EVOLUTION OF MALAYA’S FIRST BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION
Statues of celestial beings feature prominently in Buddhist temples.
“UNCLE Wong’s house is near the junction of Lebuhraya Bodhi and Jalan Nirvana,” remarks my father as I slowly turn into the North-South Expressway. My parents had just heard of their former colleague’s ill health and decided to pay him a visit. Since it’s the weekend and there’s nothing on my schedule, I offered to drive them to Penang for a day trip. With images of sumptuous hawker food dancing in my mind, this will be like killing two birds with a stone.
The unusual road names immediately arouse my interest. If memory serves me right, it was under the shade of a very large and old fig tree in Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, India where Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism, later known as Gautama Buddha, achieved Bodhi (spiritual enlightenment). Since then, this evergreen species, with its heart-shaped leaves, has been referred to as the Bodhi tree.
It suddenly dawns upon me that Uncle Wong’s place is in a location that has good vibes. After all, Hindus and Buddhists alike consider nirvana as the highest state of enlightenment a person can achieve where individual desires and suffering no longer exist.
Things become even clearer as our conversation continues. All the roads in Uncle Wong’s housing estate bear Buddhistinspired names as it was developed by the Penang Buddhist Association sometime in The PBA is located along Jalan Anson.
the early 1930s.
“Back then, the Penang Buddhist Association (PBA) was the first Buddhist institution in Malaya to present a correct picture of Buddhism, free from the trappings of superstitions and malpractices, to members of the public” my mother adds.
It seems that this obligation stems from the fact that Penang is a cosmopolitan island consisting of a diverse number of ethnic groups. Since its establishment as a British settlement in 1786, immigrant races, including Thais, Burmese, Singhalese and Chinese had started arriving at the shores of Penang (known then as Prince of Wales Island).
These new arrivals brought with them their religious practices and began building Buddhist temples and forming associations. Among those were Theravada temples which were originally set up to cater for the spiritual needs of the Thais, Burmese and Singhalese communities. As such, in those early days, only Wesak, Kathina (the offering of robes to monks marking the end of the Buddhist Lent) and their individual ethnic New Years were celebrated.
However, by the early 1920s or even earlier, the Thais, Burmese or Singhalese began losing influence over their own temples when Chinese worshippers began to gradually outnumber them. In order to cater to this new majority group of devotees, the once purely Weddings were solemnised at the PBA for a brief period in the 1950s. Theravada temples started incorporating Chinese customs and celebrations as part of their official activities.
Acutely aware of this encroachment, a group of Straits Chinese Buddhists decided to form their own association that would give them the opportunity to study Buddhism in its pure and uncorrupted form. The PBA was registered with the Registrar of Societies on Feb 25, 1925. The Government Gazette Notification No. 441 published on March 6, 1925 listed the nine association founders as Lee Swee Bee, Lim Chean Seang, Lim Boon Chin, Lim Eu Teong, Ong Boon Sin, Lim Teong Aik, Teoh Teik Thuan, Chew Eng Bang and Lim Say Eng.
Soon after PBA’s formation, the association’s rules and bye-laws began to raise eyebrows among its members. There was clearly no attempt to specifically define what was meant by the doctrine of the Buddha, nor was there any measure mentioned, which would guard the association against the possibility of reverting to, in its own terms, malpractices such as those committed at most Chinese temples throughout Penang.
This revelation prompted a response two years later when Venerable Kee Tong stated clearly that activities such as burning paper houses and elaborate funeral processions,