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Life and Work of a Scholar of Arakan: Pamela Gutman, 1944–2015
Bob Hudson — The University of Sydney · Asian Studies Program, PhD (Sydney), CELTA (Cambridge)
Pamela Gutman was born in Adelaide, South Australia. Her tertiary education was at the University of Vienna, where she studied German, Philosophy, and Art History, and then at The Australian National University, where she studied Bahasa Indonesia, Old Javanese, and Sanskrit. Studying in Canberra, the national capital, Pamela noted in her memoir Moonlight Reflected in the Emerald, “we felt that we were close to the political process, and would have a real contribution to make when we finished our degrees. The Faculty of Oriental (later Asian) Studies had been conceived as the focal point for the undergraduate study of Asia, and eminent scholars from the great European schools were attracted to it.” In search of a doctoral topic, Pamela contacted G.H. Luce, who suggested that as she had some Sanskrit, she should take up the study of Arakan. After surveying the sparse historical data avail¬able, she later said, she realized that to write a history of the art of Arakan, she would first have to write the history.
By 1972, Pamela had managed to acquire what was then exceedingly rare permission to undertake research in the self-isolated nation of Burma. The result was the first Australian PhD on Asian Art, “Ancient Arakan, with Special Reference to Its Cultural History, 5th to 12th Centuries.” She surveyed ancient sites in Arakan with the Archaeo¬logical Survey of Burma, often with a military escort to ward off possible bandits or insurgents. Working on the pioneering data of scholars such as Forchhammer and Johnston, she catalogued and edited all the inscriptions that were known at the time, to establish a chronology for the period that would illustrate the nature of royal cults, state organization, and popular religion.
The thesis quickly became a key resource for local histori¬ans of Arakan, though it was treated by some as a resource that needed no acknowledgement or citation. The author wryly commented that after her initial displeasure at being plagiarized, she accepted that her work was at least reaching a wider audience. Pamela Gutman was a policy adviser to the Australian government on refugees, immigration, education, culture, and strategic issues. Between 2001 and 2010, she was a member of Australia’s Refugee Review Tribunal. She maintained an academic focus on Burma/Myanmar, publishing the book Burma’s Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan in 2001.
