Richard K. Diran | |
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| Born | November 3, 1949 United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Ethnography |
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Richard K. Diran (born November 3, 1949) is an American adventurer and gemologist who has also been a painter, trader in gemstones, restaurateur, and art dealer. [1] [2] [3] He is best known as the author and photographer of the book The Vanishing Tribes of Burma, [4] which was published in 1997. [5]
Diran is the son of Edward K. and Dorothy Diran of San Mateo, California. [6] He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1968. Diran was in the first graduating class of the California Institute of the Arts in 1972. [7] He moved to Japan where he earned a black belt in karate in 1974, after which he returned to California, where he graduated from the Gemological Institute of America in 1978 [8] [9] Later Diran and his Japanese wife, Junko, owned the Fuki-ya Japanese Restaurant in the Japan Center (San Francisco) (1978–1989). [1] An article in The Goldsmith magazine claimed that it was the first Robatayaki restaurant in the United States. [1]
Jerry Hopkins and Andy McCoy have mentioned Diran in their published books. Both remember him as part of the business and social scene in Bangkok in the early 1980s. [8] [10]
Diran, who first visited Burma in 1980 as a buyer of gemstones, [11] traveled throughout Myanmar and Cambodia for more than two decades, exploring the art, the then still rarely-visited temples, and visiting still remote tribal peoples as he took photographs and acquired antiquities and gems. [8] [12] [13]
In 1994 Diran relinquished his claim to an 11th-century Buddha statue from Bagan that he purchased in Thailand for $18,000 and brought to the United States in 1990; no criminal action was pursued against him. [14] Diran had scheduled the statue to be auctioned by Sotheby's in October 1991, expecting to begin bids between $15,000 and $25,000. [15] In 1994, The United States initiated an interpleader proceeding, a civil proceeding, joining Diran and Myanmar as parties to determine the rightful owner of the statue. [16] The sandstone Buddha, which had been stolen from a pagoda near Bagan in 1989 along with three other artifacts, "is widely regarded by scholars as an integral part of Myanmar's Buddhist heritage", and according to Jack Daulton, the attorney representing Myanmar, "was of the utmost rarity, a national treasure". After being confiscated by the FBI, the statue was secured at Northern Illinois University (NIU) during the times of unrest in Burma, until 2012 at which point it was moved to Paris for a few weeks en route to being repatriated and stored in the National Museum of Myanmar by November of that year. [17] Diran's attorney has insisted that Diran had been forthcoming throughout the process, having "declared it through U.S. Customs" when transporting it to the United States, and relinquishing his claim to the statue at a substantial financial loss when its ownership was challenged by the FBI and the government of Myanmar. Daulton counters that there are many clear indications that the statue was not obtained legitimately, including the fact that "It's an extremely rare piece of sculpture, and an object like this has not appeared on the market for years." [15] A publication from NIU on the repatriation of historical artifacts stated that the case "set a legal precedent in the United States for litigation related to the international transport of antiquities." [18]
Diran's photographs of the tribal peoples of Myanmar have been published as a book and also displayed as a traveling exhibition. [19] Diran took the photos in the book over a period of 17 years. [13] [20] [21] Asiaweek described the book as, "the most comprehensive visual record of Myanmar's many ethnic groups". [13]
Diran's book explores Burma's "cultural diversity," [22] portraying not only the better-described tribal groups, such as the Jinghpaw, the Karen and the Shan, but also lesser-known peoples including the Thet people, (a Rakhine people), the Bre, the Laytoo Chin and the Lahta. [13] Sarah Dudley of the University of Leicester understands Diran's work as salvage ethnography, capturing images of a physical culture on the brink of disappearing. [23] According to essay reviews in Asiaweek and The Japan Times , Diran, entering Myanmar via a series of 7-day tourist visas issued in Bangkok, entered areas of the country barred to foreigners by the military regime either by evading or with the connivance of provincial officials and thereby obtained a unique series of images of societies on the brink of replacing traditional dress and locally woven cloth with modern fabrics and styles. [12] [13] Journalist Bertil Lintner took similar risks to enter Myanmar in this period. [12]
The exhibition features 70 photographs which, according to Diran, include people from "at least 40 distinct ethnic groups, documented over more than 25 years and constituting 'the most comprehensive study of Burmese ethnography since [Sir George] Scott more than 100 years ago.'" Diran has explained that he intended the exhibition to help humanize the many disparate ethnic groups, many of whom have very little knowledge of one another, some of whom have been "linked by the military government to insurgent terrorists". [11] All photos in the exhibition were donated to the National Museum of Myanmar. [11] In 2014 a human rights group in Sweden sponsored an exhibition of Diran's photos to draw attention to ethnic conflict in Myanmar. [24] [25] In Security Council resolution number A-SC-01-01 the United Nations, "Strongly suggests that the importance and heritage of various tribe groups of Myanmar are promoted through measures such as ... inviting visitors to the exhibition "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma", on permanent display at Yangon's National Museum showcasing over 70 photographs by Richard K. Diran. [26]
Vesak, also known as Buddha Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, Buddha Day, and Phật Đản, is a holiday traditionally observed by Buddhists in South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as Tibet and Mongolia. It is the most important Buddhist festival. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment (Nibbāna), and passing (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha in Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism and Navayana.
The Mon are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy Delta, and several areas in Thailand. The native language is Mon, which belongs to the Monic branch of the Austroasiatic language family and shares a common origin with the Nyah Kur language, which is spoken by the people of the same name that live in Northeastern Thailand. A number of languages in Mainland Southeast Asia are influenced by the Mon language, which is also in turn influenced by those languages.
Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok Maharaj, personal name Thongduang (ทองด้วง), also known as Rama I, was the founder of the Rattanakosin Kingdom and the first monarch of the reigning Chakri dynasty of Siam. His full title in Thai is Phra Bat Somdet Phra Paramoruracha Mahachakkriborommanat Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok. He ascended the throne in 1782, following the deposition of King Taksin of Thonburi. He was also celebrated as the founder of Rattanakosin as the new capital of the reunited kingdom.
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Bodh Gayā is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as it is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment under what became known as the Bodhi Tree. Since antiquity, Bodh Gaya has remained the object of pilgrimage and veneration both for Hindus and Buddhists. In particular, archaeological finds including sculptures show that the site was in use by Buddhists since the Mauryan period.
Shakya was an ancient eastern sub-Himalayan ethnicity and clan of north-eastern region of the Indian subcontinent, whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The Shakyas were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha, also known as the Shakya Republic. The Shakyas were on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Gangetic plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region.
Mandalay is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631 km north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553.
The Karen, also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language-speaking peoples. The group as a whole is heterogeneous and disparate as many Karen ethnic groups do not associate or identify with each other culturally or linguistically. These Karen groups reside primarily in Kayin State, southern and southeastern Myanmar. The Karen, approximately five million people, account for approximately seven percent of the Burmese population. Many Karen have migrated to Thailand, having settled mostly on the Myanmar–Thailand border. A few Karen have settled in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries.
Wat Pho, also spelled Wat Po, is a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok, Thailand. It is on Rattanakosin Island, directly south of the Grand Palace. Known also as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, its official name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan. The more commonly known name, Wat Pho, is a contraction of its older name, Wat Photaram.
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The Kuki people are an ethnic group in the Northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The Kuki constitute one of several hill tribes within India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh.
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Many adherents of Buddhism have experienced religious persecution because of their adherence to the Buddhist practice, including unwarranted arrests, imprisonment, beating, torture, and/or execution. The term also may be used in reference to the confiscation or destruction of property, temples, monasteries, centers of learning, meditation centers, historical sites, or the incitement of hatred towards Buddhists.
Myawaddy is a township in southeastern Myanmar, in Kayin State, close to the border with Thailand. Separated from the Thai border town of Mae Sot by the Moei River, the town is the most important trading point between Myanmar and Thailand. Myawaddy is 170 kilometres (110 mi) east of Mawlamyine, the fourth largest city of Myanmar, and 426 kilometres (265 mi) northwest of Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
The relics of Sariputta and Moggallana refers to the cremated remains of the Buddhist disciples Sariputta and Moggallana. Sariputta and Moggallana were the two chief disciples of the Buddha, often stylized as the right hand and left hand disciples of the Buddha respectively. The two disciples were childhood friends who ordained under the Buddha together and are said to have become enlightened as arahants. The Buddha declared them his two chief disciples, after which they assumed leadership roles in the Buddha's ministry. Both of the chief disciples died a few months before the Buddha near the ancient Indian city of Rājagaha in what is now Bihar, and were cremated. According to Buddhist texts, the cremated remains of the disciples were then enshrined in stupas at notable monasteries of the time, with Sariputta's remains being enshrined at Jetavana monastery and Moggallana's remains being enshrined at Veḷuvana monastery. However, as of 1999 no modern archaeological reports have confirmed this, although in 1851 discoveries were made at other sites.
The Golden Buddha, officially titled Phra Phuttha Maha Suwanna Patimakon, commonly known in Thai as Phra Sukhothai Traimit, is a gold Maravijaya Attitude seated Buddharupa statue, with a weight of 5.5 tonnes. It is located in the temple of Wat Traimit, Bangkok, Thailand. At one point in its history, the statue was covered with a layer of stucco and coloured glass to conceal its true value, and it remained in this condition for almost 200 years, ending up as what was then a pagoda of minor significance. During relocation of the statue in 1955, the plaster was chipped off and the gold revealed.
James (Jack) Daulton is an American art collector, trial lawyer, music entrepreneur, exploration philanthropist, and expert and lecturer on the history of art and architecture. Daulton rose to fame representing the nation of Myanmar in the groundbreaking 1994 legal case, United States v. Richard Diran and The Union of Myanmar, successfully recovering a 1,000-year-old Buddha statue that had been stolen in 1988 from a temple in Myanmar's ancient capital, Bagan, a treasure now on display in the National Museum in Yangon. This was the first cultural property claim litigated by a Southeast Asian nation in the United States. Daulton has also gained recognition as a result of The Daulton Collection–his vast art collection which includes one of the world's largest private collections of German Symbolist art and, in particular, the world's largest collection of works by a number of individual artists, such as the eccentric monkey painter Gabriel von Max, the Austrian symbolist Rudolf Jettmar, and the proto-hippie Fidus. Among The Daulton Collection's highlights are masterpieces of symbolist portraiture, including Karl Gussow's Portrait of the Novelist Ossip Schubin (1887), Rudolf Jettmar's Self-Portrait of the Young Artist (1896), and Oskar Zwintscher's The Woman in Hamster (1914), currently on long-term loan to the Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, in Dresden. In 2021, a painting from The Daulton Collection, Gabriel von Max's Abelard and Heloise, was the "face" of the major exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, "Les Origines du Monde: L'invention de la nature au XIXe siècle". In addition, Daulton is well known as an expert on non-western art, architecture, and religion, acclaimed for his many lectures on those subjects for institutions such as National Geographic, The American Museum of Natural History, and The Art Institute of Chicago. He is also well known for his activity in exploration philanthropy, funding research expeditions around the globe, from archaeological digs in the Peruvian Andes to language documentation projects on remote atolls in Micronesia. And as an art and entertainment lawyer in the 1990s, Daulton developed the major-label rock band Kill Hannah, among other recording artists.
Art of Myanmar refers to visual art created in Myanmar (Burma). Ancient Burmese art was influenced by India and was often religious in nature, ranging from Hindu sculptures in the Thaton Kingdom to Theravada Buddhist images in the Sri Ksetra Kingdom. The Bagan period saw significant developments in many art forms from wall paintings and sculptures to stucco and wood carving. After a dearth of surviving art between the 14th and 16th century, artists created paintings and sculptures that reflect the Burmese culture. Burmese artists have been subjected to government interference and censorship, hindering the development of art in Myanmar. Burmese art reflects the central Buddhist elements including the mudra, Jataka tales, the pagoda, and Bodhisattva.
Wat Hong Rattanaram Ratchaworawihan, or just called Wat Hong Rattanaram is an ancient Thai Buddhist temple located in Bangkok rim the Khlong Bangkok Yai canal. It is classified as the second rank of royal temple and can be considered a temple of Prince Pinklao.
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