Editing U Nu (section)

== Ideas ==

As early as 1935, in a speech later reproduced by Manuel Sarkisyanz, Nu diagnosed the underlying cause of both colonial exploitation and class conflict in Buddhist rather than Marxist terms: the "primacy of the Self" (''attavada''), an inflated attachment to the ego that Buddhism, no less than socialism, existed to overcome.<ref>Sarkisyanz, Manuel (1961). "On the Place of U Nu's Buddhist Socialism in Burma's History of Ideas". ''Studies on Asia'' 2.1: 53–62, pp. 55–56.</ref> Throughout his career, Nu treated Buddhist doctrine and left-wing economic reform as mutually reinforcing paths toward the same goal, which he termed ''lokka nibban'', an "earthly nirvana": a just, materially secure society whose citizens, freed from want, could devote themselves to meditation and the pursuit of ultimate liberation.<ref>Sarkisyanz (1961), "U Nu's Buddhist Socialism," pp. 53–55.</ref> He drew on the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence (''anicca'') and the folk myth of the primeval Padeytha ("Wishing") Tree to argue that both unregulated capitalism and doctrinaire Marxism were philosophically deficient, and that Buddhist socialism represented a "middle way" that could incorporate Marxism's redistributive aims while rejecting its materialist metaphysics and atheism.<ref>Su (2022), "Buddhist Socialism and National Identity," pp. 113–120.</ref>

Nu's government also revived the Ashokan model of ''dhammavijaya'', "conquest by righteousness," most visibly through state-orchestrated processions and enshrinements of Buddha relics between 1949 and the mid-1950s, intended to bind Burma's fragile, ethnically plural union together under a shared, non-coercive Buddhist symbolism. Tilman Frasch has argued that this practice, whatever its precolonial rhetorical antecedents, was itself a distinctively modern, colonial-era innovation rather than a simple restoration of precolonial kingship.<ref>Frasch, Tilman (2013). "The Relic and the Rule of Righteousness: Reflections on U Nu's Dhammavijaya". In: Whalen-Bridge, John, & Pattana Kitiarsa (Eds), ''Buddhism, Modernity, and the State in Asia: Forms of Engagement'': 115–138. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 115–116, 130–134.</ref>

Nu's synthesis proved unstable. His landmark speech of 29 January 1958 to the AFPFL's Third All-Burma Congress, an hours-long dissection of dialectical and historical materialism, marked a turning point: while he continued to endorse the AFPFL's redistributive economic program, Nu now insisted that Marxism's materialist metaphysics was fundamentally incompatible with Buddhism, and that only self-declared Communists, rather than the broader left, could properly be called Marxists.<ref>Totten, George O. (1960). "Buddhism and Socialism in Japan and Burma". ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 2.3: 293–304, pp. 301–302.</ref> This break, which his Socialist Party colleague U Ba Swe pointedly declined to follow, coincided with, and helped precipitate, the AFPFL split of 1958, and it foreshadowed Nu's increasingly assertive Buddhist nationalism, culminating in the 1961 State Religion Act.<ref>Su (2022), "Buddhist Socialism and National Identity," pp. 131–134.</ref>