Thaton Kingdom
Kingdom of Thaton သထုံခေတ် သုဝဏ္ဏဘူမိ | |||||||||
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| BC400–AD1057 | |||||||||
| Status | Kingdom | ||||||||
| Capital | Thaton | ||||||||
| Common languages | Mon | ||||||||
| Religion | Theravada Buddhism | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Founding of dynasty | BC400 | ||||||||
• End of kingdom | AD1057 | ||||||||
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| History of Myanmar |
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 Myanmar portal |
TheThaton Kingdom,Suwarnabhumi,orThuwunnabumi(Burmese:သထုံခေတ်[θətʰòʊɰ̃kʰɪʔ]orသုဝဏ္ဏဘူမိ[θṵwəna̰bʊ̀mḭ]) was aMonkingdom, believed to have existed inLower Burmafrom at least the 4th century BC to the middle of the 11th century AD. One of manyMon kingdomsthat existed in modern-dayLower BurmaandThailand,the kingdom was essentially a city-state centered on the city ofThaton.[1]: 63, 77 It traded directly withSouth IndiaandSri Lanka,and became a primary center ofTheravada BuddhisminSouth-East Asia.Thaton, like other Mon kingdoms, faced the gradual encroachment of theKhmer Empire.But it was thePagan Kingdomfrom the north that conquered the fabled kingdom in 1057.
Name of the kingdom
[edit]Mon tradition maintains that the kingdom was calledSuvannabhumi(Burmese:သုဝဏ္ဏဘူမိ), a name also claimed by LowerThailand,and that it was founded during the time of theBuddhain the 6th centuryBCE.Thaton is theBurmesename ofSadhuiminMon,which in turn is fromSudhammapurainPali,after Sudharma, theassembly hallof the gods.[2]
History
[edit]According to the Mon tradition, the Kingdom of Thaton was founded during the time of the Buddha, and was ruled by a dynasty of 59 kings. The tradition also maintains that a group of political refugees founded the city ofPegu(Bago) in 573.[3]But the historical kingdom probably came into existence some time in the 9th century, following the entry Mon people into Lower Burma from modern northern Thailand. GE Harvey's History of Burma, citing theShwemawdaw Thamaing,gives the year of founding of Pegu as 825; even that date remains unattested.[4]Indeed, the earliest mention of Pegu is 1266, in Old Burmese.[5]
Traditional Burmese and Mon reconstructions hold that Thaton was overrun by the Pagan Kingdom fromUpper Burmain 1057.[1]: 149 KingAnawrahta,having been converted to Theravada Buddhism by a Mon monk,Shin Arahan,reportedly asked for theTheravada Buddhist canonfrom KingManuhaof Thaton. The Mon king's refusal was used by Anawrahta as a pretense to invade and conquer the Mon kingdom, whose literary and religious traditions helped to mold early Pagan civilization.[6]According to the chronicles, KingManuhaof Thaton surrendered after a 3-month siege of the city by Pagan's forces on 17 May 1057 (11th wa xing of Nayon, 419ME).[7]Between 1050 and about 1085, Mon craftsmen and artisans reportedly helped to build some two thousand monuments at Pagan, the remains of which today rival the splendors ofAngkor Wat.[8]TheMon scriptis the source of theBurmese Alpha bet,the earliest evidence of which is dated to 1058, a year after the Thaton conquest.[9]
There are several archaeological sites attributed to the Tahton Kingdom. Suvarnabhumi City inBilin Townshipis one such site with limited excavation work. The site, called Winka Old City by other archeologists, contains 40 high-grounds of which only 4 have been excavated.[10]The Winka site, along with nearby walled sites like Kyaikkatha and Kelasa, have been dated as early as the sixth century.[11]While the archaeology of early Lower Burmese sites requires more work, other urban centres in Myanmar like theSri Ksetra Kingdomin modern dayPyaywere Buddhist as early as the 5th century.[12]
However, some modern research has argued that Mon influence on the interior after Anawrahta's conquest is a greatly exaggerated post-Pagan legend, and that Lower Burma in fact lacked a substantial independent polity prior to Pagan's expansion.[13]Possibly in this period, the delta sedimentation—which now extends the coastline by three miles a century—remained insufficient, and the sea still reached too far inland, to support a population even as large as the modest population of the late precolonial era. Whatever the condition of the coast, all scholars accept that during the 11th century, Pagan established its authority in Lower Burma and this conquest facilitated growing cultural exchange, if not with local Mons, then with India and with Theravada stronghold Sri Lanka. From a geopolitical standpoint, Anawrahta's conquest of Thaton checked the Khmer advance in theTenasserimcoast.[13]
List of Thaton kings
[edit]According to the Mon chronicles, the Kingdom of Thaton had a line of 59 kings that begun from the time of the Buddha.
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^abCoedès, George(1968). Walter F. Vella (ed.).The Indianized States of Southeast Asia.trans.Susan Brown Cowing. University of Hawaii Press.ISBN978-0-8248-0368-1.
- ^Shorto, p. 590
- ^Phayre, pp. 24–32
- ^Harvey, p. 368
- ^Aung-Thwin, p. 29
- ^Htin Aung, pp. 32–33
- ^Kyaw Thet, p. 45
- ^South, p. 67
- ^Harvey, p. 307
- ^"Suvarnabhumi City Excavation to be Continued After Rainy Season".Mon News.5 August 2014.
- ^Moore, Elizabeth; San Win (Spring 2007)."The Gold Coast: Suvannabhumi? Lower Myanmar Walled Sites of the First Millennium A.D."Asian Perspectives.46(1). University of Hawai'i Press: 202-232.doi:10.1353/asi.2007.0007.JSTOR42928710.S2CID49343386.
- ^"Facts and Fiction: The Myth of Suvannabhumi Through the Thai and Burmese Looking Glass".Academia. July 1, 2018.RetrievedNovember 30,2018.
- ^abLieberman, p. 91
References
[edit]- Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005).The Mists of Rāmañña: the Legend that was Lower Burma.University of Hawaii Press.ISBN978-0-8248-2886-8.
- Hall, D.G.E. (1960).Burma(3rd ed.). Hutchinson University Library.ISBN978-1-4067-3503-1.
- Harvey, G. E. (1925).History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824.London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
- Htin Aung, Maung (1967).A History of Burma.New York and London: Cambridge University Press.
- Kyaw Thet (1962).History of Burma(in Burmese). Yangon: Yangon University Press.
- Lieberman, Victor B. (2003).Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland.Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-80496-7.
- Phayre, Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur P. (1883).History of Burma(1967 ed.). London: Susil Gupta.
- Shorto, H.L. (2002). "The 32 Myos in the medieval Mon Kingdom". In Vladimir I. Braginsky (ed.).Classical civilisations of South East Asia: an anthology of articles.Routledge.ISBN9780700714100.
- South, Ashley (2003).Mon nationalism and civil war in Burma: the golden sheldrake.Routledge.ISBN978-0-7007-1609-8.