Mon kingdoms

History of Burma

Prehistory 11,000–100 BCE Pyu city-states 100 BCE–835 CE Mon kingdoms 825?–1057 Arakanese kingdoms 788?–1406

Pagan Dynasty 849–1298 Pagan Empire 1044–1287 Mongol invasions 1277–1301 Warring states period Upper Burma 1298–1555 Myinsaing 1298–1313 Pinya 1313–1364 Sagaing 1315–1364 Ava 1364–1555 Prome 1482–1542 Ramanya 1287–1539 Shan states 1215–1557 Arakan 1430–1784 Toungoo Dynasty 1510–1752 Toungoo Empire 1530–1599 Nyaungyan period 1599–1752 Restored Hanthawaddy 1740–1757 Konbaung Dynasty 1752–1885

British colonial period 1824–1948 Anglo-Burmese wars 1824–1885 Nationalist movement 1900–1948 Japanese occupation 1942–1945 State of Burma 1943–1945

Modern era 1948–present Union of Burma 1948–1962 Socialist Republic 1962–1988 Union of Myanmar 1988–2010 Republic of the Union of Myanmar 2010–present

Timeline List of monarchs Military history

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Mon kingdoms were political establishments by the Mon-speaking people that ruled large sections of present-day Myanmar (Burma) at various times in the last 1200 years. The kingdoms in chronological order are the Thaton Kingdom (9th. century–1057), the Hanthawaddy Kingdom (1287–1539), and the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom (1740–1757).

Brief history

The first recorded kingdom attributed to the Mon people is Dvaravati, which prospered until around 1000 AD when their capital was sacked by the Khmer Empire and most of the inhabitants fled west to present-day Burma and eventually founded new kingdoms. These, too, eventually came under pressure from new ethnic groups arriving from the north.

Thaton (9th century–1057)

Main article: Thaton Kingdom

The Mon established the Kingdom of Thaton based in the city of Thaton in the middle of 9th century. About the same period, southward-migrating Burmans took over lands in central Myanmar once dominated by Pyu city-states, and the Tai started trickling into South-East Asia. The Burmans established the Kingdom of Pagan (Bagan) in 849 in Upper Burma.

Traditional Burmese and Mon reconstructions hold that Thaton was overrun by the Pagan Kingdom in 1057. The conquered kingdom's literary and religious traditions helped to mold early Pagan civilization.^[1] Between 1050 and about 1085, Mon craftsmen and artisans helped to build some two thousand monuments at Pagan, the remains of which today rival the splendors of Angkor Wat.^[2] The Mon script is widely considered to be the source of the Burmese script, the earliest evidence of which is dated to 1058, a year after the Thaton conquest.^[3]

However, some modern research has argued that Mon influence on the interior after Anawrahta's conquest is a greatly exaggerated post-Pagan legend, and that Lower Burma in fact lacked a substantial independent polity prior to Pagan's expansion.^[4] Possibly in this period, the delta sedimentation--which now extends the coastline by three miles a century--remained insufficient, and the sea still reached too far inland, to support a population even as large as the modest population of the late precolonial era. Whatever the condition of the coast, all scholars accept that during the 11th century, Pagan established its authority in Lower Burma and this conquest facilitated growing cultural exchange, if not with local Mons, then with India and with Theravada stronghold Sri Lanka. From a geopolitical standpoint, Anawrahta's conquest of Thaton checked the Khmer advance in the Tenasserim coast.^[4]

Hanthawaddy (1287–1539)

Main article: Hanthawaddy Kingdom

In 1287, the Pagan Empire collapsed due to Mongol invasions, and all its vassal states became independent. In present-day Lower Burma, Wareru established a kingdom for the Mon-speaking people called Ramannadesa by unifying three Mon-speaking regions of Lower Burma: Martaban (Mottama), Pegu (Bago), the Irrawaddy delta.^[5] The kingdom's first capital was at Martaban but the capital was moved to Pegu in 1369.

For its first 100 years, the kingdom was merely a loose collection of three Mon-speaking regions. Its kings had little or no authority over the vassals. Martaban was in open rebellion from 1363 to 1388. King Razadarit firmly unified the three Mon-speaking regions together, and successfully fended off the northern Burmese-speaking Kingdom of Ava in the Forty Years' War (1385–1424). The war ended in a stalemate but it was a victory for Hanthawaddy as Ava finally gave up its dream of restoring the Pagan Empire. In the years following the war, Pegu occasionally aided Ava's southern vassal states of Prome and Toungoo in their rebellions but carefully avoided getting plunged into a full scale war.

After the war, Hanthawaddy entered its golden age whereas its rival Ava gradually went into decline. From the 1420s to the 1530s, Hanthawaddy was the most powerful and prosperous kingdom of all post-Pagan kingdoms. Under a string of especially gifted monarchs — Binnya Ran I, Shin Sawbu, Dhammazedi and Binnya Ran II — the kingdom enjoyed a long golden age, profiting from foreign commerce. Its merchants traded with traders from across the Indian Ocean, filling the king's treasury with gold and silver, silk and spices, and all the other stuff of early modern trade. The kingdom also became a famous center of Theravada Buddhism. It established strong ties with Ceylon, and encouraged reforms that later spread throughout the country.^[6]

The powerful kingdom's end came abruptly. Due to the inexperience of King Takayutpi, the kingdom was captured by a smaller kingdom to the north, Kingdom of Toungoo in 1539 led by King Tabinshwehti and his deputy Gen. Bayinnaung. Toungoo captured the Irrawaddy delta in 1538, Pegu in 1539, and Martaban in 1541.^[7] The kingdom was briefly revived in 1550 after Tabinshwehti was assassinated. But Bayinnaung quickly defeated the rebellion in 1552.

Restored Hanthawaddy (1740–1757)

Main article: Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom

Though Toungoo kings would rule all of Lower Burma well into the mid-18th century, the golden age of Hanthawaddy was fondly remembered by the Mon people of Lower Burma. In 1740, they rose up against a weak Toungoo Dynasty on its last legs, and succeeded in restoring the fallen Hanthawaddy Kingdom. Supported by the French, the upstart kingdom quickly carved out a space for itself in Lower Burma, and continued its push northward. On 23 March 1752, its forces captured Ava, and ended the 266-year-old Toungoo dynasty.

A new dynasty called Konbaung led by King Alaungpaya rose in Upper Burma to challenge the southern forces, and went on to conquer all of Upper Burma by the end of 1753. After Hanthawaddy's invasion of Upper Burma failed in 1754, the kingdom's leadership in self-defeating measures killed off the Toungoo royal family, and persecuted ethnic Burmans in the south, both of which only strengthened Alaungpaya's hand.^[8] In 1755, Alaungpaya invaded Lower Burma. Konbaung forces captured the Irrawaddy delta in May 1755, the French defended port of Thanlyin in July 1756, and finally the capital Pegu in May 1757.

The fall of Restored Hanthawaddy was the beginning of the end of Mon people's centuries-old dominance of Lower Burma. Konbaung armies' reprisals forced thousands of Mons to flee to Siam.^[9] By the early 19th century, assimilation, inter-marriage, and mass migration of Burman families from the north had reduced the Mon population to a small minority.^[8]

See also

• List of Burmese monarchs
• List of heirs to the Burmese thrones
• History of Burma

Notes

1. ^ Htin Aung, pp. 32–33
2. ^ South, p. 67
3. ^ Harvey, p. 307
4. ^ ^{a b} Lieberman, p. 91
5. ^ Htin Aung, pp. 78–80
6. ^ Myint-U, pp. 64–65
7. ^ Harvey, pp. 153–157
8. ^ ^{a b} Lieberman, pp. 202–206
9. ^ Myint-U, p. 97

References

• Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The Mists of Rāmañña: the Legend that was Lower Burma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-824-82886-8. 
• Hall, D.G.E. (1960). Burma (3rd ed.). Hutchinson University Library. ISBN 978-1-406-73503-1. 
• Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. 
• Htin Aung, Maung (1967). A History of Burma. New York and London: Cambridge University Press. 
• Kyaw Thet (1962) (in Burmese). History of Burma. Yangon: Yangon University Press. 
• Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7. 
• Myint-U, Thant (2006). The River of Lost Footsteps--Histories of Burma. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6. 
• Phayre, Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur P. (1883). History of Burma (1967 ed.). London: Susil Gupta. 
• Shorto, H.L. (2002). "The 32 Myos in the medieval Mon Kingdom". In Vladimir I. Braginsky. Classical civilisations of South East Asia: an anthology of articles. Routledge. ISBN 0700714103, 9780700714100. 
• South, Ashley (2003). Mon nationalism and civil war in Burma: the golden sheldrake. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-700-71609-8.