by the committee of parliament ministers who had access to the King were beginning to emerge. 

It says that the ministers established a scheme for government under law; they set up an assembly under the name of the parliament for ruling the country. According to the document establishing this assembly, no proclamation of an order or of an appointment might be issued by anyone without the agreement of the assembly. 

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