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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23: Chapter XVII. Burma (1531–1782)

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23

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Chapter XVII. Burma (1531–1782)

Arakan

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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.

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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 accessibility 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 Nāgarī script.¹ After the tenth century the country was professedly Buddhist, notwithstanding the spread of Islam, which by the thirteenth century had dotted the coast from Assam to Malaya with the curious mosques known as Buddermokan.² Doubtless it is Muslim influence which led to women being more secluded in Arakan than in Burma.

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¹ Phayre, "Coins of Arakan, Pegu and Burma", in *International Numismata Orientalia*; Vincent Smith, *Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta*; Duroiselle, *Catalogue of Coins in the Phayre Museum*.

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² Temple, "Buddermokan", in *Journal Burma Research Society*, 1925.

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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.

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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.

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Between 1287 and 1785 there is not even the pretence of Burmese The scanned page is entirely blank (no text, printed numbers, running heads, figures, or other content).

Burma Under the Toungoo Dynasty 1531-1752

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BURMA UNDER THE TOUNGOO DYNASTY 1531-1752

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overlordship, save in the fourteenth century when some of the people, torn with dissension, asked the Āva court to nominate a king.¹ From 1374 to 1430 the country was subject first to Burmese and then to Talaing interference, and was raided by both on several occasions.

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Narameikhla (1404–34), when ousted in 1404 by the Burmese,¹ 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 populous² seaport built on hillocks amid the rice plains, intersected by canals which served as streets, it remained the capital for the next four centuries.

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¹ See vol. iii, p. 544.

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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.

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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 medallions struck for them in Bengal, but later they struck their own. Narameikhla's brother and successor ‘Alī Khān (1434–59) occupied Rāmū. Basawpyu (Kalima Shāh) (1459–82) occupied Chittagong, and it was usually in Arakanese hands till 1666; indeed it had occasionally been subjected to Arakan since the tenth century, and according 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

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³ For these, see Hosten, "The Twelve Bhuiyas or Landlords of Bengal", in *Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1913, p. 437.

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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 Pegū, had not king Minbin (Zabauk Shāh) (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 outworks of the city, he opened the sluice gates of his great reservoirs and flooded them out. He retained Rāmū 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 sultān 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.

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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 Portuguese 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.

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Minrazagyi (Salīm Shāh) (1593–1612), the founder of the Parabaw pagoda at Mrohaung, employed De Brito in the expedition against Pegū (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 Chittagong, 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 interpretation of Manu *dhammathat* lawbooks¹ on a definitely Buddhist basis, was thereafter among the most valuable works of its kind throughout Burma.

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¹ See vol. III, p. 551.

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Minhkamaung (Husain Shāh) (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 Portuguese pirates who had made Sandwīp 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 Sandwīp.

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² India Office Hague Transcripts, 1607–16, letter 62; De Jonge, *De Opkomst van het Nederlandsche Gezag in Oost-Indie*, III, 77.

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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 Sandwīp island, Noākhāli and Backergunge districts, and the Sunderbans delta south of Calcutta, and raiding up to Dacca and even Murshidābād, while Tippera sent propitiatory tribute. After they had sacked Dacca, his capital, in 1625, the Moghul 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;¹ sometimes the sales were to Dutch, English and 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

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¹ *Twenty-four Parganas Gazetteer*, p. 39.

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² Jadunath Sarkar, "Feringhi Pirates of Chatgaon", in *Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1907, p. 422; and his *History of Aurangzīb*, vol. III.

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Sometimes the Maghs would sail back to the coast where they had captured their prisoners and wait till the villagers brought out sufficient 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.³ They had forts at Jagdia and 'Ālamgīrnagar in the mouth of the Meghna river, and a little colony of 1500, speaking Arakanese and wearing Burmese dress, still survives on four or five islands in the extreme south-east of Backergunge.

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³ Symes, *Embassy to Ava*, p. 117.

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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 sacrificing⁴ 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, Hindustanis, and even some Japanese Catholics. It was he who raided Pegū and brought back Anaukpetlun's bell (p. 495), which he set up at a pagoda near Mrohaung.¹ His queen had a royal kinsman as paramour, so he died suddenly, and his little son and heir soon followed him.

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⁴ Manrique, *Itinerario de las Missiones del India Oriental*, ch. XXXI, Hakluyt ed. I, 357–8.

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¹ A Hindu officer of irregular horse in the 1824–26 war took it to ʻAlīgarh, U.P., see Wroughton, “Inscription of the large Arakan bell”, in *Journal Asiatic Society Bengal*, 1838, p. 287.

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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.

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² Dinnyawadi Yazawinthit, p. 219. See also vol. III, p. 556.

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Sandathudamma (1652–84), the builder of the Zinamanaung, Thekyamanaung, Ratanamanaung, Shwekyathein and Lokamu pagodas 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 articles⁴ of 1653 they could claim their own interpreter at royal audiences and take away their children by women of the country (cf. p. 502).

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³ Similarly in 1753 the Dutch obtained monks from Siam, Tennent, *Christianity in Ceylon*, p. 224; cf. Nga Me, *History of Arakan* (M.S.).

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⁴ Valentyn, *Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën*, vol. V, part I, pp. 140–6.

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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.

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⁵ Harvey, *History of Burma*, p. 275.

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Shujāʻ, brother to Aurangzīb, being defeated in his struggle for the throne, had to flee in 1660.⁶ The people of Bengal regarded the Maghs as unclean savages, but Shujāʻ 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. Shujāʻ 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. Shujāʻ kept away from the king, repelled by his table manners. Eight months passed, and on one pretext or another the promised ships were never forthcoming. Finally the king demanded Shujā‘s daughter in marriage. A blue-blooded Moghul of the imperial house, Shujā‘ 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. Shujā‘ 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

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⁶ See chap. VIII, p. 226.

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¹ Schouten, *Voyage aux Indes*, I, 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.

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Aurangzib himself would have executed Shujā‘, but he did not like others doing it, and also it was necessary to curb the piracy of the Maghs. Shāyista Khān, the Mughul viceroy of Bengal, built a fleet, and in 1665 drove them out of their strong stockades on Sandwīp 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 Shāyista Khān and deserted to him with their families in forty-two galleys laden with munitions. In 1666 Shāyista Khān'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.²

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² Jadunath Sarkar, "Conquest of Chātgāon", in *Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1907, p. 405; and his *History of Aurangzib*, III, 220–45; Bernier, *Travels*, pp. 174–82; *Chittagong Gazetteer*, p. 31.

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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 Rāmū, 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, rendering government impossible.

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Shujā‘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 suppressed 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 *kamān* = a bow), speaking Arakanese but retaining their Islamic faith and Afghān features.

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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.

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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.¹

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¹ See vol. v, p. 558.

The Toungoo Dynasty (1531–1752)

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The Shan migration, lasting two centuries, had now ended, leaving Burma split into chieftainships. Tabinshwehti² 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.

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² See vol. iii, p. 558.

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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 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.

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By 1541 he had annexed the Pegū state. He was able to enter Pegū city without a siege because the Talaings, after suffering several defeats, lost heart, and their king Takayutpi,¹ 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 accumulated 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.²

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¹ See vol. III, p. 556.

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² Pinto, *Voyages and Adventures*.

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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.³ In 1542 he took Prome, although the Rājā of Arakan and the chiefs of upper Burma, headed by the Āva *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 Pegū 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.

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³ Halliday, "Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron", in *Journal Burma Research Society*, 1923.

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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.

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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.⁴ The hosts crossed 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 workmen went ahead every day to pitch the wooden camp palace,¹ richly painted and gilded, and at each halt there was a *pwe* festival.

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⁴ When, in 1767, the Burmese sacked Ayuthia (p. 515), they destroyed the palace archives, so that Siamese chronology before the eighteenth century is vague. Until recently the Siamese dates for the Burmese invasions of the sixteenth 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 and European travellers. See the discussion in Harvey, *History of Burma*, p. 343; and Wood, *History of Siam*, pp. 23-25.

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¹ Faria y Sousa (Stevens), *The Portuguese Asia*, II, 135.

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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 offer 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 skirts), 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.

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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 submission 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 Pegū. 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.²

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² Hmannan, II, 240.

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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 admiration 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, remonstrated 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 combined to ask Bayinnaung to take the throne, but he was faithful, and would not.¹

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¹ Hmannan, II, 268–70.

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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 Pegū, and set the leading chamberlain on the throne.

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² He is worshipped as the Tabinshwehti Nat spirit, Temple, *Thirty-Seven Nats*, p. 64.

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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 greeted³ 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 Pegū.

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³ Couto, *Da Asia*, vol. IV, part I, p. 136.

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Smim Htaw had overthrown the usurping chamberlain and occupied the Pegū 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, breaking the tusk of his foeman's elephant and driving him off the field followed by all his men. He then sacked Pegū, killing men, women, children and even animals.

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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. Sometimes 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.¹

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¹ See vol. III, p. 551.

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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 him with a mass levy approaching possibly one hundred thousand.² 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.

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² Elizabethan travellers who say they actually saw half a million men march out of Pegū are only repeating bazar talk. The Burmese chronicles give a list of Bayinnaung's levies totalling over a million men, but in the Anglo-Burmese wars of the nineteenth century our troops found Burmese commanders habitually overestimating numbers by at least one decimal. Even in the early nineteenth century the population of Burma can hardly have exceeded four millions. Harvey, *History of Burma*, p. 333, and Burney, *Population of Burman Empire*, in *Journal Statistical Society*, 1842.

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By 1555 he had annexed Āva, and by 1559 the whole of upper Burma, the present Shan States, Manipur, Chiengmai and Viengchang (Linzin). From this time dates Burmese suzerainty over the Shans; the Pagan monarchy had controlled little more than the foothills, and even now Burmese suzerainty was seldom more than nominal until the time of Alaungpaya (1752–60).

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It is characteristic that while Bayinnaung was proceeding down the Salween against Chiengmai, his garrison in Mone was murdered and the bridge he had built across the Salween was destroyed by Mone, Yawnghwe and Lawksawk. Revolts were continuous. In 1562, 1572, 1574–76 he was campaigning against Mohnyin and Mogaung, and even to the north, wearing out his men in pursuits over snow-clad hills; finally the chiefs submitted, tired of starving in the wilderness. The Mogaung chief was exhibited for a week in fetters at the gates of Pegū; as for some scores of his principal followers, Bayinnaung, saying he was very merciful, refrained from executing them and sent them to be sold as slaves in the Ganges delta.

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As was invariably the case, the Burmese no sooner occupied an area than they required levies, and the Burmese Shans were at once employed against the Siamese Shans. The chiefs presented daughters to the rival harem, sent their sons to be brought up in the palace, and paid periodic tribute; Momeik, the most valuable of all, paid rubies; Chiengmai paid elephants, horses, lacquer and silks. Everywhere he deported numbers of the people in order to populate his homeland. From Chiengmai he took artisans, especially her famous lacquer workers;¹ it is probably these who introduced into Burma the finer sort of lacquer ware called yun, the name of the Yun or Lao Shan tribes round Chiengmai.²

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¹ See vol. III, p. 555.

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² Morris, "Lacquerware industry of Burma", in *Journal Burma Research Society*, 1919; Kyaw Dun, "Lacquerware called Yun", in *ibid.* 1920.

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In the 1556 campaign he went by river as far as Katha district, accompanied by his harem and worshipping at the principal pagodas on the way. On the return journey in 1557 he set up at the Shwezigon pagoda, Pagan, the great bronze bell bearing in Pali, Burmese and Talaing an inscription every line of which breathes imperial pride in his conquests and in the steps he took to promote religion among the Shans, building monasteries, and suppressing funeral sacrifice. It had been customary to bury with a major *sawbwa* (Shan chief) as many as ten elephants, a hundred horses, and a hundred each of men and women slaves, the numbers being less for minor *sawbwas*.

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He also suppressed the sacrifice of white animals (buffaloes, kine, goats, pigs, fowls) to the Mahagiri spirit on Popa Hill;³ hitherto these animals had been killed for a feast, and their skulls were hung in strings all round the shrine; the worshippers drank intoxicants at the feast, and once a year the king and court shared in it as an act of state worship. Bayinnaung introduced prohibition and punished drunkenness with death. He enforced the divine command against taking life even to the extent of abolishing the Baqr ‘Īd among Muslim settlers.

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³ Hmannan, II, 312; Wawhayalinatta, p. 69.

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The king of Ayuthia, styled Lord of the White Elephants, had recently possessed no fewer than seven; it was the glory of these elephants which attracted white merchants from the ends of the earth and brought Siam unprecedented prosperity; there could be no other cause, for in the days of his predecessors, who had far fewer, there was less trade and European merchants had not come. He still had four, and Bayinnaung’s soul was stirred to its depths at not having so many himself. He was considering not only his own glory but also the interests of his people; he believed it to be essential to their prosperity that he should acquire these elephants.¹ Therefore he invaded Siam. As he had a much larger area from which to get levies, his task was easier than Tabinshwehti’s.

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¹ For the significance of the White Elephant, see Harvey, *History of Burma*, p. 274.

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In 1563–64 the huge host captured Kampengpet and Sukhotai and then swarmed down on Ayuthia, losing considerably from the Siamese and their feringhi gunners, but capturing stockades, war-canoes and three foreign ships. The city quickly yielded in quite unnecessary terror of Bayinnaung’s Portuguese artillery, which though noisy was too light to do real damage to the walls. The terms were the surrender of four white elephants, the captivity of the king and some princes as hostages, the presentation of a daughter, the cession of Tenasserim shipping tolls, and annual tribute of thirty war elephants. Bayinnaung left the Siamese king’s son to rule as vassal with a Burmese garrison of 3000 men, and went home with the captive king and court, and with thousands of the population roped together in gangs with wooden collars; among them were actors and actresses, and it is probably these who introduced into Burma the songs and dances called Ayuthia. The loot included thirty crude images of men and elephants in bronze.

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The captive princes of Ayuthia, Ava and Chiengmai were kept at Pegū and given reasonable treatment, even being allowed to live in double-roofed houses painted white, the prerogative of royalty.² But Siam was not settled with the fall of Ayuthia. Till the end of the reign the armies were constantly campaigning all over the country from the northern Laos downwards. Year after year Bayinnaung led a weary chase through trackless hills where his men were reduced to eating grass and died in thousands of starvation and disease. Year after year there was cruel fighting against the Siamese stockades, against their war-canoes and flaming rafts. He usually succeeded in occupying towns, setting his puppet with a Burmese garrison on their little thrones, and dragging away the population, when it had not hidden in the jungle, to work as slaves in Burma if they survived the long march. But he could do little more than this, he could give no settled government to the surviving victims, and some of the chiefs he never caught. He generously allowed the captive king of Siam, who had become a monk, to return home on pilgrimage; no sooner had he arrived than he flung off the robe and so another siege of Ayuthia became necessary. It lasted ten months (1568–69). The Burmese losses were so heavy that the men used to take shelter under the piles of their comrades’ corpses. The troops sickened of the carnage and officers were executed right and left for failure. The town could not be taken by storm and, although short of food, held its own until Bayinnaung employed treachery. He promised large rewards, and one of his prisoners, a Siamese lord, entered the town saying he had escaped from the Burmese. The Siamese gave him high command, and one night he opened the gates.

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² For Burmese sumptuary laws, see Shway Yoe, *The Burman, his Life and Notions*.

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In 1560 the Portuguese captured the Buddha Tooth of Ceylon¹ and took it to Goa. Bayinnaung sent envoys on a Portuguese ship to Goa, offering, in return for the Tooth, eight lakhs of rupees and, whenever needed, shiploads of rice to provision the fortress of Malacca. Other Buddhist and Hindu kings made offers. The Portuguese wished to accept but were overridden by their archbishop who, in the presence of a large assembly including the Burmese envoys, ground the Tooth to powder, burnt the powder, and cast the ashes into the river. But soon men said that the Tooth was miraculously restored to its temple at Kandy.

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¹ See vol. III, p. 548.

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Learning from his astrologers that he was destined to wed a princess of Ceylon, Bayinnaung sent envoys to find her. They went to Colombo and told of their master’s glory. The chief there had no daughter, but his chamberlain had one whom the chief cherished as his own. He had no authority over the Temple of the Tooth at Kandy, where another chief ruled, but he showed the envoys a shrine which he said contained the Tooth. The envoys took the daughter and the Tooth. Bayinnaung sent gorgeous presents in return. The Tooth reached Bassein in 1576. Bayinnaung went to meet it in a great procession of magnificent canoes crowded with lords and ladies clad in court dress. He bathed ceremonially, scented himself, and bowed before the shrine. Princes waded into the river and bore it ashore at Pegū, walking over the state vestments which the lords took off and spread before them. It was encased in a golden casket studded with the gems of Dammazedi and the kings of old, and of Momeik and of Ayuthia, the vassal kings, and finally it was deposited at the Mahazedi pagoda, Pegū. This was the day of days in Bayinnaung’s life; his wide conquests, even the white elephants from Siam, faded into insignificance; he said: “Heaven is good to me. Anawrahta could obtain only a replica Tooth from Ceylon, Alaungsithu went to China in vain, but I, because of my piety and wisdom, I have been granted this!”²

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² Linschoten, *Voyage to the East Indies*, I, p. 293; Faria y Sousa (Stevens), *The Portuguese Asia*, II, 207–9, 251–2; Hmannan, III, 8, 33–35; Gerson da Cunha, “Memoir on the History of the Tooth Relic of Ceylon”, in *Journal Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1875.

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Bayinnaung’s great Talaing officer, the *wungyi* (minister) Binnya Dala, compiled the Razadarit Ayedawpon chronicle.³ Bayinnaung introduced a measure of legal uniformity by summoning distinguished monks and officials from all over his dominions to prescribe an official collection of law books; they prescribed the Wareru *dhammathat*¹ and compiled the Dhammathatkyaw and Kosaungchok. The decisions given in his court were collected in the Hanthawaddy Hsinbyumyashin *pyatton*.² He also tried to standardise weights and measures, such as the cubit, tical, and basket, throughout the realm.

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³ See vol. III, p. 553.

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¹ See vol. III, pp. 551–2.

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² Forchammer, *Jardine Prize Essay on Burmese Law*.

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Styling himself the king of kings, he governed only Pegū and the Talaing country directly, leaving the rest of the realm to vassal kings with palaces at Toungoo, Prome, Āva and Chiengmai. He regarded Chiengmai as the most important, having fifty-seven provinces; these, like the thirty-two provinces of Pegū,³ were big villages. Chiengmai was a Shan state, and when he spoke of having twenty-four crowned heads at his command, he was referring to *sawbwas*. Each of the twenty gates of his new city at Pegū was named after the vassal who built it, such as the Prome gate, the Chiengmai gate, the Toungoo gate, the gates of Salin, Dalla, Mohnyin, Tavoy, Hsenwi, Linzin, Tenasserim, Ayuthia, Martaban, Pagan—it was the men of Pagan who had to plant the toddy palms all along the walls and at the street corners. As a model Buddhist king he distributed copies of the scriptures, fed monks, and built pagodas in Chiengmai, Koshanpye and other conquered states. Some of these pagodas are still to be seen, and in later ages the Burmese would point to them as proof of their claim to rule those countries still. He supervised mass ordinations at the Kalyānī *thein*.⁴ Following a royal custom he would break up his crown and use its jewels to adorn the spire of a pagoda; he did this for the Shwedagon, the Shwemawdaw, and the Kyaiktiyo in Thaton district. Again, as at the Shwemawdaw, he would build as many surrounding monasteries as there were years in his life at the time, fifty-two; or he would bear the cost of ordaining a similar number of monks. After the 1564 earthquake, which coincided with his queen’s death, he repaired the Shwedagon, and added a new spire. His chief foundation was the Mahazedi at Pegū, at which he enshrined a begging bowl of supernatural origin sent him in 1567 by some Ceylon kinglet, the Tooth (p. 489) and golden images of himself, the royal family, and such of the great officers of state as were in his inner circle.

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³ See vol. III, p. 553.

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⁴ *Ibid.* p. 556.

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Bayinnaung made no distinction of race in appointment to office. His best commander was a Talaing, Binnya Dala. As his predecessors had doubtless done for ages, he entered into artificial blood-brotherhood (*thwethauk*) with over a score of his principal officers, and the list includes Talaings. They penetrated his entourage to such an extent that the word used by European travellers for a court grandee is *semini*, an Italianisation of *smim*, the Talaing for lord. Such being his methods, he might have reconciled both races and founded a national dynasty. He failed to do so because he alienated human nature by his wars. The brunt fell on Talaings; hence while at first they followed him because they believed he could give them settled government, at last the only ones who followed him were hardy spirits desirous of foreign loot.

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Unlike most Burmese kings, who lived in the backwoods (pp. 496, 513), Bayinnaung lived in a seaport and came into contact with the outer world. The extent to which overseas traders frequented the Delta indicates that his trade regulations were reasonable. Merchants sailing from India first sighted Negrais and saw there, as we see now, the superb Hmawdin pagoda flashing on the headland, a landmark for a whole day's sail.¹ They went upstream to Bassein and then, turning east, passed through the Myaungmya creeks to Pegū. Those creeks were, at least on the main route, crowded with villages almost touching each other, a teeming hive of happy people. Customs officers, though strict, were not obstructive, and there was free export of such commodities as jewels and rice, a thing subsequently forbidden by the benighted kings of Āva (p. 501). Bassein is scarcely mentioned, the chief ports being on the eastern side, Syriam, Dalla, Martaban, and above all Pegū, where the merchants were allowed, by special privilege, to have brick warehouses, the populace being restricted to houses of bamboo or timber. Ralph Fitch and the merchants of Venice never tire of describing Pegū city, the long moat full of crocodiles, the walls, the watch-towers, the gorgeous palace, the processions with elephants and palanquins and grandees in shining robes, the shrines filled with images of massy gold and gems, the unending hosts of armed men, and the vision of the great king himself receiving petitions as he sat throned on high amid his lords.

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¹ Hakluytus Posthumus, x, 150.

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Yet despite its splendour, the kingship was not loved. Bayinnaung and the princes risked their lives freely at the head of the hosts conspicuously on elephants, and Bayinnaung shared many a hardship with his men. But what was sport to him was death to the common people. The disorganisation caused by his wars was such that Pegū sometimes starved. Even the fertile Delta cannot grow rice without men to plant it, and they were not there to plant it, having all been dragged away on foreign service. Of those that went, few returned, for if battle casualties were great, the wastage from hunger and dysentery was even greater. Even if they were not sent to fight, they were herded together and led away in one of the everlasting deportations which the kingship found necessary to re-populate ravaged areas.

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At least once Bayinnaung had to hurry home from a Siamese campaign to deal with rebellion at his own capital. He had settled in the neighbourhood some twenty thousand Shans and Siamese. Talaings made common cause and led them when in 1564 they rose and burnt his palace, the palace which the Portuguese regarded as in itself a city, with roofs of solid gold. He penned thousands of the rebels in bamboo cages to be burnt alive according to immemorial custom, but ended by burning only seventy leaders, with their families, because the monks protested and popular feeling supported them.¹

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¹ Hakluytus Posthumus, x, 160; Hmannan, III, 78.

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His campaigns were the price men had to pay for the unification of Burma. Thus far he succeeded. Beyond that he failed, because, like his age, he was not constructive. Every other year throughout his reign he was hastening somewhere to maintain himself in power. A ruler without an administration, he could not be everywhere at once, and no sooner did he turn his back than the chances were even that a rebellion would break out. The unity he gave was artificial and within a few years of his death it collapsed. If it rose again and endured for another century and a half, this was because his immediate successors happened to be men of character and because the listlessness of the people prevented organised opposition.

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Bayinnaung died at the age of sixty-six leaving ninety-seven children. Although he already had more territory than he could hold, he was actually sending an expedition to annex Arakan when he died.

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Rebellion at home compelled his son, Nandabayin (1581–99), to recall the expedition against Arakan. There was scarcely a year in which he was not campaigning from Mogaung in the north to Hmawbi in the south. He used his father's methods of terrible executions and wholesale conscription. Life was unbearable and men flocked to become monks, partly to seek religious consolation in their misery, partly to evade conscription.

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The crown prince used Talaings for forced labour on his land, stored the crop, and made people buy from him alone. The king deported people from all over the country to populate Pegū. Distrusting the Talaings, he executed them in numbers; he branded them on the right hand with their name, rank and village, and sent those who were too old for service to be exchanged for horses in upper Burma; he exiled their monks to Ava and the Shan States. It is at this period that the periodic migrations² of the Talaings to Siam begin, migrations which lasted until the English conquest in 1824 and were due to the sustained severity of the Burmese.

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² Halliday, *The Talaings*; and his "Immigration of the Mons [Talaings] into Siam", in *Journal Siam Society*, 1913; Ravenswaay, "Translation of Van Vliet's description of Siam", in *ibid.* 1910.

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The one hope of keeping the country together was to evacuate Siam and retrench in every direction. But neither Bayinnaung nor his son could see it. The only method by which the king could control remoter areas was by fighting them periodically, a process which used up the only people he could really call his own, the population round the capital. There were not sufficient left alive to till the soil there, and remoter areas would not send food. In 1596 a plague of field rats destroyed what little crop had been planted; there was a terrible famine, and it was only one of a series; wide stretches of country in lower Burma became a desert.

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