Two Burmese Nats, the Shwebyin Brothers, 19th century
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Nats are Buddhists deities venerated in Burma (Myanmar). My great grandfather, Sir R. C. Temple’s The Thirty-Seven Nats, A Phase of Spirit Worship Prevailing in Burma (London 1906) has been described as ‘one of the most important works.in Western scholarship on the subject of Burmese spirit-belief’. (Crispin Branfoot in Eastern Art in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Great Museums of the World, Vol. 4, No. 2).
According to Sir R. C. Temple ‘the Shwebyin brothers are perhaps the most popular of all the Nats and are regarded everywhere in Upper Burma . . . About the beginning of the 11th century A.D. Anawrathazaw, king of Pagan, had in his service a Kala (Indian) adventurer from the Talang Kingdom of Thaton. This man married a Baluma or ogress of Popa, and two sons were born of him, who were respectively names Shwebyingi and Shwebyinnge’. The text continues with the fantastic tale of their lives up to their death by execution and apotheosis as Nats.
His own collection, dating from 1890, is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.