Tagaung Kingdom
Kingdom of Tagaung တကောင်း နေပြည်တော် | |||||||
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c. 1st century CE–c. 1050s | |||||||
Classical Antiquity | |||||||
• Founding of Kingdom | c. 1st century CE | ||||||
• Fall of Kingdom | c. 1050s | ||||||
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Tagaung Kingdom (
Archaeological evidence indicates that
Legend
Out of India
Tagaung came to be featured prominently in an effort by the early Konbaung kings to link the origins of Burmese monarchy to the Buddha, and ultimately the first king of the world in
First Tagaung dynasty
Hmannan does not claim that Abhiyaza had arrived in an empty land, only that he was the first king. He had two sons, and died after a 25-year reign at Tagaung. The elder son Kanyaza Gyi (ကံရာဇာကြီး) lost the throne to his younger brother Kanyaza Nge (ကံရာဇာငယ်). Kanyaza Gyi ventured south, and founded his own kingdom at Arakan in 825 BCE. Kanyaza Nge succeeded his father, and was followed by a dynasty of 31 kings.[4][5] Circa 600 BCE, Taruk marauders from Gandhara (ဂန္ဓာလရာဇ်) sacked the city. (The invaders were from Yunnan. Taruk refers to the Mongo Tartar in modern Burmese but in Old Burmese, it referred to anyone from the northeast. Gandhara was the classical name of Yunnan adopted by the Buddhist kingdoms there.[6]) The 33rd king of Abhiyaza line, King Binnaka Yaza (ဘိန္နကရာဇာ) was killed.[4]
Second Tagaung dynasty
Hmannan continues that the fall of Tagaung led to tripartite division of the population. One group moved down and settled at
The queen then met Dazayaza (Dhajaraja), of royal Sakya lineage who had recently settled in Mauriya (somewhere in Upper Burma). She married him. Dazayaza and Naga Hsein built a new capital at Old Pagan, close to Tagaung. A dynasty of 16 kings followed.[8] Some time after 483 BCE, invaders from the east sacked the kingdom during the reign of Thado Maha Yaza, the 17th and last king.[9]
Tagaung legacy and linkage to later Burmese dynasties
But the Sakya lineage had not died out, Hmannan continues. In 503 BCE, the queen of the last king of Tagaung, Thado Maha Yaza gave birth to twin blind sons, Maha Thanbawa and Sula Thanbawa. The king was ashamed, and ordered them killed. The queen hid her sons, and raised them in secret. Nineteen years later, in 484 BCE, the king found out that the brothers were still alive, and again ordered them killed. The queen managed to put the sons on a raft down the Irrawaddy.[10] Adrift in the river, the brothers miraculously gained sight with the help of the ogress.
In 483 BCE, the brothers founded another kingdom much farther down the Irrawaddy at
Around 107 CE, Thamoddarit (သမုဒ္ဒရာဇ်), nephew of the last king of Sri Ksetra, founded the city of Pagan (Bagan) (formally, Arimaddana-pura (အရိမဒ္ဒနာပူရ), lit. "the City that Tramples on Enemies").[12] The site reportedly was visited by the Buddha himself during his lifetime, and it was where he allegedly pronounced that a great kingdom would arise at this very location 651 years after his death.[13] Thamoddarit was followed by a caretaker, and then Pyusawhti in 167 CE. The connection to the Pagan dynasty was important because all later Burmese dynasties, Myinsaing to Konbaung claimed lineage to the monarchs of Pagan.
Historicity
The Abhiyaza story first appeared in Hmannan Yazawin (the Glass Palace Chronicle), compiled in 1832. The Burmese chronicles down to the early 18th century, including
Historians trace the rise of Abhiyaza/Dazayaza stories to the 1770s, part of the early Konbaung kings' efforts to promote a more orthodox version of
The Chinese history book Yuanshi also recorded the name "Tagaung"(太公). But it just a small town in north Burma. Chinese historian stated the name "Taruk" is evolved from Turk, thus the Chinese invasion happened in 13 century known as First Mongol invasion of Burma.[17] G. E. Harvey said that it was probably Nanzhao's invasion in 754 AD.[18] Anyway, Hmannan Yazawin move it up to 6 BCE and became the history of Tagaung.
The late inclusion of Abhiyaza/Dazayaza stories did much damage to the credibility of the chronicles to the European historians of the British colonial era. They outright dismissed much of the chronicle tradition of early Burmese history as "copies of Indian legends taken from Sanskrit or Pali originals", highly doubted the antiquity of the chronicle tradition, and dismissed the possibility that any sort of civilisation in Burma could be much older than 500 CE.[5][19][18]
History
The Abhiyaza myth notwithstanding, evidence does indicate that many of the places mentioned in the royal records have indeed been inhabited continuously for at least 3500 years.
State | Period per Hmannan | Per extant archaeological evidence | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Tagaung | 850 – 483 BCE | c. 1st/2nd century – 11th century CE | After 483 BCE, Tagaung next appeared in the chronicles in 1061 CE, and in 1364 CE as cursory mentions. |
Sri Ksetra | 483 BCE – 94 CE | c. 5th/7th century – 11th century CE | Sri Ksetra then became modern Pyay (Prome) |
Pagan | 107 – 1298 CE | c. 849/876 – 1297 CE |
The chronicles' pre-Buddhist stories represent the "social memory" of the times.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 153–154
- ^ a b c Moore 2007: 233–234
- ^ a b Harvey 1925: 29–30
- ^ a b c Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 155–156
- ^ a b c d Myint-U 2006: 44–45
- ^ Myint-U 2011: 167–168
- ^ Moore 2007: 236
- ^ Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 159–160
- ^ Phayre 1883: 276
- ^ Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 164–165
- ^ Phayre 1883: 277–278
- ^ Lieberman 2003: 91
- ^ Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 188
- ^ Than Tun 1964: ix–x
- ^ Htin Aung 1967: 188–189
- ^ Lieberman 2003: 196
- ^ He 2004: 39 - 40
- ^ a b Harvey 1925: 307–309
- ^ Hall 1960: 7
- ^ a b Moore 2011: 4–5
- ^ Moore 2007: 145
- ^ Htin Aung 1970: 11
- ^ Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 269–270
References
- Charney, Michael W. (2006). Powerful Learning. Buddhist Literati and the Throne in Burma's Last Dynasty, 1752–1885. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
- Charney, Michael W. (2002). 'Centralizing Historical Tradition in Precolonial Burma: The Abhiraja/Dhajaraja Myth in Early Kon-bauung Historical Texts.' South East Asia Research, 10 (2). pp. 185–215.
- 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.
- Htin Aung, Maung (1970). Burmese History before 1287: A Defence of the Chronicles. Oxford: The Asoka Society.
- 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.
- Moore, Elizabeth H. (2007). Early Landscapes of Myanmar. Bangkok: River Books. ISBN 978-974-9863312.
- Moore, Elizabeth H. (2011). McCormick, Patrick; Jenny, Mathias; Baker, Chris (eds.). "The Early Buddhist Archaeology of Myanmar: Tagaung, Thagara, and the Mon-Pyu dichotomy". The Mon over Two Millennia: Monuments, Manuscripts, Movements. Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University. ISBN 9786165513289.
- Myint-U, Thant (2006). The River of Lost Footsteps—Histories of Burma. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6.
- Myint-U, Thant (2011). Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6.
- Royal Historical Commission of Burma (1832). Hmannan Yazawin (in Burmese). Vol. 1–3 (2003 ed.). Yangon: Ministry of Information, Myanmar.
- Than Tun (1964). Studies in Burmese History (in Burmese). Vol. 1. Yangon: Maha Dagon.
- He, Ping (2004). "试解缅甸"太公王国"之谜" [The Truth Features of Tagaung Kingdom in the History of Burma]. Southeast Asia (in Chinese) (4): 36–41. ISSN 1000-7970.