It was the golden age of Pegū, and there can be
little doubt that its civilisation was higher than that of the savage
north.
little doubt that its civilisation was higher than that of the savage
north.
Cambridge History of India - v3 - Turks and Afghans
ii, p.
99.
4
## p. 549 (#599) ############################################
XXI )
BURMESE LITERATURE
549
Away from the track of the chiefs and their rabble, people were
probably happy enough, and in many a monastery life must have
been calın and beautiful. As is usual in secluded countries, Bur-
mese literature is narrow in range and, though quite voluminous
according to mediaeval standards, small in quantity. It shows litile
development and no improvement has been made on the earliest
poets. The prose consists largely of translations and paraphrases
from scripture stories. The verse is more original and includes
minor poetry of a high order but the condensation of its style and
the obscurity of its dialect militate against its having a wide appeal.
The usually accepted view, that the following are the first vernacular
writers, is probably correct, but the finish of their style indicates
that the vernacular had been practised for some generations pre-
viously. The earliest writers are three monks, Shin Uttamagyaw,
Shin Thilawuntha, and Shin Maharattathara. Shin Uttamagyaw,
the author of Tawla, a celebrated poem, was a valued councellor
in the Ava palace. He was born on the same day as Shin Thilaw-
Āva
untha (1453—1520) and together they entered a monastery school
at Taungdwingyi, Magwe district. Shin Thilawuntha was expelled
for writing Paramiganpyo, as the monk considered poetry sinſul ;
he continued writing in a fine monastery built for him at Āva
by the chief, Minhkaung (1401—22); Yazawing gaw, the earliest
chronicle extant, is his ; it is a disappointing work, for instead
of recording what went on round him-it would have been an
invaluable picture-he merely reproduced scriptural traditions.
Shin Maharattathara (1468-1529), a descendant of the Thihathu,
the Shān Brother, wrote, Koganpyo and other poems. Probably
it is in this period that Yaweshinhtwe lived ; she was a maid of
honour and wrote verse on the 55 styles of hairdressing used by
maids of honour in the Āva palace, styles some of which are still
in popular use.
Thihathura was succeeded by his son Minhkaung (1481—1502),
who, hearing that Bimbisara, the king of Buddha's period, had
raised his son to the throne as joint king, decided to follow the
precedent, gave his son the white umbrella, and shared the throne
with him. He was continually attacked by Hanthawaddy and
Prome in the south, and by the Shāns above Shwebo in the north.
When his vassal of Toungoo was assassinated, he recognised the
assassin as king, sending him the white umbrella, an act which
the 1829 chroniclers cite as an instance of statesmanship.
He was succeeded by his younger son Shwenankyawshin (1502-
1 Hmannan, Vol. ii, pp. 127, 185,
## p. 550 (#600) ############################################
550
[CH
BURMA A. D. 1287 - 1531
27), as the elder son, the joint king, had died. Shwenankyawshin
already had a wife whose sister was consort to the dead joint king;
yet now, on coming to the throne, it was not his own wife, but the
joint king's widow, who became his chief queen, as she was already
part of the regalia. His life was attempted by kinsmen who fled to
Toungoo. He thereupon gave his daughter in marriage to Minkyinyo
of Toungoo with the villages from Kyaukse to Toungoo as dowry;
he was giving his daughter to the harbourer of his assassins, and in
giving away the rice area of Kyaukse he was giving away his crown.
But he could not help himself-Prome and Salin were in revolt,
Mohnyin was attacking the Shwebo border, and his own brothers
were in the field against him. In 1527 Mohnyin encamped under
the walls of Āva, the Shāns in the Āva garrison deserted to him,
and Shwenankyawshin fell fighting on his elephant. The population
fled in large numbers to Toungoo.
Mohnyin set up his son Thohanbwa (1527–43) as king in Āva.
Thohanbwa said: 'Burmese pagodas have nothing to do with religion.
They are simply treasure chambers,' and proceeded to plunder such
as were in reach. Probably, as in 1756 and 1885, the monks led the
people in resistance; he said: 'Monks surround themselves with
followers and could rebel if they liked. They ought to be killed'; in
1540 at Taungbalu, just outside Āva, he covered a field with huts,
slaughtered buffaloes, cows, pigs and fowls and invited the monks
to feast. When they were all in the huts, he surrounded them with
his braves and massacred them to the number of 360. The survivors
fled to Toungoo. He then seized the manuscripts in the monasteries
and made bonfires of them. Finally he was assassinated by one
of his Burmese ministers who thereupon, though of royal blood,
retired into a monastery rather than take the throne.
It therefore passed to Hsipaw, who ruled as Hkonmaing (1543 - 46).
He joined six other sawbwas in the attack on Prome and was suc-
ceeded by his son Mobye Narapati (1546-52), who, weary of attacks
from Mohnyin, fled to Bayinmaung, leaving Āva to its last sawbwa,
Sithukyawhtin (1552—55), a nominee of Mohnyin.
Indeed for two and a half centuries the ruler of Āva had been
sawbwa in all but name ; yet there was this difference between
Āva and the other Shān states, that whereas they were so wild as
to leave not even a record, the tradition of the Burmese palace
gave
Āva a veener of civilisation, and her numerous monasteries
contained monks who, if not learned, were at least literate; and to
them it is due that though the lamp of civilisation flickered and
burnt low, it never went out;
## p. 551 (#601) ############################################
XXI ]
PEGO
551
(b) Pegu 1287-1539.
Wareru (1287-96), a Shān pedlar born at Donwun in the Thaton
district, took service in the elephant stables of the chief of Sukhotai,
became Captain of the Guard, eloped with the chief's daughter and
set up as lord of his native village.
He had a fair sister, and Aleimma, the Burmese governor of
Martaban, wished to marry her. Wareru prepared a wedding feast
and when Aleimma came to get his bride, Wareru assassinated him,
seized his governorship, and so became lord of Martaban in 1281.
When he built its walls in 1287, a pregnant woman
was crushed
under the gate post as a foundation sacrifice.
The Pagān kingdom was now breaking up, and Wareru made
common cause with Tarabya, the revolting governor of Pegū, each
marrying the other's daughter. But in 1287, after they had expelled
the Burmese governors and occupied the country south of Prome
and Toungoo, Tarabya tried to ambush Wareru. He failed. Wareru,
calling the spirits of earth and air to witness his innocence, and
pouring libations of water from a golden bowl, mounted his elephant,
fought with Tarabya in single combat, and took him prisoner. At
the intercession of the monks he spared his life. Tarabya again
plotted, but his wife warned her father Wareru in time. So Tarabya
was executed, although she twined her tresses with his and dared the
executioners to cut off his head.
Wareru now became sole prince of the Talaing state in Lower
Burma which lasted till 1539. In 1298 it received recognition from
China, which henceforth chose to regard its rulers as governors
appointed by herself. Its capital was Martaban till 1369, when a
palace was set up at Pegū.
Wareru received recognition from his old master and father-in-
law, the chief of Sukhotai, who in 1293 sent him a white elephant
because it chose to eat Martaban grass ; no sooner did they hear
of its arrival than the Shān Brothers of Kyaukse came raiding
Martaban to get it, but were driven off.
To Wareru we owe the earliest law book in Burma that now
survives. The Hindu colonists who came to the Delta a thousand
years before had brought with them traditional laws ascribed to
the ancient sage Manu; these law books were handed down in
the Talaing monasteries, and Wareru commissioned his monks
1 Paklat Talaing chronicle.
2 Razadarit Ayedawpon. The practice survived in Burma till a century ago ;
sec History of Burma, p. 320.
3 Halliday, The Talaings.
## p. 552 (#602) ############################################
552
(CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
to produce the standard collection called after him, the Wareru
dhammathat. It forms the basis of Burmese law literature? .
The Siamese kingdom, founded in 1350, included in its list of
provinces Tenasserim, Moulmein and Martaban ; it certainly held
Tenasserim, founding the town in 1373, and building the Wutshin-
taung pagoda there in 1380; but it did not hold Moulmein save
through some nominal tribute-offering, and Pegū held the country
down to Tavoy. There was little established government. If it was
not dacoits it was royal kinsmen who revolted, and sometimes bands
of Shān immigrants from Siam would add to the disorder.
Binnya U (1353-85) repaired the Shwedāgon pagoda, raising its
height to 66 feet. He repelled raiders from Chiengmai who destroyed
several towns in Thaton district; on the site of his victory he built
a pagoda, enshrining relics obtained by sending a mission to Ceylon.
But his white elephant died, after being 61 years in the palace, and
while he was devoutly searching the forests for a successor, his kins-
men seized the palace and invited the Chiengmai chief to join them.
For six years he maintained himself at Donwun, and then, being
driven out, he moved to Pegū and repaired its walls.
His eldest son Razadarit (1385–1423) was the greatest of Wareru's
lineage. Fighting for his existence since the age of sixteen, with but
little assistance from his father, who could not control the family
feuds, Razadarit succeeded in seizing Pegū town soon after his
father's death, subjected Bassein, and repelled successive Burmese
invasions. Finally, in 1390, he captured Myaungmya with Laukpya
inside ; in thank-offering he built shrines at the Shwemawdaw
pagoda, Pegū feeding a thousand monks throughout a seven days'
festival and offering his weight in gold.
Hearing that his son Bawlawykantaw was practising horseman-
ship and sharpening his elephant's tusks, Razadarit feared he was
about to rebel, and sent two lords to slay him. They announced
their duty to the lad, who replied : 'I do but follow the custom of
young princes in manly exercise. I do not plot against my father
and there is no fault in me. Give me time to prepare for death. '
They gave him time, and for three days at the Shwemawdaw pagoda
he listened to the reading of Abidhamma, the holy scriptures.
When it was finished, he offered his ruby bracelets and earrings to
the pagoda, and thus he prayed : 'If I have wished ill to my father,
:
1 Forchammer, Jardine Prize Essay on Burmese Law.
2 Pallegoix, Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam, Vol. ii, p. 75.
3 For the eult of the white elephant, see Harvey, History af Burma, pp. 274, 361.
## p. 553 (#603) ############################################
XXI )
RAZADARIT
553
on my
yea though it be a little, then may I lie in Hell' for ever, and never
behold the coming Buddha. But if I have not wished ill to my
father, then may I be born again among the kings of Burma and
be the scourge of the Talaings. ' Then he took the poison that had
been prepared, and drank it and died.
When this was reported to Razadarit, he said : 'It was a terrible
prayer,' and. gilding the pagoda from top to bottom, he prayed : 'If
he become a prince in Burma and make war on me, may I
elephant vanquish him. '
During the war that followed, though he ultimately repulsed
them, the Burmese sometimes left Razadarit in possession of little
but Pegū town itself. In 1414 he gained a brief respite by stirring
up Hsenwi to attack Āva, but was himself never free from the fear
of Shān inroads, as on several occasions when he was hard pressed
from the north the princes of Ayuthia, Kampengpet and Chiengmai
would raid him from the south.
He built the Danok pagoda near Twante, and to him is ascribed
the traditional division of each of the Three Lands of the Talaings'
(Pegū, Myaungmya, Bassein) into 32 'provinces,' i. e. village circles.
He was of great strength and personal courage, and several
times killed his man in single combat. The chief of Āva never
dared accept his challenge and meet him hand to hand.
When the news of Minhkaung's death in 1422 reached Pegū,
the queens jeered, saying to Razadarit : 'Now you can pounce
down on his palace and capture all his women. ' But he rebuked
them, saying: 'My sweet enemy is dead. It will fight no more, but
spend my declining years in piety. ?
A year later, at the age of fifty-four, while snaring elephants
with his own hand in the Labut-tha-lut forest at the foot of the
Pegū Yomas, north of Pegū, he was caught in the rope and
injured so that he died on the way home. His queens came out
to meet the body and buried it at Kamathameinpaik (Minkanyo);
near Payagyi, north of Pegū. He has a chronicle all to himself,
the Razadarit Ayedawpon, which ends with the word : ' This Lion
King, so wise, so generous, so mighty in word and deed, could
overcome all his enemies, but he too at the last must bow before
King Death. '
Binnyakyan (1450-53) raised the height of the Shwedāgon
pagoda to 302 feet. At his death, as a result of palace massacres,
there was no male of the family left alive. The throne then passed
by general consent to Razadarit's daughter Shinsawbu (1453-72).
Village headmanships have been known tº descend in the female
## p. 554 (#604) ############################################
554
[ CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
line? , and · Shān hill states have been held by chieftainesses, but
this is the only instance of a major state in Burma being held by
a woman. Daughter, sister, wife and mother of kings, she ruled
well, leaving behind so gracious a memory on earth that four
hundred years later the Talaings could think of no fairer thing
to say of Queen Victoria than to call her Shinsawbu re-incarnate.
Once, while being carried round the city in her great palanquin,
sword in hand and crown on head, she heard an old man exclaim,
as her retinue pushed him aside, 'I must get out of the way, must I ?
You call ine an old fool, do you? I am not so old that I could not
get a child, which is more than your old queen could do! Thunder-
struck at such irreverence, she meekly accepted it as a sign from
heaven, and thereafter styled herself 'The Old Queen? '
When young she had been given in marriage to the then chief
of Āva and two Talaing monks had gone there to teach her letters.
As she was not happy in a Burmese palace, she ran away, and fled
down the river to Pegū. Her flight was successful because the
two monks helped her, and, by benefit of clergy, a boat carrying
monks could not be challenged. She admired the two monks
beyond all other men, and when, after being queen of Pegū seven
years, she wished to retire, it was one of them that she chose as
successor. But she did not know which to choose. Therefore one
day, when they entered the palace as usual to receive the royal
rice in thein alms bowls, she secretly put into one of the bowls not
rice but a layman's dress, together with little models of the five
regalia; then, having prayed that the lot might fall on the worthier,
she returned the bowls. Dammazedi, to whom the fateful bowl
fell, abandoned the Order, received her daughter in marriage, and
assumed the government. The other in his disappointment took
to plotting, and was executed. The ambitious lords also objected,
but in the end became reconciled to Dammazedi because of his
wisdom and justice; and when some of them continued to murmur
that he was not of royal blood, she took a beam out of a bridge in
the city and had it made into a Buddha image, and said : ‘Ye say
he is of common blood, he cannot be your king. See here this
common wood-yesterday it was trodden in the dust of your feet,
but to-day, is it not Lord and do ye not bow before it ? '
Shinsawbu spent the remaining years of her life in retirement
at the Shwedāgon. Successive princes had added to the original
.
1 Furnivall, ‘Matriarchy in Burma' in Journal of the Burma Research Society, 1912.
2 Thatonhnwemun Yazawin.
3 Sayadaw Athwa, Vol. ii, p. 131,
## p. 555 (#605) ############################################
XXI)
REVIVAL OF RELIGION
555
set up
structure, and she made it practically what we see to-day. Round
it she banked up the terrace fifty feet high, nine hundred feet
wide, with a great stone balustrade and encircling walls, between
which she planted palm trees ; she kept forty-four people con-
tinually tending the sacred lamps, dedicated five hundred prisoners
of war as slaves, and offered her own weight (91 lb. ) in gold for
gilding the dome. When, at the age of seventy. eight, she felt her
end approaching, she had her bed placed where her eyes could rest
on that wondrous spire, and thus she breathed her last.
Dammazedi (1472—92) gave four times the weight of himself
and his queen in gold to the Shwedāgon as compensation for re-
voking some of its lands, which Shinsawbu had extended to Danok.
At Pegū he built the Shwekugyi and Kyaikpon pagodas, and west
of the Shwemawdaw he built a new stockaded town, and
his palace and elephant stable there. The masonry of his reign
is excellent, and a mass of pious edifices sprang up on the beautiful
plateau between the old and the new town, men vying with each in
works of merit, for it was an age of religious revival.
Dammazedi himself sent a mission to Buddhagaya? in Bengal
to take plans of the Holy Tree and of the temple as models for his
buildings at Pegū. But his most important work was his mission
of twenty-two monks to Ceylon' in 1475. It was a long and
a
dangerous journey, and several died in shipwreck or during their
wanderings when cast away on the coast of Madras. To the Tooth,
the Footprint, and the Holy Trees, at Kandy, they presented a
stone alms bowl studded with sapphires, and reliquaries of gold
and crystal ; to the Cingalese monks, cloths and Chiengmai lacquer
boxes; to the king of Ceylon, rubies, sapphires, Chinese silks, fine
mats, and a letter on gold leaf. Their object was to secure valid
ordination from the clergy of the Mahāvihāra, the great monastery
in Ceylon which, founded in 251 B. C. still exists. On their return
they proceeded to transmit this ordination to the clergy throughout
Lower Burma : it was so generally accepted as valid that monks
flocked to receive it from all over Burma and even from Siam ;
and thus religion in Burma, which for three centuries had been
split into sects each with its own ordination, received a measure
of unity from the standard Kalyāni ordination. It was and is
1 Halliday, 'Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron' in Journal of the Burma Research
Society, 1923; Forchammer, ‘Notes on Early History and Geography. '
2 Shwemawdaw Thamaing.
Report of the Supt. Archaeological Survey, Burma, 1914, p. 11.
4 Taw Sein Ko, ‘Kalyāni Inscriptions' in Indian Antiquary, 1893, 1894,
3
## p. 556 (#606) ############################################
556
(ch.
BURMA A. D.
1287-1531
granted at the Kalyāni thein (ordination hall) near Pegū, so called
because the original monks were ordained on the banks of the
Kalyāni stream in Ceylon. Dammazedi recorded these events on
ten inscribed stones at the thein, called the Kalyāni Inscriptions.
One of the principal monks in the mission was Buddhaghosa,
who translated the wareru dhammathat into Bur. nese; later gene.
rations confused him with his namesake, the Father of the Church
who lived a thousand years previously. Dammazedi himself was a
wise judge, and a collection of his rulings survives, the Dammızedi
pyatton. He died at the age of eighty and was succeeded by his
son Binnyaran.
Binnyaran (1492–1526) was beloved for his kindness, although,
like others before and after, he enforced the Massacre of the Kins-
men, making a clean sweep of all his brothers. His son Takayutpi
(1526—39) was the last king of Pegū.
Soon after 1500 the opening of the sea routes brought the
Talaings great prosperity. Burma lay off the beaten track and
her goods could be bought in Malacca. Her spices were few,
and her finished articles crude. But two places in Burma lay
near the track : Martaban and Tenasserim. These commanded
short cuts over the hills to Siam, saving a dangerous sea voyage.
Martaban sold the produce brought down the Salween and Irra.
waddy rivers, and in 1519 the Portuguese founded a trading
station there which lasted till 1613. T'enasserim”, which belonged
to Siam till 1760, commanded an even better overland route, and
the Portuguese had a settlement there till 1641. The Portuguese
imported European clothes and velvets, and exported rubies, lac,
wax, ivory, horn, lead, tin, Pegū jars (“Martabans'), and long
pepper, which grew in the moist forests of Tenasserim; they
exported also pepper from Achin, camphor from Borneo, and
porcelain and scented woods from China, brought by the junks
for sale in the Talaing ports. There was no coinage, but goods
.
were weighed against lumps of ganza, an alloy of lead and tin
which passed as currency. Nikitina, a Russian from Tver, who
travelled in the East about 1470, mentions Pegū as ‘no inconsider.
able port, inhabited principally by Indian dervishes. The products
derived from thence are sold by the dervishes,' which indicates
that then, as now, the merchant community was largely foreign.
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese in Asia ; Couto, Da Asia ; Whiteway,
Rise of the Portuguese Power in India.
2 Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam.
3 Major, India in the Fifteenth Century.
## p. 557 (#607) ############################################
XXI )
YOUNGOO
557
a
Pegū had peace between Razadarit's death in 1423 and the end
of the monarchy in 1539. The dynasty was mild. The kings could
indulge their peaceful proclivities because the Upper Burma hordes
found all the fighting they wanted among themselves, and the states
of Prome and Toungoo acted as a buffer. An Italian traveller in
1505 describes the reigning king, Binnyaran, as so gentle that a child
might speak to him, and as wearing so many jewels that at night he
shone like the sun!
It was the golden age of Pegū, and there can be
little doubt that its civilisation was higher than that of the savage
north. If few traces remain, that is because it was a simple
civilisation, the steaming climate of the Delta hastens decay, and
the Burmese conquerors touched nothing which they did not destroy.
(c) TOUNGOO 1280--1531.
In 1280 two brothers built a stockade round their viHage on
the hill-spur (taunggnu), and thus founded Toungoo ; the stockade
;
was probably a necessity against the ferocious slave-raiders of
Karenni. The Pāgān kingdom was then on its death-bed, and
Toungoo grew up without even such slight traditions of loyalty as
other towns possessed. In the next two centuries she was ruled by
twenty-eight chiefs, of whom fifteen perished by assassination.
Other places, notably Prome, were equally independent, but
Toungco differed in this, that she remained predominantly Burmese.
The Shāns made life so unbearable in Upper Burma that every now
and then crowds of Burmese families would flock south and setile
round Toungoo with its stronghold on the hill. The first migration
took place when Pyanchi (1368–77) was lord of Toungoo ; he joined
the chiefs of Āva and Pegü in making offerings at Pagān, and in an
inscription at the Shwezigon he and his lady record with natural
pride that they gave refuge to the Burmese who fled after the Shān
sack of Sagaing and Pyinya. These twain prayed that in their next
existence they might be man and wife together again, and dwell in
the land of Toungoo, and once more rule the people they loved
so well.
The lords of Toungoo styled themselves kings and had a golden
palace at Gyobinzeik village, with elephant stables, and even an
occasional white elephant. And indeed the little throne sometimes
descended from father to son. But as often as not they paid
1 Badger, The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, p. 219.
2 Tun Nyein, Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Āva, p. 149.
## p. 558 (#608) ############################################
558
BURMA A. D. 1287_1531
(CH. XXI
4
homage to Āva, and Āva sometimes sent her nominee to rule as
governor.
Toungoo was usually on good terms with Pegū, and when she
went raiding it was to the north, especially to Kyaukse. She always
looked longingly on that prosperous hollow, growing three crops a
year when she could grow only one, and the stronger she grew the
more she encroached there. Her greatest chief, Minkyinyo (1486–
1531), finally secured it when the chief of Āva gave him a daughter,
and, as her dowry, Kyaukse itself together with the country leading
up to it from Toungoo, such as the Yamethin villages Taungnyo,
Pyagaung (Kyidaunggan), Shwemyo, Kintha, Talaingthe and
Petpaing. He deported
He deported the population of these to fill the new town
Dwayawadi (Myogyi near Toungoo) which he founded. In 1510
he moved and founded the present Toungoo, digging the lake within
the walls and laying out orchards. When the Shāns finally took Āva
in 1527 he sallied forth and deliberately devastated the country in the
central zone, filling in the walls and breaking down the channels so
as to place an impassable belt between himself and the Shāns.
While he was doing this, the last great influx of Burmans came
fleeing from the Shān terror ; the lords of Pyinya in Sagaing district,
Myittha in Kyaukse, and Hlaingdet in Meiktila, with many a
Burmese family, noble and commoner, fled south to take refuge at
his feet. In delight he exclaimed: "Now I know why the bees
swarmed on the gate of Toungoo : it meant that my city would be
populous'; it meant more than that, although he did not realise
it - it meant that Toungoo would see the re-birth of the Burmese
race.
+
Chiengmal as well as Pegū recognised Minkyinyo as an in-
dependent chief, and he was so strong that Karenni sent him
propitiatory homage. He was a great fighter, and once, when
taking Kyaungbya (south-east of Toungoo) from the Talaings,
he killed its Shān governor by jumping on to his elephant and
cutting him down. He could trace his descent indirectly through
forbears of rank to the Pagān dynasty, and dying at the age of
seventy-two he bequeathed a great name of Tabinshwehti, his son
by the daughter of the headman of Penwegon, six miles north of
Toungoo.
## p. 559 (#609) ############################################
CHAPTER XXII
CEYLON A, D. 1215–1527
The successive raids from Southern India, described in volume II
of this history, which had thrown Ceylon into confusion during the
first twelve years of the thirteenth century, reached their climax in
the irruption of the wicked Kālingo prince Māgha, who, with an
army of Keralas of Malabaris, overran the country, destroying all
that lay in his way. He entered the capital, polonnaruva, took its
ruler, Parakkama pandu, captive, and despoiled the city of its
treasures. He then ascended the throne under the title of Kālinga
Vijaya-Bāhu, and ruled over the north central part of the Island
for twenty-one years (A. D. 1213 to 1234).
His domination was characterised by wanton cruelty, and the
Sinhalese chronicles give a heartrending account of the destruction
of sacred edifices, the expulsion of priests, and other outrages, ex-
tending even to the destruction of the literature of the Island,
While Māgha and his confederate, Jaya-Bāhu, were thus
oppressing the inhabitants of Polonnaruva and the neighbouring
districts, a few Sinhalese chieftains successfully defended the
religion and liberties of the people in the less accessible highlands.
At Subha-pabbata (now Yāpavu in the North-Western province)
was the military commander Subha-senāpati; at Gangādoni.
pabbata in the Manimekhalā district was Sankha, another military
commander; in Rohana (Southern Ceylon) Bhuvaneka-Bāhu bore
sway; and Prince Vijaya-Bāhu, leading a Sinhalese army from
the Vanni district, drove the Tamils from the Māyā, or central
region of the Island, and, having built for himself a stronghold at
Jambudoni (Dambadeniya), reigned there, contemporaneously with
Māgha, for four years, from about A. D. 1227 to 1231. His chief work
was the restoration of the Buddhist church, the recovery of such
literature as remained, and the revival of letters. He invited to his
capital Vāchissara', and all other learned Buddhist monks who had
fled from the tyranny of Māgha, brought the Tooth and Bowl
relics of the Buddha from Kotmale, where they had been hidden,
to his capital, and afterwards enshrined them with great ceremony
1See Mv. Ixxxi, 18, B. M. Cat. of Sinh. Mss. , pp. xvi, xvii, and Katikāvat.
sangarā, p. 8.
## p. 560 (#610) ############################################
560
[cit.
CEYLON A D. 1215—1527
on the top of the Beligala Rock. He convened a Council of Elders
consisting of the well-known author Saingha-rakkhita, the
Theras named Medhankara, and other representatives of Buddhist
fraternities, who sat in his own temple, Vijayārāma, and, aſter
rehearsing the Buddhist canon, issued an ecclesiastical rescript
(Katikāvata) for the
the guidance
guidance of the clergy. He also caused
copies of important Buddhist works to be made, to replenish the
temple libraries rifled by the invaders.
Vijaya-Bāhu III had one daughter and two sons, Parakkama-
Bāhu and Bhuvaneka-Bāhu. The first son under the tutorship of
the renowned Sangha-rakkhita Thera, made such progress in learn-
ing that he received the title Kalikāla Sähichcha Sabbanna Pandita
('the Omniscient Pandit of the Kaliyuga epoch of Literature').
He succeeded his father on the throne at Dambadeniya as
Parakkama-Bāhu II, probably in A D. 1231, while the usurpers
Māgha and Jaya-Bāhu were ruling over pihiti-rata at Polonnaruva.
As soon as he ascended the throne he set hiinself to restore order
in the kingdom. He appointed his younger brother, Bhuvaneka-
nu, to the office of sub-king, and held a great festival in honour
of the Tooth-relic. He then led a large army against the strong.
holds of the invaders and in the course of about three years
succeeded in expelling them from Ceylon. With his nephew, Vira-
Bāhu, he repulsed a raid led by Chandrabhānu, a Jāvaka, of Malay
chieſtain, and, as soon as peace and order were restored to the
land, turned his attention to the purification of the Buddhist
church. He held a convocation of elders, and the canon
rehearsed, sinful priests were excommunicated, and a new rescript
or Katikāvala was issued for the use of the clergy. He gave every
encouragement to art and learning, and it appears from the glowing
accounts of him in the Dambadeni asna and the Räjaratnākara
that his own accomplishments were many. His Visuddhi-magga-
sannaya
and Vinaya-vinichchhaya-sannaya (Sinh. Vanavinisa-
sanne) which he entitled Nissandeha
entitled Nissandeha are remarkable for their
comprehensiveness, and his Kavsilumina is a masterpiece of
Sinhalese poetry, which has furnished the author of the Sinhalese
grammar, Sidatsangarā, with an exemple establishing the existence
in the Sinhalese language of the semi-nasal sannaka. His just rule
and the facilities for study afforded by him, by Devapratirājā, his
chief minister, and by his other ministers, resulted in the produc-
tion of many important works. Dhammakitti Thera continued the
compilation of the Mahāvamsa, under the title Chūlavamsa, from
the date on which Mahānāma had relinquished it to the end of the
was
## p. 561 (#611) ############################################
XXit)
PARAKKAMA BĂHU II
561
reign of Parakkama-Bāhu I (A. D. 1153—86), and was probably pre-
vented only by death, or by political disorders, from continuing
the chronicle to his own times (A. D. 1235—65). Among other con-
temporary writers may be mentioned Mayūrapāda Thera, the
author of the well-known Pūjāvaliya, and of a medical work
named Yogārniva, both in Sinhalese prose.
Parakkama-Bāhu II had five sons, (1) Vijaya-Bāhu, (2) Bhu-
vaneka-Bāhu (3) Tiloka-Malla, (4) Parakkama-Bāhu, and (5) Jaya-
Bāhu, called Siri Vijaya-Bāhu in the Rājāvaliya, and the nephew,
Vira-Bāhu, mentioned above. They were all skilful and experienced
soldiers, and the eldest, Vijaya-Bāhu, was entrusted with the
government of the country while his royal father was devoting his
time to literature.
This prince was a master of strategy and a great organiser. He
placed his two youngest brothers, Parakkama-Bāhu and Jaya-
Bāhu, with their father, sent Tiloka-Malla to command the
Sinhalese army of the south, and placed Bhuvaneka-Bāhu in the
fortress of Sundara Pabbata (Yāpavu) in order that he might
defend the northern district of the Island. He himself, with his
cousin Vira-Bāhu, journeyed through the length and breadth of
the country, put down evil-doers, and freed the Island of enemies.
among those whom they vanquished being Chandrabhānu, who was
making a second attempt to gain the sovereignty of Ceylon. After
visiting many places of importance, including Vāta. giri, Adam's
Peak, Gampola, Kurunagala, and Yāpavu, and restoring peace
and prosperity to all, they remained for a time in Anurādhapura,
where they restored the sacred buildings. They conciliated the
Vanni princes, and went on to Polonnaruva, which they com-
pletely restored. Vijaya-Bāhu then invited his father from Dam.
badeniya to Polonnaruva, and in 1779 A. B (A. D. 123. 5) held in great
splendour the second coronation festival, a record of which is
contained in the Atlanagaluvamsa, and in the Mahāvamsa
(1xxxix, 10). The Pūjāvaliya which is a contemporary work,
gives the duration of Parakkama-Bāhu's reign as thirty-three
years, while the Mahāvamsa gives it as thirty-five. According to
the Nikāyasangraha and the Rājaratnākara he appears to have
died in 1809 A. B. (A. D. 1265).
His eldest son, Vijaya-Bāhu IV, also known as Bosat Vijaya.
Bāhu, then ascended the throne at Dambadeniya, but had reigned
for barely two years (A. D. 1266–68) when he was slain at the
instigation of an officer named Mitta, who attempted to usurp the
throne, but was put to death by the troops, who placed the murdered
C. H. I. III.
36
## p. 562 (#612) ############################################
$62
(CH.
CEYLON A. D.
1215- 1527
king's brother, Bhuvaneka-Bāhu I of Yāpavu on the throne of
Dambadeniya. He ruled for about eleven years (A. D. 1268-79), and
was sedulous in promoting the interests of the Buddhist church.
Shortly after his death Ceylon was visited by a famine. Āryachakra-
varti, who was then reigning in Jaffna, invaded the country, and
succeeded in carrying away from Yāpavu the Tooth-relic, which he
delivered to his king, Kulacekhara, who has been identified with
tho Pāndyan king, Māravarman Tribhuvana-chakravartin Kula.
cekhara-deva (c. 1268—1308). For nearly a year after this incident
the land was in confusion, until Parakkama-Bāhu III, a son of
Vijaya-Bāhu IV, assumed sovereignty at Polonnaruva. He made
peace with Kulacekhara, and recovered the Tooth-relic, which he
afterwards deposited in a temple at Polonnaruva. He seems to have
reigned for about seven years (A. D. 1281-88) before Bhuvaneka-
Bāhu II, son of Bhuvaneka-Bāhu I, deposed him and reigned for
two years at Kurunagala. According to the Daladāsirita these
two kings reigned contemporaneously at their respective capitals
until the latter, for some reason or other, deposed the former, and
brought the Tooth-relic from Polonnaruva to Kurunagala.
Parakkama-Bāhu IV, called also Pandita Parakkama-Bāhu II
(c. A. D. 1291 --- 1326), son of the preceding king, then ascended the
throne at Kurunagala. The duration of his reign is not given in
any known historical work, but it may be gathered from the colo-
phon to the Daladāsirita that he was reiging in A. D. 1325 (Saka
1246 expired 1869 A. B. ), and in the inscription at Kitsirimevan-
Kalani-Vihāra it is stated that Vilgammüla Mahāthera, who trans-
lated the Bodhivamsa into Sinhalese at the request of this king,
was in A. B. 1876 (A. D. 1322, seven years after the compilation of the
Daladāsirila) still holding the position of Māhimi. The king's
death seems to have taken place between A. D. 1325 and 1332,
probably in 1326, after a reign of thirty-five years. He was a patron
of learning, and during his reign many religious and historical
works were composed. To the king himself is ascribed the author-
ship of the Sinhalese Jātaka book? , a monumental work, and
the Daladāsirita? . The second section of the Chūlavamsa, from
Vijaya-Bāhu II to Parakkama- Bāhu IV (A. D. 1186–1326), also was
probably compiled during this period.
Oſ the next two kings, Bhuvaneka-Bāhu III, called also Vanni
Bhuvaneka-Bāhu, and Vijaya-Bāhu V, called in the Mahāvamsa
1 See Madras Epigraphy, Report for 1907, p. 70, and Hultzsch, J. R. A. S. , 1913,
p. 531.
2 Mv. xc,
83.
3 My, xc, 79.
## p. 563 (#613) ############################################
xxii)
BHUVANEK A-BAHU V
563
Jaya-Bāhu, and in Sinhalese works Savulu Vijaya-Bāhu, hardly
anything is known. They seem to have reigned in Kurunagala for
about twenty years, one after the other, from A. D. 1326 to 1346.
Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV then ascended the throne. His capital was
Gangācripura (Gampola). The Lankātilaka inscription (British
Museum copy) of this king's minister, Senālankādhikāra, gives Saka
1264 (A. D. 1342) as the date of his accession, but according to the
Mahāvamsa and other historical works he succeeded in A. B. 1890
(A. D. 1346). The difference of four years may be explained by
assuming that the first was the year of his accession to the rank of
sub-king, and the second that of his assumption of sovereign power.
The Vāgiri-devāle inscription is dated in the tenth regnal year, so
that Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV must have reigned for at least ten years,
four years (1342—46) as Apā, and six years (1346—52) as king.
The next king was Parakkama-Bāhu V, called in Sinhalese
Savulu Parakum-raja, probably a son of Vijaya-Bāhu V. From
inscriptions and other sources it appears that he ruled at Gampola
and Dadigama for at least eleven years— four years (1348—52) as
Apā, and seven years (1352-59) as king. He was succeeded at
Gampola by his nephew, Vikkama-Bāhu III, who reigned, according
to inscriptions, for about eighteen years. He was sub-king for about
three years (A. D. 1356—59), and paramount sovereign for fifteen years
(1359-74). During his reign Niccanka Alagakkonāra of Amaragiri,
otherwise called Alakecvara, an intrepid warrior of the Girivamsa
lineage', who was allied by marriage to Senālankādhikāra Senevirat,
a minister of Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV, came into prominence, rose to
the rank of minister and Prabhu-rāja, and dwelt in Perādeniya. With
a view to checking the ever-growing domination of the Tamils
under their ruler, Ārya Chakravarti of Jaffna, he prepared for war,
and built strong fortresses at Rayigama, and Kõtte, near Colombo.
In 1912 A. B. (A. D. 1368-69) he summoned a convocation of Buddhist
priests under the presidency of the Elder Dhammakitti I, and inau-
gurated reforms in religion. Towards the end of Vikkama-Bāhu's reign
Alakecvara reviewed his army and, finding himself strong enough to
cope with the Tamil king, defied him by hanging his tax-collectors.
Ārya Chakravarti replied by sending his army in two divisions, one
by land and the other by sea, against the Sinhalese. Bhuvaneka-Bāhu
V, who had succeeded Vikkama-Bāhu III on the throne of Gampola,
was struck with panic, fled from Gampola, and took refuge in the
fortress of Rayigama. In the battles which ensued Arya Chakravarti's
i For a fuller account see Perera's contribution to the 3. C. B. R. A. S. , 1904.
>
.
4
## p. 549 (#599) ############################################
XXI )
BURMESE LITERATURE
549
Away from the track of the chiefs and their rabble, people were
probably happy enough, and in many a monastery life must have
been calın and beautiful. As is usual in secluded countries, Bur-
mese literature is narrow in range and, though quite voluminous
according to mediaeval standards, small in quantity. It shows litile
development and no improvement has been made on the earliest
poets. The prose consists largely of translations and paraphrases
from scripture stories. The verse is more original and includes
minor poetry of a high order but the condensation of its style and
the obscurity of its dialect militate against its having a wide appeal.
The usually accepted view, that the following are the first vernacular
writers, is probably correct, but the finish of their style indicates
that the vernacular had been practised for some generations pre-
viously. The earliest writers are three monks, Shin Uttamagyaw,
Shin Thilawuntha, and Shin Maharattathara. Shin Uttamagyaw,
the author of Tawla, a celebrated poem, was a valued councellor
in the Ava palace. He was born on the same day as Shin Thilaw-
Āva
untha (1453—1520) and together they entered a monastery school
at Taungdwingyi, Magwe district. Shin Thilawuntha was expelled
for writing Paramiganpyo, as the monk considered poetry sinſul ;
he continued writing in a fine monastery built for him at Āva
by the chief, Minhkaung (1401—22); Yazawing gaw, the earliest
chronicle extant, is his ; it is a disappointing work, for instead
of recording what went on round him-it would have been an
invaluable picture-he merely reproduced scriptural traditions.
Shin Maharattathara (1468-1529), a descendant of the Thihathu,
the Shān Brother, wrote, Koganpyo and other poems. Probably
it is in this period that Yaweshinhtwe lived ; she was a maid of
honour and wrote verse on the 55 styles of hairdressing used by
maids of honour in the Āva palace, styles some of which are still
in popular use.
Thihathura was succeeded by his son Minhkaung (1481—1502),
who, hearing that Bimbisara, the king of Buddha's period, had
raised his son to the throne as joint king, decided to follow the
precedent, gave his son the white umbrella, and shared the throne
with him. He was continually attacked by Hanthawaddy and
Prome in the south, and by the Shāns above Shwebo in the north.
When his vassal of Toungoo was assassinated, he recognised the
assassin as king, sending him the white umbrella, an act which
the 1829 chroniclers cite as an instance of statesmanship.
He was succeeded by his younger son Shwenankyawshin (1502-
1 Hmannan, Vol. ii, pp. 127, 185,
## p. 550 (#600) ############################################
550
[CH
BURMA A. D. 1287 - 1531
27), as the elder son, the joint king, had died. Shwenankyawshin
already had a wife whose sister was consort to the dead joint king;
yet now, on coming to the throne, it was not his own wife, but the
joint king's widow, who became his chief queen, as she was already
part of the regalia. His life was attempted by kinsmen who fled to
Toungoo. He thereupon gave his daughter in marriage to Minkyinyo
of Toungoo with the villages from Kyaukse to Toungoo as dowry;
he was giving his daughter to the harbourer of his assassins, and in
giving away the rice area of Kyaukse he was giving away his crown.
But he could not help himself-Prome and Salin were in revolt,
Mohnyin was attacking the Shwebo border, and his own brothers
were in the field against him. In 1527 Mohnyin encamped under
the walls of Āva, the Shāns in the Āva garrison deserted to him,
and Shwenankyawshin fell fighting on his elephant. The population
fled in large numbers to Toungoo.
Mohnyin set up his son Thohanbwa (1527–43) as king in Āva.
Thohanbwa said: 'Burmese pagodas have nothing to do with religion.
They are simply treasure chambers,' and proceeded to plunder such
as were in reach. Probably, as in 1756 and 1885, the monks led the
people in resistance; he said: 'Monks surround themselves with
followers and could rebel if they liked. They ought to be killed'; in
1540 at Taungbalu, just outside Āva, he covered a field with huts,
slaughtered buffaloes, cows, pigs and fowls and invited the monks
to feast. When they were all in the huts, he surrounded them with
his braves and massacred them to the number of 360. The survivors
fled to Toungoo. He then seized the manuscripts in the monasteries
and made bonfires of them. Finally he was assassinated by one
of his Burmese ministers who thereupon, though of royal blood,
retired into a monastery rather than take the throne.
It therefore passed to Hsipaw, who ruled as Hkonmaing (1543 - 46).
He joined six other sawbwas in the attack on Prome and was suc-
ceeded by his son Mobye Narapati (1546-52), who, weary of attacks
from Mohnyin, fled to Bayinmaung, leaving Āva to its last sawbwa,
Sithukyawhtin (1552—55), a nominee of Mohnyin.
Indeed for two and a half centuries the ruler of Āva had been
sawbwa in all but name ; yet there was this difference between
Āva and the other Shān states, that whereas they were so wild as
to leave not even a record, the tradition of the Burmese palace
gave
Āva a veener of civilisation, and her numerous monasteries
contained monks who, if not learned, were at least literate; and to
them it is due that though the lamp of civilisation flickered and
burnt low, it never went out;
## p. 551 (#601) ############################################
XXI ]
PEGO
551
(b) Pegu 1287-1539.
Wareru (1287-96), a Shān pedlar born at Donwun in the Thaton
district, took service in the elephant stables of the chief of Sukhotai,
became Captain of the Guard, eloped with the chief's daughter and
set up as lord of his native village.
He had a fair sister, and Aleimma, the Burmese governor of
Martaban, wished to marry her. Wareru prepared a wedding feast
and when Aleimma came to get his bride, Wareru assassinated him,
seized his governorship, and so became lord of Martaban in 1281.
When he built its walls in 1287, a pregnant woman
was crushed
under the gate post as a foundation sacrifice.
The Pagān kingdom was now breaking up, and Wareru made
common cause with Tarabya, the revolting governor of Pegū, each
marrying the other's daughter. But in 1287, after they had expelled
the Burmese governors and occupied the country south of Prome
and Toungoo, Tarabya tried to ambush Wareru. He failed. Wareru,
calling the spirits of earth and air to witness his innocence, and
pouring libations of water from a golden bowl, mounted his elephant,
fought with Tarabya in single combat, and took him prisoner. At
the intercession of the monks he spared his life. Tarabya again
plotted, but his wife warned her father Wareru in time. So Tarabya
was executed, although she twined her tresses with his and dared the
executioners to cut off his head.
Wareru now became sole prince of the Talaing state in Lower
Burma which lasted till 1539. In 1298 it received recognition from
China, which henceforth chose to regard its rulers as governors
appointed by herself. Its capital was Martaban till 1369, when a
palace was set up at Pegū.
Wareru received recognition from his old master and father-in-
law, the chief of Sukhotai, who in 1293 sent him a white elephant
because it chose to eat Martaban grass ; no sooner did they hear
of its arrival than the Shān Brothers of Kyaukse came raiding
Martaban to get it, but were driven off.
To Wareru we owe the earliest law book in Burma that now
survives. The Hindu colonists who came to the Delta a thousand
years before had brought with them traditional laws ascribed to
the ancient sage Manu; these law books were handed down in
the Talaing monasteries, and Wareru commissioned his monks
1 Paklat Talaing chronicle.
2 Razadarit Ayedawpon. The practice survived in Burma till a century ago ;
sec History of Burma, p. 320.
3 Halliday, The Talaings.
## p. 552 (#602) ############################################
552
(CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
to produce the standard collection called after him, the Wareru
dhammathat. It forms the basis of Burmese law literature? .
The Siamese kingdom, founded in 1350, included in its list of
provinces Tenasserim, Moulmein and Martaban ; it certainly held
Tenasserim, founding the town in 1373, and building the Wutshin-
taung pagoda there in 1380; but it did not hold Moulmein save
through some nominal tribute-offering, and Pegū held the country
down to Tavoy. There was little established government. If it was
not dacoits it was royal kinsmen who revolted, and sometimes bands
of Shān immigrants from Siam would add to the disorder.
Binnya U (1353-85) repaired the Shwedāgon pagoda, raising its
height to 66 feet. He repelled raiders from Chiengmai who destroyed
several towns in Thaton district; on the site of his victory he built
a pagoda, enshrining relics obtained by sending a mission to Ceylon.
But his white elephant died, after being 61 years in the palace, and
while he was devoutly searching the forests for a successor, his kins-
men seized the palace and invited the Chiengmai chief to join them.
For six years he maintained himself at Donwun, and then, being
driven out, he moved to Pegū and repaired its walls.
His eldest son Razadarit (1385–1423) was the greatest of Wareru's
lineage. Fighting for his existence since the age of sixteen, with but
little assistance from his father, who could not control the family
feuds, Razadarit succeeded in seizing Pegū town soon after his
father's death, subjected Bassein, and repelled successive Burmese
invasions. Finally, in 1390, he captured Myaungmya with Laukpya
inside ; in thank-offering he built shrines at the Shwemawdaw
pagoda, Pegū feeding a thousand monks throughout a seven days'
festival and offering his weight in gold.
Hearing that his son Bawlawykantaw was practising horseman-
ship and sharpening his elephant's tusks, Razadarit feared he was
about to rebel, and sent two lords to slay him. They announced
their duty to the lad, who replied : 'I do but follow the custom of
young princes in manly exercise. I do not plot against my father
and there is no fault in me. Give me time to prepare for death. '
They gave him time, and for three days at the Shwemawdaw pagoda
he listened to the reading of Abidhamma, the holy scriptures.
When it was finished, he offered his ruby bracelets and earrings to
the pagoda, and thus he prayed : 'If I have wished ill to my father,
:
1 Forchammer, Jardine Prize Essay on Burmese Law.
2 Pallegoix, Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam, Vol. ii, p. 75.
3 For the eult of the white elephant, see Harvey, History af Burma, pp. 274, 361.
## p. 553 (#603) ############################################
XXI )
RAZADARIT
553
on my
yea though it be a little, then may I lie in Hell' for ever, and never
behold the coming Buddha. But if I have not wished ill to my
father, then may I be born again among the kings of Burma and
be the scourge of the Talaings. ' Then he took the poison that had
been prepared, and drank it and died.
When this was reported to Razadarit, he said : 'It was a terrible
prayer,' and. gilding the pagoda from top to bottom, he prayed : 'If
he become a prince in Burma and make war on me, may I
elephant vanquish him. '
During the war that followed, though he ultimately repulsed
them, the Burmese sometimes left Razadarit in possession of little
but Pegū town itself. In 1414 he gained a brief respite by stirring
up Hsenwi to attack Āva, but was himself never free from the fear
of Shān inroads, as on several occasions when he was hard pressed
from the north the princes of Ayuthia, Kampengpet and Chiengmai
would raid him from the south.
He built the Danok pagoda near Twante, and to him is ascribed
the traditional division of each of the Three Lands of the Talaings'
(Pegū, Myaungmya, Bassein) into 32 'provinces,' i. e. village circles.
He was of great strength and personal courage, and several
times killed his man in single combat. The chief of Āva never
dared accept his challenge and meet him hand to hand.
When the news of Minhkaung's death in 1422 reached Pegū,
the queens jeered, saying to Razadarit : 'Now you can pounce
down on his palace and capture all his women. ' But he rebuked
them, saying: 'My sweet enemy is dead. It will fight no more, but
spend my declining years in piety. ?
A year later, at the age of fifty-four, while snaring elephants
with his own hand in the Labut-tha-lut forest at the foot of the
Pegū Yomas, north of Pegū, he was caught in the rope and
injured so that he died on the way home. His queens came out
to meet the body and buried it at Kamathameinpaik (Minkanyo);
near Payagyi, north of Pegū. He has a chronicle all to himself,
the Razadarit Ayedawpon, which ends with the word : ' This Lion
King, so wise, so generous, so mighty in word and deed, could
overcome all his enemies, but he too at the last must bow before
King Death. '
Binnyakyan (1450-53) raised the height of the Shwedāgon
pagoda to 302 feet. At his death, as a result of palace massacres,
there was no male of the family left alive. The throne then passed
by general consent to Razadarit's daughter Shinsawbu (1453-72).
Village headmanships have been known tº descend in the female
## p. 554 (#604) ############################################
554
[ CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
line? , and · Shān hill states have been held by chieftainesses, but
this is the only instance of a major state in Burma being held by
a woman. Daughter, sister, wife and mother of kings, she ruled
well, leaving behind so gracious a memory on earth that four
hundred years later the Talaings could think of no fairer thing
to say of Queen Victoria than to call her Shinsawbu re-incarnate.
Once, while being carried round the city in her great palanquin,
sword in hand and crown on head, she heard an old man exclaim,
as her retinue pushed him aside, 'I must get out of the way, must I ?
You call ine an old fool, do you? I am not so old that I could not
get a child, which is more than your old queen could do! Thunder-
struck at such irreverence, she meekly accepted it as a sign from
heaven, and thereafter styled herself 'The Old Queen? '
When young she had been given in marriage to the then chief
of Āva and two Talaing monks had gone there to teach her letters.
As she was not happy in a Burmese palace, she ran away, and fled
down the river to Pegū. Her flight was successful because the
two monks helped her, and, by benefit of clergy, a boat carrying
monks could not be challenged. She admired the two monks
beyond all other men, and when, after being queen of Pegū seven
years, she wished to retire, it was one of them that she chose as
successor. But she did not know which to choose. Therefore one
day, when they entered the palace as usual to receive the royal
rice in thein alms bowls, she secretly put into one of the bowls not
rice but a layman's dress, together with little models of the five
regalia; then, having prayed that the lot might fall on the worthier,
she returned the bowls. Dammazedi, to whom the fateful bowl
fell, abandoned the Order, received her daughter in marriage, and
assumed the government. The other in his disappointment took
to plotting, and was executed. The ambitious lords also objected,
but in the end became reconciled to Dammazedi because of his
wisdom and justice; and when some of them continued to murmur
that he was not of royal blood, she took a beam out of a bridge in
the city and had it made into a Buddha image, and said : ‘Ye say
he is of common blood, he cannot be your king. See here this
common wood-yesterday it was trodden in the dust of your feet,
but to-day, is it not Lord and do ye not bow before it ? '
Shinsawbu spent the remaining years of her life in retirement
at the Shwedāgon. Successive princes had added to the original
.
1 Furnivall, ‘Matriarchy in Burma' in Journal of the Burma Research Society, 1912.
2 Thatonhnwemun Yazawin.
3 Sayadaw Athwa, Vol. ii, p. 131,
## p. 555 (#605) ############################################
XXI)
REVIVAL OF RELIGION
555
set up
structure, and she made it practically what we see to-day. Round
it she banked up the terrace fifty feet high, nine hundred feet
wide, with a great stone balustrade and encircling walls, between
which she planted palm trees ; she kept forty-four people con-
tinually tending the sacred lamps, dedicated five hundred prisoners
of war as slaves, and offered her own weight (91 lb. ) in gold for
gilding the dome. When, at the age of seventy. eight, she felt her
end approaching, she had her bed placed where her eyes could rest
on that wondrous spire, and thus she breathed her last.
Dammazedi (1472—92) gave four times the weight of himself
and his queen in gold to the Shwedāgon as compensation for re-
voking some of its lands, which Shinsawbu had extended to Danok.
At Pegū he built the Shwekugyi and Kyaikpon pagodas, and west
of the Shwemawdaw he built a new stockaded town, and
his palace and elephant stable there. The masonry of his reign
is excellent, and a mass of pious edifices sprang up on the beautiful
plateau between the old and the new town, men vying with each in
works of merit, for it was an age of religious revival.
Dammazedi himself sent a mission to Buddhagaya? in Bengal
to take plans of the Holy Tree and of the temple as models for his
buildings at Pegū. But his most important work was his mission
of twenty-two monks to Ceylon' in 1475. It was a long and
a
dangerous journey, and several died in shipwreck or during their
wanderings when cast away on the coast of Madras. To the Tooth,
the Footprint, and the Holy Trees, at Kandy, they presented a
stone alms bowl studded with sapphires, and reliquaries of gold
and crystal ; to the Cingalese monks, cloths and Chiengmai lacquer
boxes; to the king of Ceylon, rubies, sapphires, Chinese silks, fine
mats, and a letter on gold leaf. Their object was to secure valid
ordination from the clergy of the Mahāvihāra, the great monastery
in Ceylon which, founded in 251 B. C. still exists. On their return
they proceeded to transmit this ordination to the clergy throughout
Lower Burma : it was so generally accepted as valid that monks
flocked to receive it from all over Burma and even from Siam ;
and thus religion in Burma, which for three centuries had been
split into sects each with its own ordination, received a measure
of unity from the standard Kalyāni ordination. It was and is
1 Halliday, 'Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron' in Journal of the Burma Research
Society, 1923; Forchammer, ‘Notes on Early History and Geography. '
2 Shwemawdaw Thamaing.
Report of the Supt. Archaeological Survey, Burma, 1914, p. 11.
4 Taw Sein Ko, ‘Kalyāni Inscriptions' in Indian Antiquary, 1893, 1894,
3
## p. 556 (#606) ############################################
556
(ch.
BURMA A. D.
1287-1531
granted at the Kalyāni thein (ordination hall) near Pegū, so called
because the original monks were ordained on the banks of the
Kalyāni stream in Ceylon. Dammazedi recorded these events on
ten inscribed stones at the thein, called the Kalyāni Inscriptions.
One of the principal monks in the mission was Buddhaghosa,
who translated the wareru dhammathat into Bur. nese; later gene.
rations confused him with his namesake, the Father of the Church
who lived a thousand years previously. Dammazedi himself was a
wise judge, and a collection of his rulings survives, the Dammızedi
pyatton. He died at the age of eighty and was succeeded by his
son Binnyaran.
Binnyaran (1492–1526) was beloved for his kindness, although,
like others before and after, he enforced the Massacre of the Kins-
men, making a clean sweep of all his brothers. His son Takayutpi
(1526—39) was the last king of Pegū.
Soon after 1500 the opening of the sea routes brought the
Talaings great prosperity. Burma lay off the beaten track and
her goods could be bought in Malacca. Her spices were few,
and her finished articles crude. But two places in Burma lay
near the track : Martaban and Tenasserim. These commanded
short cuts over the hills to Siam, saving a dangerous sea voyage.
Martaban sold the produce brought down the Salween and Irra.
waddy rivers, and in 1519 the Portuguese founded a trading
station there which lasted till 1613. T'enasserim”, which belonged
to Siam till 1760, commanded an even better overland route, and
the Portuguese had a settlement there till 1641. The Portuguese
imported European clothes and velvets, and exported rubies, lac,
wax, ivory, horn, lead, tin, Pegū jars (“Martabans'), and long
pepper, which grew in the moist forests of Tenasserim; they
exported also pepper from Achin, camphor from Borneo, and
porcelain and scented woods from China, brought by the junks
for sale in the Talaing ports. There was no coinage, but goods
.
were weighed against lumps of ganza, an alloy of lead and tin
which passed as currency. Nikitina, a Russian from Tver, who
travelled in the East about 1470, mentions Pegū as ‘no inconsider.
able port, inhabited principally by Indian dervishes. The products
derived from thence are sold by the dervishes,' which indicates
that then, as now, the merchant community was largely foreign.
1 Faria y Sousa (Stevens), The Portuguese in Asia ; Couto, Da Asia ; Whiteway,
Rise of the Portuguese Power in India.
2 Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam.
3 Major, India in the Fifteenth Century.
## p. 557 (#607) ############################################
XXI )
YOUNGOO
557
a
Pegū had peace between Razadarit's death in 1423 and the end
of the monarchy in 1539. The dynasty was mild. The kings could
indulge their peaceful proclivities because the Upper Burma hordes
found all the fighting they wanted among themselves, and the states
of Prome and Toungoo acted as a buffer. An Italian traveller in
1505 describes the reigning king, Binnyaran, as so gentle that a child
might speak to him, and as wearing so many jewels that at night he
shone like the sun!
It was the golden age of Pegū, and there can be
little doubt that its civilisation was higher than that of the savage
north. If few traces remain, that is because it was a simple
civilisation, the steaming climate of the Delta hastens decay, and
the Burmese conquerors touched nothing which they did not destroy.
(c) TOUNGOO 1280--1531.
In 1280 two brothers built a stockade round their viHage on
the hill-spur (taunggnu), and thus founded Toungoo ; the stockade
;
was probably a necessity against the ferocious slave-raiders of
Karenni. The Pāgān kingdom was then on its death-bed, and
Toungoo grew up without even such slight traditions of loyalty as
other towns possessed. In the next two centuries she was ruled by
twenty-eight chiefs, of whom fifteen perished by assassination.
Other places, notably Prome, were equally independent, but
Toungco differed in this, that she remained predominantly Burmese.
The Shāns made life so unbearable in Upper Burma that every now
and then crowds of Burmese families would flock south and setile
round Toungoo with its stronghold on the hill. The first migration
took place when Pyanchi (1368–77) was lord of Toungoo ; he joined
the chiefs of Āva and Pegü in making offerings at Pagān, and in an
inscription at the Shwezigon he and his lady record with natural
pride that they gave refuge to the Burmese who fled after the Shān
sack of Sagaing and Pyinya. These twain prayed that in their next
existence they might be man and wife together again, and dwell in
the land of Toungoo, and once more rule the people they loved
so well.
The lords of Toungoo styled themselves kings and had a golden
palace at Gyobinzeik village, with elephant stables, and even an
occasional white elephant. And indeed the little throne sometimes
descended from father to son. But as often as not they paid
1 Badger, The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, p. 219.
2 Tun Nyein, Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Āva, p. 149.
## p. 558 (#608) ############################################
558
BURMA A. D. 1287_1531
(CH. XXI
4
homage to Āva, and Āva sometimes sent her nominee to rule as
governor.
Toungoo was usually on good terms with Pegū, and when she
went raiding it was to the north, especially to Kyaukse. She always
looked longingly on that prosperous hollow, growing three crops a
year when she could grow only one, and the stronger she grew the
more she encroached there. Her greatest chief, Minkyinyo (1486–
1531), finally secured it when the chief of Āva gave him a daughter,
and, as her dowry, Kyaukse itself together with the country leading
up to it from Toungoo, such as the Yamethin villages Taungnyo,
Pyagaung (Kyidaunggan), Shwemyo, Kintha, Talaingthe and
Petpaing. He deported
He deported the population of these to fill the new town
Dwayawadi (Myogyi near Toungoo) which he founded. In 1510
he moved and founded the present Toungoo, digging the lake within
the walls and laying out orchards. When the Shāns finally took Āva
in 1527 he sallied forth and deliberately devastated the country in the
central zone, filling in the walls and breaking down the channels so
as to place an impassable belt between himself and the Shāns.
While he was doing this, the last great influx of Burmans came
fleeing from the Shān terror ; the lords of Pyinya in Sagaing district,
Myittha in Kyaukse, and Hlaingdet in Meiktila, with many a
Burmese family, noble and commoner, fled south to take refuge at
his feet. In delight he exclaimed: "Now I know why the bees
swarmed on the gate of Toungoo : it meant that my city would be
populous'; it meant more than that, although he did not realise
it - it meant that Toungoo would see the re-birth of the Burmese
race.
+
Chiengmal as well as Pegū recognised Minkyinyo as an in-
dependent chief, and he was so strong that Karenni sent him
propitiatory homage. He was a great fighter, and once, when
taking Kyaungbya (south-east of Toungoo) from the Talaings,
he killed its Shān governor by jumping on to his elephant and
cutting him down. He could trace his descent indirectly through
forbears of rank to the Pagān dynasty, and dying at the age of
seventy-two he bequeathed a great name of Tabinshwehti, his son
by the daughter of the headman of Penwegon, six miles north of
Toungoo.
## p. 559 (#609) ############################################
CHAPTER XXII
CEYLON A, D. 1215–1527
The successive raids from Southern India, described in volume II
of this history, which had thrown Ceylon into confusion during the
first twelve years of the thirteenth century, reached their climax in
the irruption of the wicked Kālingo prince Māgha, who, with an
army of Keralas of Malabaris, overran the country, destroying all
that lay in his way. He entered the capital, polonnaruva, took its
ruler, Parakkama pandu, captive, and despoiled the city of its
treasures. He then ascended the throne under the title of Kālinga
Vijaya-Bāhu, and ruled over the north central part of the Island
for twenty-one years (A. D. 1213 to 1234).
His domination was characterised by wanton cruelty, and the
Sinhalese chronicles give a heartrending account of the destruction
of sacred edifices, the expulsion of priests, and other outrages, ex-
tending even to the destruction of the literature of the Island,
While Māgha and his confederate, Jaya-Bāhu, were thus
oppressing the inhabitants of Polonnaruva and the neighbouring
districts, a few Sinhalese chieftains successfully defended the
religion and liberties of the people in the less accessible highlands.
At Subha-pabbata (now Yāpavu in the North-Western province)
was the military commander Subha-senāpati; at Gangādoni.
pabbata in the Manimekhalā district was Sankha, another military
commander; in Rohana (Southern Ceylon) Bhuvaneka-Bāhu bore
sway; and Prince Vijaya-Bāhu, leading a Sinhalese army from
the Vanni district, drove the Tamils from the Māyā, or central
region of the Island, and, having built for himself a stronghold at
Jambudoni (Dambadeniya), reigned there, contemporaneously with
Māgha, for four years, from about A. D. 1227 to 1231. His chief work
was the restoration of the Buddhist church, the recovery of such
literature as remained, and the revival of letters. He invited to his
capital Vāchissara', and all other learned Buddhist monks who had
fled from the tyranny of Māgha, brought the Tooth and Bowl
relics of the Buddha from Kotmale, where they had been hidden,
to his capital, and afterwards enshrined them with great ceremony
1See Mv. Ixxxi, 18, B. M. Cat. of Sinh. Mss. , pp. xvi, xvii, and Katikāvat.
sangarā, p. 8.
## p. 560 (#610) ############################################
560
[cit.
CEYLON A D. 1215—1527
on the top of the Beligala Rock. He convened a Council of Elders
consisting of the well-known author Saingha-rakkhita, the
Theras named Medhankara, and other representatives of Buddhist
fraternities, who sat in his own temple, Vijayārāma, and, aſter
rehearsing the Buddhist canon, issued an ecclesiastical rescript
(Katikāvata) for the
the guidance
guidance of the clergy. He also caused
copies of important Buddhist works to be made, to replenish the
temple libraries rifled by the invaders.
Vijaya-Bāhu III had one daughter and two sons, Parakkama-
Bāhu and Bhuvaneka-Bāhu. The first son under the tutorship of
the renowned Sangha-rakkhita Thera, made such progress in learn-
ing that he received the title Kalikāla Sähichcha Sabbanna Pandita
('the Omniscient Pandit of the Kaliyuga epoch of Literature').
He succeeded his father on the throne at Dambadeniya as
Parakkama-Bāhu II, probably in A D. 1231, while the usurpers
Māgha and Jaya-Bāhu were ruling over pihiti-rata at Polonnaruva.
As soon as he ascended the throne he set hiinself to restore order
in the kingdom. He appointed his younger brother, Bhuvaneka-
nu, to the office of sub-king, and held a great festival in honour
of the Tooth-relic. He then led a large army against the strong.
holds of the invaders and in the course of about three years
succeeded in expelling them from Ceylon. With his nephew, Vira-
Bāhu, he repulsed a raid led by Chandrabhānu, a Jāvaka, of Malay
chieſtain, and, as soon as peace and order were restored to the
land, turned his attention to the purification of the Buddhist
church. He held a convocation of elders, and the canon
rehearsed, sinful priests were excommunicated, and a new rescript
or Katikāvala was issued for the use of the clergy. He gave every
encouragement to art and learning, and it appears from the glowing
accounts of him in the Dambadeni asna and the Räjaratnākara
that his own accomplishments were many. His Visuddhi-magga-
sannaya
and Vinaya-vinichchhaya-sannaya (Sinh. Vanavinisa-
sanne) which he entitled Nissandeha
entitled Nissandeha are remarkable for their
comprehensiveness, and his Kavsilumina is a masterpiece of
Sinhalese poetry, which has furnished the author of the Sinhalese
grammar, Sidatsangarā, with an exemple establishing the existence
in the Sinhalese language of the semi-nasal sannaka. His just rule
and the facilities for study afforded by him, by Devapratirājā, his
chief minister, and by his other ministers, resulted in the produc-
tion of many important works. Dhammakitti Thera continued the
compilation of the Mahāvamsa, under the title Chūlavamsa, from
the date on which Mahānāma had relinquished it to the end of the
was
## p. 561 (#611) ############################################
XXit)
PARAKKAMA BĂHU II
561
reign of Parakkama-Bāhu I (A. D. 1153—86), and was probably pre-
vented only by death, or by political disorders, from continuing
the chronicle to his own times (A. D. 1235—65). Among other con-
temporary writers may be mentioned Mayūrapāda Thera, the
author of the well-known Pūjāvaliya, and of a medical work
named Yogārniva, both in Sinhalese prose.
Parakkama-Bāhu II had five sons, (1) Vijaya-Bāhu, (2) Bhu-
vaneka-Bāhu (3) Tiloka-Malla, (4) Parakkama-Bāhu, and (5) Jaya-
Bāhu, called Siri Vijaya-Bāhu in the Rājāvaliya, and the nephew,
Vira-Bāhu, mentioned above. They were all skilful and experienced
soldiers, and the eldest, Vijaya-Bāhu, was entrusted with the
government of the country while his royal father was devoting his
time to literature.
This prince was a master of strategy and a great organiser. He
placed his two youngest brothers, Parakkama-Bāhu and Jaya-
Bāhu, with their father, sent Tiloka-Malla to command the
Sinhalese army of the south, and placed Bhuvaneka-Bāhu in the
fortress of Sundara Pabbata (Yāpavu) in order that he might
defend the northern district of the Island. He himself, with his
cousin Vira-Bāhu, journeyed through the length and breadth of
the country, put down evil-doers, and freed the Island of enemies.
among those whom they vanquished being Chandrabhānu, who was
making a second attempt to gain the sovereignty of Ceylon. After
visiting many places of importance, including Vāta. giri, Adam's
Peak, Gampola, Kurunagala, and Yāpavu, and restoring peace
and prosperity to all, they remained for a time in Anurādhapura,
where they restored the sacred buildings. They conciliated the
Vanni princes, and went on to Polonnaruva, which they com-
pletely restored. Vijaya-Bāhu then invited his father from Dam.
badeniya to Polonnaruva, and in 1779 A. B (A. D. 123. 5) held in great
splendour the second coronation festival, a record of which is
contained in the Atlanagaluvamsa, and in the Mahāvamsa
(1xxxix, 10). The Pūjāvaliya which is a contemporary work,
gives the duration of Parakkama-Bāhu's reign as thirty-three
years, while the Mahāvamsa gives it as thirty-five. According to
the Nikāyasangraha and the Rājaratnākara he appears to have
died in 1809 A. B. (A. D. 1265).
His eldest son, Vijaya-Bāhu IV, also known as Bosat Vijaya.
Bāhu, then ascended the throne at Dambadeniya, but had reigned
for barely two years (A. D. 1266–68) when he was slain at the
instigation of an officer named Mitta, who attempted to usurp the
throne, but was put to death by the troops, who placed the murdered
C. H. I. III.
36
## p. 562 (#612) ############################################
$62
(CH.
CEYLON A. D.
1215- 1527
king's brother, Bhuvaneka-Bāhu I of Yāpavu on the throne of
Dambadeniya. He ruled for about eleven years (A. D. 1268-79), and
was sedulous in promoting the interests of the Buddhist church.
Shortly after his death Ceylon was visited by a famine. Āryachakra-
varti, who was then reigning in Jaffna, invaded the country, and
succeeded in carrying away from Yāpavu the Tooth-relic, which he
delivered to his king, Kulacekhara, who has been identified with
tho Pāndyan king, Māravarman Tribhuvana-chakravartin Kula.
cekhara-deva (c. 1268—1308). For nearly a year after this incident
the land was in confusion, until Parakkama-Bāhu III, a son of
Vijaya-Bāhu IV, assumed sovereignty at Polonnaruva. He made
peace with Kulacekhara, and recovered the Tooth-relic, which he
afterwards deposited in a temple at Polonnaruva. He seems to have
reigned for about seven years (A. D. 1281-88) before Bhuvaneka-
Bāhu II, son of Bhuvaneka-Bāhu I, deposed him and reigned for
two years at Kurunagala. According to the Daladāsirita these
two kings reigned contemporaneously at their respective capitals
until the latter, for some reason or other, deposed the former, and
brought the Tooth-relic from Polonnaruva to Kurunagala.
Parakkama-Bāhu IV, called also Pandita Parakkama-Bāhu II
(c. A. D. 1291 --- 1326), son of the preceding king, then ascended the
throne at Kurunagala. The duration of his reign is not given in
any known historical work, but it may be gathered from the colo-
phon to the Daladāsirita that he was reiging in A. D. 1325 (Saka
1246 expired 1869 A. B. ), and in the inscription at Kitsirimevan-
Kalani-Vihāra it is stated that Vilgammüla Mahāthera, who trans-
lated the Bodhivamsa into Sinhalese at the request of this king,
was in A. B. 1876 (A. D. 1322, seven years after the compilation of the
Daladāsirila) still holding the position of Māhimi. The king's
death seems to have taken place between A. D. 1325 and 1332,
probably in 1326, after a reign of thirty-five years. He was a patron
of learning, and during his reign many religious and historical
works were composed. To the king himself is ascribed the author-
ship of the Sinhalese Jātaka book? , a monumental work, and
the Daladāsirita? . The second section of the Chūlavamsa, from
Vijaya-Bāhu II to Parakkama- Bāhu IV (A. D. 1186–1326), also was
probably compiled during this period.
Oſ the next two kings, Bhuvaneka-Bāhu III, called also Vanni
Bhuvaneka-Bāhu, and Vijaya-Bāhu V, called in the Mahāvamsa
1 See Madras Epigraphy, Report for 1907, p. 70, and Hultzsch, J. R. A. S. , 1913,
p. 531.
2 Mv. xc,
83.
3 My, xc, 79.
## p. 563 (#613) ############################################
xxii)
BHUVANEK A-BAHU V
563
Jaya-Bāhu, and in Sinhalese works Savulu Vijaya-Bāhu, hardly
anything is known. They seem to have reigned in Kurunagala for
about twenty years, one after the other, from A. D. 1326 to 1346.
Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV then ascended the throne. His capital was
Gangācripura (Gampola). The Lankātilaka inscription (British
Museum copy) of this king's minister, Senālankādhikāra, gives Saka
1264 (A. D. 1342) as the date of his accession, but according to the
Mahāvamsa and other historical works he succeeded in A. B. 1890
(A. D. 1346). The difference of four years may be explained by
assuming that the first was the year of his accession to the rank of
sub-king, and the second that of his assumption of sovereign power.
The Vāgiri-devāle inscription is dated in the tenth regnal year, so
that Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV must have reigned for at least ten years,
four years (1342—46) as Apā, and six years (1346—52) as king.
The next king was Parakkama-Bāhu V, called in Sinhalese
Savulu Parakum-raja, probably a son of Vijaya-Bāhu V. From
inscriptions and other sources it appears that he ruled at Gampola
and Dadigama for at least eleven years— four years (1348—52) as
Apā, and seven years (1352-59) as king. He was succeeded at
Gampola by his nephew, Vikkama-Bāhu III, who reigned, according
to inscriptions, for about eighteen years. He was sub-king for about
three years (A. D. 1356—59), and paramount sovereign for fifteen years
(1359-74). During his reign Niccanka Alagakkonāra of Amaragiri,
otherwise called Alakecvara, an intrepid warrior of the Girivamsa
lineage', who was allied by marriage to Senālankādhikāra Senevirat,
a minister of Bhuvaneka-Bāhu IV, came into prominence, rose to
the rank of minister and Prabhu-rāja, and dwelt in Perādeniya. With
a view to checking the ever-growing domination of the Tamils
under their ruler, Ārya Chakravarti of Jaffna, he prepared for war,
and built strong fortresses at Rayigama, and Kõtte, near Colombo.
In 1912 A. B. (A. D. 1368-69) he summoned a convocation of Buddhist
priests under the presidency of the Elder Dhammakitti I, and inau-
gurated reforms in religion. Towards the end of Vikkama-Bāhu's reign
Alakecvara reviewed his army and, finding himself strong enough to
cope with the Tamil king, defied him by hanging his tax-collectors.
Ārya Chakravarti replied by sending his army in two divisions, one
by land and the other by sea, against the Sinhalese. Bhuvaneka-Bāhu
V, who had succeeded Vikkama-Bāhu III on the throne of Gampola,
was struck with panic, fled from Gampola, and took refuge in the
fortress of Rayigama. In the battles which ensued Arya Chakravarti's
i For a fuller account see Perera's contribution to the 3. C. B. R. A. S. , 1904.
>
.
