The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s2: Burma Under the Toungoo Dynasty 1531-1752
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s2
- Language
- English
Burma Under the Toungoo Dynasty 1531-1752
v4.c23.s2.1
BURMA UNDER THE TOUNGOO DYNASTY 1531-1752
v4.c23.s2.2
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.
v4.c23.s2.3
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.
v4.c23.s2.4
¹ See vol. iii, p. 544.
v4.c23.s2.5
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.
v4.c23.s2.6
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
v4.c23.s2.7
³ For these, see Hosten, "The Twelve Bhuiyas or Landlords of Bengal", in *Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1913, p. 437.
v4.c23.s2.8
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.
v4.c23.s2.9
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.
v4.c23.s2.10
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.
v4.c23.s2.11
¹ See vol. III, p. 551.
v4.c23.s2.12
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.
v4.c23.s2.13
² India Office Hague Transcripts, 1607–16, letter 62; De Jonge, *De Opkomst van het Nederlandsche Gezag in Oost-Indie*, III, 77.
v4.c23.s2.14
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
v4.c23.s2.15
¹ *Twenty-four Parganas Gazetteer*, p. 39.
v4.c23.s2.16
² Jadunath Sarkar, "Feringhi Pirates of Chatgaon", in *Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1907, p. 422; and his *History of Aurangzīb*, vol. III.
v4.c23.s2.17
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.
v4.c23.s2.18
³ Symes, *Embassy to Ava*, p. 117.
v4.c23.s2.19
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.
v4.c23.s2.20
⁴ Manrique, *Itinerario de las Missiones del India Oriental*, ch. XXXI, Hakluyt ed. I, 357–8.
v4.c23.s2.21
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.
v4.c23.s2.22
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.
v4.c23.s2.23
² Dinnyawadi Yazawinthit, p. 219. See also vol. III, p. 556.
v4.c23.s2.24
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).
v4.c23.s2.25
³ Similarly in 1753 the Dutch obtained monks from Siam, Tennent, *Christianity in Ceylon*, p. 224; cf. Nga Me, *History of Arakan* (M.S.).
v4.c23.s2.26
⁴ Valentyn, *Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën*, vol. V, part I, pp. 140–6.
v4.c23.s2.27
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.
v4.c23.s2.28
⁵ Harvey, *History of Burma*, p. 275.
v4.c23.s2.29
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
v4.c23.s2.30
⁶ See chap. VIII, p. 226.
v4.c23.s2.31
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.
v4.c23.s2.32
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
v4.c23.s2.33
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.
v4.c23.s2.34
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.
v4.c23.s2.35
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.
v4.c23.s2.36
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.
v4.c23.s2.37
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
v4.c23.s2.38
¹ See vol. v, p. 558.
Linked texts (1)
- Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit