No More Learning

469 (#507) ############################################

AURANGZIB'S REVENUE SYSTEM
469
experience and to the standard figures recognised in the department,
apparently the figures for some particular year which had been
selected as being normal or typical. Using these data, the assessor
proposed to the headmen a lump sum to be paid for the year in the
instalments usual in the locality. The headmen could refuse the
proposed assessment, in which case the revenue was determined,
either by sharing or by measurement, on the season's crops; but it
must be borne in mind that these latter processes involved the
instrusion into the village of a measuring, or estimating, party, the
expense of which fell on the peasants, and which could be used effec-
tively to punish recalcitrants, so that in practice the assessor was in a
very strong position in his dealings with the headmen, and refusal of
his proposals was probably rare. The best safeguard for the village
lay in secrecy, so that the assessor should not be in a position to make
an accurate estimate of its production. Various methods of concealing
the facts appear in the later records as old-established practices; and
it may reasonably be said that the well-known reluctance of the
northern peasants to disclose their affairs to revenue officials has its
roots in the system of village assessments.
The duty of the revenue officials was not confined, however, to
ascertaining the yield of a village : they were required to stimulate
efforts for improving it. Peasants were to be urged and encouraged
to work their hardest; advances of capital and other favours were to
be given to those who did so; the recalcitrant were to be threatened
and flogged. Comparing this system with that which had been
employed under Akbar, three main differences emerge. In the first
place, the standard of assessment had been raised; the former average
of one-third had now become the minimum, while as much as one-
half of the produce might be taken. In view of the financial position,
it is probable that the maximum tended to become the standard,
and that it was during this period that the rule of claiming one-half
which was familiar throughout the eighteenth century, became
established over the greater part of northern India. In the second
place, the individual peasant was relieved from the charges, and the
possible exactions, incidental to the detailed measurements and
assessments of Akbar's time, and was left almost entirely in the hands
of the village headmen. In the third place, the pressure on the head-
men, and through them on the peasants, to pay the highest possible
revenue had undoubtedly increased; the standard of the demand
had been raised, but the actual claim tended to be the utmost sum
that the village could be made to pay. The traditional veneration
of the name of Todar Mal must be explained, not merely by the
fact that his administration was in itself equitable, but also by the
period of increased severity which followed it, so that the reign of
Akbar, viewed through the hardships of later times, came to bear
the aspect of a golden age.


## p. 470 (#508) ############################################

470
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
In the authorities relating to northern India, the practice of
assessing villages as units first becomes prominent in the reign of
Aurangzib, but it would be a mistake to regard it as an innovation.
The most probable view, based on stray hints and casual expressions
in a literature which is far from complete, is that village assessment
was already practised before the Muslim conquest, and that it never
entirely disappeared. In the fourteenth century, and again in the
sixteenth, the state for a time entered into direct relations with
individual peasants, but probably village assessments were the rule
in the thirteenth and fifteenth, as they certainly were in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth. In an extensive kingdom assessment on
individuals could be carried out effectively only by a strong, wise,
and vigorous administration : in times when these qualities were not
available, the line of least resistance was to deal with villages as units.
It has been said above that Aurangzib's orders indicate the existence
of serious abuses. Apart from the ordinary incidents of unauthorised
cesses, levies and other exactions by local officers, the chief abuses
were two, one in the revenue office, the other in the village. Under
pressure to increase the revenue, the practice had grown up of
making sanguine assessments, more than could in fact be realised;
then, as the year progressed, reports would come in of injury to the
crops from drought, frost, hail and other calamities, injuries which
involved a reduction in the assessments originally made. The Revenue
Ministry considered, not unreasonably, that many of the calamities
reported were fictitious, devised in order to get the local officials out
of the difficulty caused by the original over-assessment, and stringent
orders were issued to ensure that the controlling officers should be
supplied with adequate information, and should closely scrutinise
all reports of the kind. The effect of these orders is matter for con-
jecture, but the necessity for their issue is significant of the pressure
which had been exerted to bring assessments up to the highest possi-
ble figure.
The other abuse was oppression of the weaker peasants by the
village headmen, who had to distribute the amount of the assessment
over individuals. The method of distribution in each village was
determined by local custom, but manipulation was always possible
in practice, and the Ministry suspected, again not unreasonably,
that headmen were favouring themselves and their friends, to the
prejudice of the peasants outside their circle. Records of the early
British period show that something of the sort was in fact an inevitable
incident of the system, not in all villages, but in some : the extent of
the evil at any particular period cannot be determined with pre-
cision; but its existence has to be borne in mind in any attempt to
estimate the relative advantages of the different systems of assessment.
In actual practice, direct dealing with individuals was probably on
the whole favourable to the weaker peasants, and unpopular with


## p. 471 (#509) ############################################

DEFECTS OF THE SYSTEM
471
the stronger, who could be made to pay their full share; village
assessment was doubtless an equitable system where a village con-
sisted of a homogeneous body of peasants, but where cliques or factioris
existed, the weak sometimes had to pay for the strong.
A distinctive feature of the orders issued by Aurangzib's Ministry
in 1668 was the stress laid on compliance with the principles and
traditions of Islamic law. The same attitude had been adopted by
Firuz Tughluq in the second half of the fourteenth century, but the
general practice in India had been to treat the revenue administra-
tion as a secular matter, lying outside the province of ecclesiastical
jurists. The practical effect of these orders was not, however, great.
The fundamental features of the existing revenue system were, as
has been said above, in accordance with the canons of Islamic law;
and Aurangzib's orders consist mainly of a digest of rulings on
questions affecting individual peasants which might come before
revenue officers for decision-questions relating to inheritance and
transfer of holdings, and the like. Their interest at the present day
lies in the formal recognition of the fact that a peasant had a claim
to retain his holding, and transmit it to heirs, purchasers, or mort-
gagees, subject always to the primary condition that the revenue
due from the holding was paid. The silence of these orders regarding
ejectment is noteworthy, but can be explained by the fact that at
this time the administration was not in a position to pick and choose
the most efficient cultivators; the great need of the period was to
keep peasants at work in sufficient numbers.
The detailed provisions in Aurangzib's orders leave no room for
doubt that in the opening decade of his reign the administration was
already seriously concerned about the scarcity of peasants and their
readiness to abscond, topics which do not emerge in the literature
of Akbar's time. They thus confirm in the essential points the descrip-
tion of the agrarian situation given by the French physician, François
Bernier, whose experience was gained during this period. His
observations, made during eight years' residence at the Mughul
court, led him to the conclusion that agriculture was declining in
consequence of the "execrable tyranny" which the peasants were
experiencing at the hands of officials, farmers, and assignees alike;
and that many of them were either absconding to other regions,
especially the domains of the chiefs, where conditions were more
tolerable, or were abandoning the land in order to work as servants
in the towns or with the army. It may be taken therefore as an
established fact that by this time the danger foreseen by the early
Islamic jurists had become a reality; that agricultural production
was being diminished by the excessive burden laid upon the peasants'
shoulders; and that the efforts of the administration to increase the
revenue were in fact leading in the direction of a progressive decline.
The system of annual village assessments which has been described


## p. 472 (#510) ############################################

472 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
above persisted up to the end of the Muslim period, and was adopted
just at first by the British administration in northern India. Nothing
further need be said therefore regarding the assessment of the reve-
nue: the historical interest of the remainder of the period lies in the
changes which took place among the intermediaries, and the trans-
formation of a heterogeneous mass of chiefs, farmers, and grantees
into a class which in the British period was to become a homogeneous
body of landholders. The main factors in this change were the decline
in the practice of assignment, the extension of farming, and the
strengthening of the position of the chiefs.
The practice of assignment continued in operation throughout the
reign of Aurangzib, but early in the eighteenth century it lost the
popularity which it had hitherto enjoyed, and there are some indica-
tions that the officers of the empire preferred to be paid in cash by
the treasury, depleted as it was, an arrangement which had formerly
been regarded as implying something like a slur on the recipient.
Three factors can be distinguished as contributing to this result, but
they are in fact merely different aspects of the collapse of the Mughul
empire. In the first place, the progressive decline in agriculture
necessarily resulted in a progressive loss of revenue, so that it became
increasingly difficult for an assignee to realise his promised and
expected income. In the second place, as has been explained in an
earlier chapter, the emperor had been forced to grant the Marathas
a share (known as chauth)1 of the revenue of the Deccan provinces;
and this first charge on the declining produce, extended as it was to
other regions, left so much less for the assignee. In the third place,
the emperor was no longer able to guarantee the peaceable enjoy-
ment of an assignment, so that questions of possession had passed
from the forum of administration, and had to be decided by force
of arms. The decay of the system of assignment was therefore
inevitable.
The change may be looked at in another light. From the time of
Akbar onwards, the service of the state had been the only possible
career for men of talent, energy and ambition; and to such men it
offered ample or even extravagant rewards. It is true that they could
not hope to found wealthy families, because on their death their
accumulations ordinarily reverted to the state; but, if successful
themselves, they could be sure of obtaining for their sons and grand-
sons a good start in the same career, and, given the necessary per-
sonal qualifications, one generation might follow another in positions
of power and affluence. In the eighteenth century, the service of a
decaying empire ceased to attract, while a new avenue was opened
for ambition, an avenue which led in the direction of kingship, and
the revenue farm was one of the first stages on the road; it was now
better to be a farmer than an assignee.
1 See pp. 273 and 392 n. 1.


## p. 473 (#511) ############################################

FARMING OF THE REVENUE
473
It is uncertain when the Revenue Ministry adopted the practice
of farming out the areas reserved for the treasury. Possibly this
expedient dates in some regions from the closing years of Shah
Jahan, but in any case its main development must be attributed to
the reigns of Aurangzib and his successors. In Bengal, in particular,
farms came into existence of a type hitherto unfamiliar in northern
India. Assignments in this province were unpopular among the
northern officers, so that an unusually large proportion of it was
reserved for the treasury; and a practice grew up under which the
collectors in the reserved areas undertook to pay a definite sum of
revenue for their circles instead of accounting for the money actually
received from the peasants. The sum to be paid for such a farm was
not ordinarily varied from year to year, and came by degrees to be
regarded as fixed; and the collector-farmers retained their circles
indefinitely, and were allowed to transmit them to their heirs, so
long of course as the revenue was duly paid. In this way, their
position came to be indistinguishable from that of the existing
chiefs, and the two classes were eventually described locally by a
single name, that of landholder (zamindar), a term which in the
precise official language of the north had been applied to the latter
only.
These Bengal landholders were not, however, allowed to retain
the entire profit resulting from the economic recovery which followed
on the establishment of Dutch and British trade in this region after
the middle of the seventeenth century. The revenue due from them
was not formally enhanced, but it was supplemented from time to
time by the imposition of cesses and other additional demands,
amounting in the aggregate to an enhancement not far short of the
whole sum originally payable. It was in this way that the situation
developed which was found by the first English administrators in
Bengal-the bulk of the country held by a relatively small number of
landholders, who enjoyed practical freedom in their relations with
the peasants, and paid to the state dues which were in fact adjustable
at its discretion, but by methods which are not known to have been
practised elsewhere in Mughul India.
In the north large farms, held for an indefinite term, emerged
during the eighteenth century; and perhaps no other arrangement
was possible, when the revenue administration had ceased to be
effective, and assignments had lost their attractions. As was the case
in Bengal, these farms tended to be transmitted by inheritance, and
the annual payments tended to be repeated from year to year; but
the peculiar feature of Bengal-fixed basic payments, supplemented
by adjustable cesses—is not disclosed in the northern records, and
the most probable view is that in this region both parties regarded
the amount to be paid as variable, to be increased or reduced as
circumstances might permit, while the farmer looked forward to a


## p. 474 (#512) ############################################

474
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
time when he might be strong enough to refuse payment altogether,
and thereby establish himself as in fact an independent ruler.
Meanwhile, other independent, or practically independent, rulers
were emerging. As has been said above, the Hindu chiefs who were
included in the empire were men with traditional claims to sove-
reignty; and their traditional policy was to assert those claims when-
ever a suitable opportunity offered. This condition was fulfilled in
the eighteenth century; and while the old families were busily
engaged in strengthening their position, and were seeking to enlarge
their domains, sometimes by force, and sometimes by taking farms
of adjoining territory, adventurers and soldiers of fortune were pur-
suing a similar course, using as a base of operations any local influence
they might possess, as grantees or otherwise. We thus have various
classes-chiefs and farmers, adventurers and grantees—all following
the same road. For all classes alike the essential thing was to establish
so much authority over a local area that the peasants should be willing
to pay revenue in return for some measure of that protection which
the empire could no longer provide. Authority could be established
only with the aid of force, and successful force tended always to
enlarge the area of its operation.
The result of these tendencies was to produce the conditions which
prevailed when, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the country
which now forms the bulk of the United Provinces came under
British jurisdiction, and was found to be parcelled out in what were
then called taluqas (Arabic, taʻalluqa), or “dependencies", claimed
by various titles, if that term can be applied in such a situation, but
all resting on the basis of possession, maintained in the last resort
by force. Each holder of a dependency claimed to collect the revenue
from the peasants under his power, and each admitted liability to
pay a portion of his receipts to any superior authority strong enough
to insist on payment, the amount being a matter either for negotiation
or for determination by the will of the stronger party. The peasants,
on their side, recognised liability to pay revenue, ordinarily at the
rate of one-half of the produce, and were prepared to pay it to who-
ever was in a position to take it. The actual sum to be paid by the
peasants was usually fixed year by year by what may be called a
process of bargaining. The holder of a dependency could enforce
his views by the threat of detailed assessment: the peasants could
rarely adopt an attitude of frank opposition, but in the circumstances
of the time they could hope to mitigate the burden by concealing
the facts of productivity, and would go a long way to avoid such
detailed assessments as might bring these facts to light. There was no
scope for any constructive policy of development, nor was it possible
to look ahead. In some cases, the payments made by villages tended
to be repeated until they became customary, but the settlement was
still annual; the idea of an assessment fixed beforehand for a term


## p. 475 (#513) ############################################

THE LAST PHASE
475
of years was quite unfamiliar, and the arrangement was at first
unpopular when it was introduced by British administrators.
The final stages in the history of the Mughul revenue system have
been sketched in the foregoing paragraphs for the main tracts of
country where authority passed from what was left of the empire
to the East India Company. The changes which took place in the
tracts which passed from the Mughuls to other Indian rulers,
Marathas, Sikhs, or Rajputs, lie outside the scope of this chapter.


## p. 475 (#514) ############################################

CHAPTER XVII
BURMA (1531–1782)
ARAKAN
SHUT off from Burma by a hill range, Arakan has a separate
history, but it is the same in kind. She seldom had a strong central
government, and until 1437 Sandoway was independent.
The ease of sea communications renders it possible that Buddhism
reached Arakan earlier than the interior of Burma, and, although
unproved, the tradition which assigns the Mahamuni image to the
reign of one Sandathuriya A. D. 146–98 is not incredible. But accessi-
bility from the sea brought other things than Buddhism. Thus
Brahmanism is indicated by the word Sanda (Chandra), which ends
the name of every traditional king from 783 to 957, and by the fact
that medallions ascribed to these kings bear Shiva's trident and
Nagari script. After the tenth century the country was professedly
Buddhist, notwithstanding the spread of Islam, which by the thir-
teenth century had dotted the coast from Assam to Malaya with the
curious mosques known as Buddermokan. 2 Doubtless iť is Muslim
influence which led to women being more secluded in Arakan than
in Burma.
The capital was successively Thabeiktaung, Dinnyawadi and
Vesali down to the tenth century, Pyinsa (Sambawut) till 1118,
Parin 1118–67, Hkrit 1167–80, Pyinsa 1180–1237, Launggyet 1237-
1433 and Mrohaung (Mrauk-u) 1433–1785. All are in Akyab district,
Thabeiktaung on the Yochaung river, the others on or near the
Lemro river.
Like the rest of Indo-China, the country suffered chronically from
raids. Akyab district was exposed to the hill tribes and in the tenth
century Shans temporarily overran it. Settled government was the
exception. In the middle of the twelfth century even the Mahamuni
image could not be found, for it had been overgrown with jungle in
the prevailing anarchy. The Burmese under the Pagan dynasty
1044-1287 successfully established their suzerainty over north Arakan
but not over the south, and even in the north the kings merely sent
propitiatory tribute and continued to be hereditary kings, not
governors appointed by Pagan.
Between 1287 and 1785 there is not even the pretence of Burmese
1 Phayre, “Coins of Arakan, Pegu and Burma”, in International Numismata
Orientalia; Vincent Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta;
Duroisele, Catalogue of Coins in the Phayre Museum.
2 Temple, "Buddermokan", in Journal Burma Research Society, 1925.


## p. 475 (#515) ############################################

1
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T-
ae
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8.
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## p. 476 (#516) ############################################

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV
Map 5
BURMA UNDER THE TOUNGOO DYNASTY 1531 - 1752

929
96°
100°
MANIPUR
River
Santa Toping
River
-Murshidabad
Meghna
KOSHANPYE
Sagaing Madaya,
Byftinge
Sunderbanas
Sandwipis.
Jonk vasmus
Mrohaung Pakan
Mekons
Sunderlands
| 28 |
po
Bluer
Mogaungo
olulii
Thobal
Mohnyin
Hotha
Thaungdut
Latha
Tamy,
Dacca
Ehamo
Μαγνίτη
Htigyaing Main mã Kaingma
Kalea
Myed Shwelt R.
Hseuwi
Mingin
Tabapide
°Momeik, Lasko
Chittagong
Snwebua
Hsipaw
Kenghung
Ramu
Ava Kyaukse
Wundwind Lawksawk
Kengtung
(Mraukos Popol, Nyaungyan
Salino
HIN
Yawnghwe
Ngape Yamathin
Mong
20
Lastwest Sagao
An
Mäng Paio
Myede
Ramree is.
Touagoo?
Chiengmal
Cheduba is.
Prome
Sandowaya
Sittaung
Henzada
Viengchang
Thatona
Sukhota
Rangoon
PRaheng
20 god. Martaban
Bassein
States as far east o
Dallao
Syriam
0. 8 Moulmein
Myaungmy
Annam and Cambodia
Kanipengpet
probably sent propitla-
-tory homage to
116
Bapiammany,
Negrais /s.
Ye
Three
Pagadas
(. Aynthir
Arakan
Tavoyo
Kanburle
Area owning the suzerainty
Bangkok
of Bayinnaung 1551-81
After his death Burmese rule
did not extend to Manipur or
Mergus
south of Chiengmal and Tavoy.
Tenanserim
Present Frontier
Irrawaddy Rivera
Heptng Amer
26
1
ZRIVET
Ataran
Mentawng o Rider
Menani Alvaro
English Miles
So 100
150
200
92°
Longitude East 96 of Greenwich
100


## p. 477 (#517) ############################################

MUSLIM BUDDHIST KINGS
477
overlordship, save in the fourteenth century when some of the people,
torn with dissension, asked the Ava court to nominate a king. From
1374 to 1430 the country was subject first to Burmese and then o
Talaing interference, and was raided by both on several occasions.
Narameikhla (1404-34), when ousted in 1404 by the Burmese,
fled to Bengal, was well received by the king of Gaur and served him
with distinction in the field. After long years in exile he received
a levy from Gaur to regain his throne, and although the Muslim
commander at first betrayed and imprisoned him in Arakan, he was
ultimately reinstated in 1430. His Muslim followers built the
Sandihkan mosque at Mrohaung and it was under him that a court
bard, Aduminnyo, wrote the historic song Yahkaingminthami-egyin
The turmoil of foreign inroads showed that Launggyet was ill-fated,
and the omens indicated Mrohaung as a lucky site, so he decided
to move there; the astrologers said that if he moved the capital he
would die within the year, but he insisted, saying that the move
would benefit his people and his own death would matter little.
In 1433 he founded Mrohaung and in the next he died. A populous ?
seaport built on hillocks amid the rice plains, intersected by canals
which served as streets, it remained the capital for the next four
centuries.
Thereafter it is common for the kings, though Buddhists, to use
Muslim designations in addition to their own names; and even to
issue medallions bearing the kalima, or confession of faith, in Persian
script; doubtless at first, about this time, the kings had these medal-
lions struck for them in Bengal, but later they struck their own.
Narameikhla's brother and successor ‘Ali Khan (1434-59) cccupied
Ramu. Basawpyu (Kalima Shah) (1459-82) occupied Chittagong,
and it was usually in Arakanese hands till 1666; indeed it had occa-
sionally been subjected to Arakan since the tenth century, and ac-
cording to the fluctuations of power in the Middle Ages, when Bengal
was in the ascendant, the Arakanese sent tribute to Bengal and when
they were in the ascendant they received tribute from the Ganges
delta, "The Twelve Towns of Bengal”. 3
After 1532 the coast, though poor and largely uninhabited, was
liable to pillage by Hpalaung. =feringhi=Portuguese). It would
have been a bad age for Arakan, with the aggressive Tabinshwehti
on the throne of Pegu, had not king Minbin (Zabauk Shah) (1531-
53) been capable. Foreseeing trouble, he put the defences of his
.
capital, Mrohaung, into repair, with a deep moat filled with tidal
water. When the Burmese invaders (p. 483) penetrated the eastern
1 See vol III, p. 544.
2 Manrique in 1630 put the population at 160,000, excluding foreign merchants:
Itinerario de las Missiones del India Oriental, Hakluyt edition, I, 216-17.
3 For these, see Hosten, “The Twelve Bhuiyas or Landlords of Bengal”, in
Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1913, p. 437.


## p. 478 (#518) ############################################

478
BURMA (1531–1782)
-
outworks of the city, he opened the sluice gates of his great reservoirs
and flooded them out. He retained Ramu and Chittagong in spite
of raids there by the Tippera tribes while he was engaged by
Tabinshwehti, and coins bearing his name and styling him sultan
were struck at Chittagong. He built at Mrohaung the Shwedaung
pagoda, the Shitthaung, Dukkanthein, and Lemyethna temples, and
the Andaw to enshrine a Ceylon tooth.
Unlike the other races of Burma, the Arakanese maintained sea-
going craft, and Chittagong bred a race of capable seamen. “ For
centuries they were the terror of the Ganges delta and at times they
hampered even Portuguese shipping. Finally they united with Portu-
guese freebooters and thus brought about the greatest period in
Arakanese history, c. 1550–1666. The Portuguese, subject to little
control from Goa, had settled in numbers at Chittagong, making it
a thriving port, since the middle of the sixteenth century. It was
always held by a brother or faithful clansman of the king, with an
Arakanese garrison; every year the king sent a hundred boats full
of troops, powder and ball, and then the garrison and boats sent in
the previous year returned home to Arakan,
Minrazagyi (Salim Shah) 1593-1612), the founder of the Parabaw
pagoda at Mrohaung, employed De Brito in the expedition against
Pegu (p. 494). It comprised land levies which went over the passes,
as well as a flotilla from Chittagong and the Ganges delta. On the
return journey the wise minister Mahapinnyakyaw, lord of Chitta-
gong, died and was buried by the Hmawdin pagoda at Negrais; he
had served the king from youth up, and his compilation of legal
precedents, Mahapinnyakyaw pyatton, which placed the interpreta-
tion of Manu dhammathat lawbooks on a definitely Buddhist basis,
was thereafter among the most valuable works of its kind throughout
Burma.
Minhkamaung (Husain Shah) (1612-22), as crown prince, had
been captured for a time by De Brito when trying to reduce him to
obedience at Syriam (p. 494). His queen built the Ratanabon pagoda
at Mrohaung. His great achievement was to overthrow the Portu-
guese pirates who had made Sandwip island their stronghold. This
island was a trade centre, it commanded the mouth of the Ganges
delta, and its neighbourhood provided timber in abundance for
shipbuilding. In 1608 the Arakanese had offered to let the Dutch
trade and build fortifications in return for help in driving out the
Portuguese, but their commitments elsewhere were too heavy to
allow them to accept the offer. 2 Minhkamaung, aided by some
Dutch ships, beat off repeated Portuguese attacks and finally in 1617
occupied Sandwip.
1 See vol. 1, p. 551.
2 India Office Hague Transcripts, 1607-16, letter 62; De Jonge, De Opkomst
van het Nederlandsche Gezag in Oost-Indie, di, 77.
1


## p. 479 (#519) ############################################

MAGH SEA RAIDERS
479
After that the Portuguese ceased to be his enemies and became his
tools. They centred at Chittagong and intermarried with the people
there. They served the Arakanese in holding Sandwip island, Noa-
khali and Backergunge districts, and the Sunderbans delta south of
Calcutta, and raiding up to Dacca and even Murshidabad, while
Tippera sent propitiatory tribute. After they had sacked Dacca, his
capital, in 1625, the Mughul governor felt so unsafe that for a time
he lived farther inland. For generations an iron chain was stretched
across the Hooghly river between Calcutta and Sibpur to prevent
their entrance. In a single month, February 1727, they carried off
1800 captives from the southern parts of Bengal; the king chose the
artisans, about one-fourth, to be his slaves, and the rest were sold
at prices varying from 20 to 70 rupees a head and set to work on
the land as slaves; ? sometimes the sales were to Dutch, English and
1
French merchants in the Indian ports. They would pierce the hands
of their captives, pass a strip of cane through the hole, and fling
them under the deck strung together like hens; a baby which cried
would be decapitated under its mother's eyes, and its body flung
overboard. A favourite formation was to sweep the sea in line, so
as to cover a large area, but a hundred Bengal ships would flee at
the sight of four Magh ships, and if they found they were being
overtaken, the crews would fling themselves overboard and drown
sooner than meet the Arakanese hand to hand. 2
Sometimes the Maghs would sail back to the coast where they had
captured their prisoners and wait till the villagers brought out sui-
ficient presents to redeem their kinsmen from the ship. This they
called collecting revenue, and the Portuguese among them kept
regular account books. Their activity decreased when the English
began to police the coast, but even in 1795 they were plundering
the king of Burma's boats off Arakan, laden with his customs dues
of 10 per cent, in kind. They had forts at Jagdia and 'Alamgirnagar
in the mouth of the Meghna river, and a little colony of 1500, speak-
ing Arakanese and wearing Burmese dress, still survives on four or
five islands in the extreme south-east of Backergunge.
Thirithudamma (1622_38) deferred his coronation twelve years
because the wise assured him it would be followed by his death a
year later. Finally he learnt to avert fate by sacrificing 4 the hearts
of thousands of human beings, white cows and white pigeons, and
was crowned in 1635, together with twelve vassal chiefs, amid the
utmost splendour, his guards including Burmans, Talaings, Hindu-
stanis, and even some Japanese Catholics. It was he who raided Pegu
1 Twenty-four Parganas Gazetteer, p. 39.
2 Jadunath Sarkar, “Feringhi Pirates of Chatgaon", in Journal Asiatic Society
of Bengal, 1907, p. 422; and his History of Aurangzib, vol. III.
8 Symes, Embassy to Ava, p. 117.
4 Manrique, Itinerario de las Missiones del India Oriental, ch. XXXI, Hakluyt
ed. I, 357-8.


## p. 480 (#520) ############################################

480
BURMA (1531–1782)
and brought back Anaukpetlun's bell (p. 495), which he set up at a
pagoda near Mrohaung. His queen had a royal kinsman as paramour,
so he died suddenly, and his little son and heir soon followed him.
The queen thereupon placed her paramour on the throne as
Narapatigyi (1638-45), and enforced the Massacre of the Kinsmen. 2
Narapatigyi built at Mrohaung the Mingalamanaung pagoda and,
to house some scriptures from Ceylon, the Pitakataik.
Sandathudamma (1652-84), the builder of the Zinamanaung,
Thekyamanaung, Ratanamanaung, Shwekyathein and Lokamu pa-
godas at Mrohaung, is revered as one of the best kings. In the last
year of his reign some forty Arakanese monks went to Ceylon at the
request of a mission sent by the aid of the Dutch. 3 The Dutch feared
a revival of Portuguese influence in Ceylon and wished to strike at
Catholicism by reviving Buddhist ordination, which was becoming
extinct. They sent to Arakan, as they had a branch at Mrohaung
from about 1626 to 1683; it was closed from time to time because
the trade was not of great volume, and in 1670 the whole staff was
massacred.
But while it lasted they obtained more businesslike terms
than in Burma, for under the articles * of 1653 they could claim their
own interpreter at royal audiences and take away their children by
women of the country (cf. p. 502).
Indeed, as might be expected of a maritime people, the Arakanese
were in several respects less backward than the Burmese. Thus they
permitted the export of rice (p. 501) under the control of an officer
who regulated it so as to prevent a shortage. And about 1660 money
began to be struck in Arakan; the Burmese struck some medallions
for enshrinement in the Mingun pagoda in 1790,5 having learnt the
idea from Arakan; the Arakanese had used medallions since the tenth
century for commemorative purposes, usually at a king's accession.
Shuja', brother to Aurangzib, being defeated in his struggle for
the throne, had to flee in 1660. The people of Bengal regarded the
Maghs as unclean savages, but Shuja' was in such straits that he
asked the king of Arakan to shelter him and lend some of his famous
ships to take him on the way to Mecca, where he wished to end his
days. The king consented. Shuja' was brought to Mrohaung in
Portuguese galeasses and greeted with courtesy. But with him were
his family, including a beautiful eldest daughter, and half a dozen
camel-loads of gold and jewels
wealth such as had never before
been seen in Arakan. Shuja' kept away from the king, repelled by
1 A Hindu officer of irregular horse in the 1824-26 war took it to 'Aligarh,
U. P. , see Wroughton, “Inscription of the large Arakan bell", in Journal Asiatic
Society Bengal, 1838, p. 287.
2 Dinnyawai Yazawinthit, p. 219. See also vol. II, p. 556.
3 Similarly in 1753 the Dutch obtained monks from Siam, Tennent, Christia-
nity in Ceylon, p. 224; cf. Nga Me, History of Arakan (M. S. ).
4 Valentyn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, vol. v, part 1, pp. 140-6.
5 Harvey, History of Burma, p. 275.
8 See chap. VIII, p. 226.


## p. 481 (#521) ############################################

MUGHULS TAKE CHITTAGONG
481
his table manners. Eight months passed, and on one pretext or
another the promised ships were never forthcoming. Finally the
king demanded Shuja''s daughter in marriage. A blue-blooded
Mughul of the imperial house, Shuja' refused. The king told him
to go within three days. Unable to move, and refused supplies in
the bazar, he resolved to take his chance of overthrowing the king.
He had two hundred faithful men, and many of the local Muslims
supported him; thrones in Indo-China have been overthrown with
fewer men, and good judges on the spot thought he had a reasonable
chance. But there were too many in the plot, and the king heard
of it in time. Shuja' was thus reduced to firing the city and cutting
his way out in the confusion. Most of his party was taken, and though
he himself succeeded in reaching the jungle he was ultimately traced
and executed. For days it was a sight to see his treasure being melted
down and conveyed to the palace strong-room. His daughters were
taken into the harem, the marriage of the eldest to the king being
celebrated in song and verse that are still greatly admired in Arakan.
A year later the king, scenting a plot, starved them all to death,
though the eldest was in an advanced stage of pregnancy by himself;
and their brothers' heads were hacked off with dahs. 1
Aurangzib himself would have executed Shuja', but he did not
like others doing it, and also it was necessary to curb the piracy of
the Maghs. Shayista Khan, the Mughul viceroy of Bengal, built a
fleet, and in 1665 drove them out of their strong stockades on Sandwip
island. The news spread consternation, and the king in fear began to
distrust the feringhis who, suspecting that he would exterminate their
families, accepted the offers of Shayista Khan and deserted to him
with their families in forty-two galleys laden with munitions. In 1666
Shayista Khan's force of 6500 men and 288 boats took Chittagong in
a thirty-six hours' siege. They sold 2000 Arakanese into slavery, and
captured 1026 cannon, mostly jingals throwing a one-pound ball. Many
ships were sunk in action, 135 were captured, and two state elephants
were burnt in the sack. Such of the Arakanese garrison as escaped
tried to march home, but they were attacked by their former slaves,
the kidnapped Muslims of Bengal, who had been settled on the land.
The fall of Chittagong caused indescribable rejoicing in Bengal
and ended Arakan's century of greatness. The trackless Ganges delta
afforded scope not only to the Arakanese but also to nests of pirates
recruited from the scum of every race, and so they continued their
sea raids. But never again did they hold Chittagong or even Ramu,
1 Schouten, Voyage aux Indes, 1, 228-37; Bernier, Travels, pp. 109-15; Manucci,
Storia do Mogor, I, 369-76; Bowrey, Geographical Account of the Countries round.
the Bay of Bengal, pp. 139-42; Hamilton, New Account of East Indies, II, 27-9;
Harvey, "Fate of Shah Shuja”, in Journal Burma Research Society, 1922.
2 Jadunath Sarkar, “Conquest of Chatgaon", in Journal Asiatic Society of
Bengal, 1907, p. 405; and his History of Aurangzib, NI, 220-45; Bernier, Travels,
pp. 174-82; Chittagong Gazetteer, p. 31.
31


## p. 482 (#522) ############################################

482
BURMA (1531–1782)
and they lost their sword arm by the desertion of the feringhis.
Sandathudamma's long reign saw the power of his race pass its
zenith, and his death is followed by a century of chaos. There were
twenty-five kings in the next hundred and nineteen years. The
profits of piracy had gone but the piratical instinct remained, render-
ing government impossible.
Shuja''s followers in 1661 were retained as Archers of the Guard
who drew four rupees a month, equivalent to many times that amount
of present currency. They murdered and set up kings at will and their
numbers were recruited by fresh arrivals from upper India. In 1692
they burnt the palace and for twenty years roamed over the country,
carrying fire and sword wherever they went. Finally they were sup-
pressed by a lord who set up as king Sandawiziya (1710-31); he
deported them to Ramree; there, and at Thinganet and Tharagon
near Akyab, their descendants still exist, under the name Kaman
(Persian kaman=a bow), speaking Arakanese but retaining their
Islamic faith and Afghan features.
Sandawiziya was murdered and the country relapsed. King after
king was murdered and village fought against village. Earthquakes
are for centuries mentioned in the chronicles of the various states of
Burma, but those of 1761-62 were particularly awesome in Arakan
and the people felt that they were doomed. Sometimes the lords
would induce a hardy spirit to take the throne, and as often others
would combine to make his task impossible.
The last king, Thamada (1782–85), bearing as if in irony the name
of the first king on earth, had less authority than ever, for he was
of the despised race of Ramree. A band of lords went to Ava asking
for intervention; perhaps they were patriots desiring to see their
land at rest; perhaps they merely desired the sweets of office. Their
request was granted with a vengeance, for Bodawpaya was now king
in Burma. Many a village came out with bands of music to greet
his armies as deliverers. But the methods of the Burmese were such
that soon the very men who had invited them into the country were
leading insurgents against them. "
THE TOUNGOO DYNASTY (1531-1752)
The Shan migration, lasting two centuries, had now ended, leaving
Burma split into chieftainships. Tabinshwehti 2 set himself to revive
the overlordship. Toungoo was thronged with refugees, so that he
had no lack of men; he was in control of Kyaukse, the richest area
in upper Burma and the key to Ava; and, to crown all, his opponents
were Shans, a race which could not unite.
First he advanced against lower Burma. It was the richest part
of the country and also it contained Portuguese adventurers who were
willing to be hired. Sometimes he had as many as seven hundred. To
1 See vol v, p. 558.
See vol. II, p. 558.


## p. 483 (#523) ############################################

1
BURMAN TALAING UNION
483
obtain their services was to win the day, for they had firearms, hitherto
unknown in Burma, and no race in Indo-China could stand up to them.
By 1541 he had annexed the Pegu state. He was able to enter
Pegu city without a siege because the Talaings, after suffering several
defeats, lost heart, and their king Takayutpi," instead of putting heart
into them, took to distrusting his officers and executing them; instead
of leading his men to the end, Takayutpi deserted the city and lived
in a stockade at Ingabu, Maubin district; a year later he died while
hunting elephants and the fishermen there still worship a nat spirit
called Po Yutpi. Martaban, a thriving port, rich with the accumu-
lated stocks of merchants of many races, gave more trouble; it fought
to the end, aided by seven Portuguese ships; these were small craft,
manned largely by Eurasians and slaves, and Tabinshwehti drove
them off with fire-rafts, while other rafts, with scaffolding higher
than the ramparts, were run alongside the fortifications facing the
river; the sack raged for three days. ?
Tabinshwehti exercised his royal privilege of putting spires on the
great Talaing pagodas; to the Shwedagon he offered his queen and
redeemed her with 10 viss (1 viss = 3. 65 lb. ) of gold. In 1542 he
took Prome, although the Raja of Arakan and the chiefs of upper
Burma, headed by the Ava sawbwa, attacked him while he was
besieging the town. In 1544 he annexed upper Burma as far as
Minbu and Myingyan; he had already been crowned at Pegu as king
of lower Burma, and now while halting at Pagan he was crowned
as king of upper Burma. On returning home in 1546 he was crowned
as king of both, using Talaing as well as Burmese rites. Only half
his task was done, but the rest was sure, and men again beheld the
glory of the ancient ritual; after three centuries of sawbwas (Shan
chiefs) there was once more a king in Burma.
In the cold weather of 1546–47 he attacked Arakan. Many of his
war-canoes were wrecked on the west coast. All his land forces
arrived but Mrohaung was a strong town, and the only chance of
taking it was when the walls were in disrepair. But Arakan was
under an energetic raja (p. 477) who saw that his defences were in
repair, and after a short time under the walls Tabinshwehti accepted
the intercession of the monks and returned home.
He returned the more quickly because Siam, hearing that he and
all his valiant men were away in Arakan, had raided Tavoy; and
in 1547-48 the Burmese advanced against Siam. " The hosts crossed
1 See vol. II, p. 558.
2 Pin
Voyages and Adventures.
8 Halliday, “Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron", in Journal Burma Research
Society, 1923.
* When, in 1767, the Burmese sacked Ayuthia (p. 515), they destroyed the
palace archives, so that Siamese chronology before the eighteenth century is va-
gue. Until recently the Siamese dates for the Burmese invasions of the six-
teenth century were a decade or two earlier than the Burmese dates, which
I follow. Recent research by Siamese gentlemen has, however, confirmed the
Burmese dates, which are also borne out by contemporary Burmese inscriptions


## p. 484 (#524) ############################################

484
BURMA (1531-1782)
from Martaban to Moulmein on a bridge of boats over which they
could ride their ponies at a gallop. His Majesty's elephant was ferried
across on a raft, but the other elephants were sent upstream where the
fords were shallow. Jingals were mounted on many of these elephants.
The cannon were kept close to the king, and he moved in great state,
surrounded by the choicest elephants, richly attired lords, and 400
Portuguese guards whose helmets and muskets were inlaid with gold,
for they provided a bodyguard as well as artillery. Hundreds of work-
men went ahead every day to pitch the wooden camp palace, richly
painted and gilded, and at each halt there was a pwe festival.
The Burmese advanced up the Ataran river, through Three
Pagodas Pass and down the Meklawng river to Kanburi. Thence
they struck at Ayuthia. The Siamese possessed cannon, made of the
copper which was annually imported from China. The weakest part
of the wall was defended by fifty Portuguese; Tabinshwehti tried
to bribe them, but they treated the officer with derision and one of
the Siamese commanders, flinging open the gate, dared Tabinshwehti
to bring the money. After a month the Burmese withdrew and tried
to plunder Kampengpet, a wealthy town; but here again were
Portuguese, who used flaming projectiles so that the guns had to be
kept under shelters of damp hide. Tabinshwehti, saying the Siamese
were devils who, when their own weapons failed, used new ones
never known since the beginning of the world, retreated, and it
would doubtless have gone hard with him had he not captured the
Siamese king's son and brothers in some open fighting. At once
Siamese envoys came with red and green woollen cloths, longyis
(men's shirts), and aromatic woods, offering friendship in return for
the captive princes. Tabinshwehti released not only them but also
his other prisoners, and was thereupon left unmolested in his retreat
through Raheng.
Tabinshwehti dreamed of a united Burma. When conquering the
Talaing kingdom he made no attempt to administer his new subjects
by Burmese governors. Any Talaing lord who made timely sub-
mission could count on being left in his fief. Consequently from the
first he had a large Talaing following; fully half his levies and best
officers were Talaings. He left the beautiful buildings of the Talaing
kings standing when he captured Pegu. Talaings had their full say
in his councils, he took care to be crowned with the ritual of a
Talaing king, and he gave way to the importunities of his Talaing
princesses, letting them dress in their own fashion instead of the
Burmese court dress. Finally, hearing an old prophecy that no king
with a Burmese hairknot should rule the Talaing land, he bobbed
his hair like a Talaing and wore the diadem of a Talaing king.
and European travellers. See the discussion in Harvey, History of Burma,
p. 343; and Wood, History of Siam, pp. 23-25.
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese Asia, 1, 135.
? Hmannan, , 240.


## p. 485 (#525) ############################################

TABINSHWEHTI'S DEATH
486
On returning from Siam Tabinshwehti took to hunting with a
young Portuguese captain, who had a gun and seldom missed his
mark. Tabinshwehti thought a gun a miraculous thing, and in admi-
ration gave him a royal handmaid to wife. The feringhi taught his
bride to cook feringhi dishes for the king to eat, and gave him juice
of the grape to drink, also spirits sweetened with honey. The king
drank and his heart was glad, but he lost his wits, respecting not
other men's wives, listening to evil tales and executing innocent men.
Bayinnaung, his foster-brother and principal commander, remonstra-
ted with him but he answered: "I have made friends with drink.
Brother, do thou manage the affairs of state. Bring me no petitions.
Leave me to my jollity. ” Sometimes he attended levees, sometimes
he could not. The Burmese, Shan and Talaing lords at court com-
bined to ask Bayinnaung to take the throne, but he was faithful,
and would not.
The king went to stay at Pantanaw, Maubin district, in the care
of Talaing chamberlains, and Bayinnaung went to deal with a
rebellion headed by a monk, a descendant of the fallen Talaing
dynasty, who, flinging off the robe, assumed the title Smim Htaw, and
occupied Dagon (Rangoon) and Dalla. The Talaing chamberlains
enticed Tabinshwehti into a jungle saying a white elephant had been
traced, and there they cut off his head; 2 they then raised the Talaings,
seized Pegu, and set the leading chamberlain on the throne.
Bayinnaung (1551-81). The fiefs of central Burma all shut their
gates and never lifted a finger to help Bayinnaung; his own brothers
and kinsmen tried to set up as independent kings in such important
charges as Prome and Toungoo itself. There he was, a king without
a kingdom, grappling with one Talaing rebel in the west while
another sat on his throne in the east, his Burmese people looked on
with folded hands, and his own brothers seceded. At once he sent
overseas for his Portuguese guards, who had rejoined their own people
in Malaya; they came in haste, and in his unfeigned relief he greeted?
their leader with the words : "Ah, brother Diogo, brother Diogo, we
two, we happy two, I on my elephant and thou on thy horse, we
could conquer the world together! ” With them, and the few faithful
levies that stood by him, he was safe, although little better than a
fugitive in the jungles. But many joined him, including even Talaings,
for men recognise character when they see it. As the months went by,
he regained Toungoo and Prome, and finally he advanced on Pegu.
Smim Htaw had overthrown the usurping chamberlain and occu-
pied the Pegu palace. When Bayinnaung's host came near the walls,
the Talaings went out to meet it. The two chiefs fought hand to hand
and finally Bayinnaung, freeing his elephant, drew back and charged,
1 Hmannan, , 268-70.
2 He is worshipped as the Tabinshwehti Nat spirit, Temple, Thirty-Seven
Nats, p. 64.
3 Couto, Da Asia, vol. IV, part I, p. 136.


## p. 486 (#526) ############################################

486
BURMA (1531_1782)
breaking the tusk of his foeman's elephant and driving him off the
field followed by all his men. He then sacked Pegu, killing men,
women, children and even animals.
Talaing opposition collapsed. Smim Htaw could get few more
followers, but he made a gallant fight, hunted as he was throughout
the Delta. Many a jungle there has its tradition of his hiding. Some-
times he would catch the Burmese boats stranded at low tide in a
creek, and wipe them out, sometimes he would surprise an outpost.
But as the months passed, the end drew near. His family fell into
the hands of his pursuers. He fled alone in a canoe along the coast
to Martaban. Once they fell on him during the evening meal, but
he slipped away leaving his clothes in their hands. He hid in the hills
round Sittaung, poor and unknown, till he took a village girl to wife
and told her his secret; she guilelessly told her father, who reported
to the village officer. Bayinnaung had him paraded through the
jeering streets, and saying he had done evil put him to an evil death.
Thus ended the lineage of Wareru. '
Having thus regained the position from which he should have
started, Bayinnaung set out on his career of conquest. The size of
his armies varied with the area of his kingdom for the time being.
At its maximum, when it included upper Burma, the Shan States,
and Siam, it supplied with a mass levy approaching possibly one
hundred thousand. His efforts were on a bigger scale than had
hitherto been known to Burma. Long records of faithful service, and
the ties of ancient friendship, were pleaded in vain by officers who
failed; the least they had to fear was deprivation of all titles and
property, and exile to some fever-stricken spot. As for the rank and
file, the severity they suffered was provoked by the fact that many
of the levies were like herds of driven cattle, and the only way of
keeping them together and bringing them to action was to use
methods of frightfulness.
By 1555 he had annexed Ava, and by 1559 the whole of upper
Burma, the present Shan States, Manipur, Chiengmai and Vieng-
chang (Linzin). From this time dates Burmese suzerainty over the
Shans; the Pagan monarchy had controlled little more than the foot.
hills, and even now Burmese suzerainty was seldom more than
nominal until the time of Alaungpaya (1752-60).