Conclusion

The relationship between Ava and Pegu was a symbiotic dualism: of time, space and type. Ava was not only a reformulation of something old, and Pegu, the genesis of something new, but as one was located in the agrarian Dry Zone and the other, on the commercial coasts, each was historically, materially, and in terms of general character, distinct. Whereas the Kingdom of Ava was essentially the resurrection of an old kingdom—Pagan writ small—Pegu was a new kingdom composed of new leaders, people, and cultures. Ava was a familiar, Upper Myanmar polity: the same material environment and demographic base, the same economic, social and political institutions, the same language, writing system, cosmology, and culture. Pegu, on the other hand, was a new, independent kingdom of Lower Myanmar, led by newcomers (the Mon speakers) who had migrated from what later became Thailand. Yet, because both Ava and Pegu were built on the same foundations (Pagan), both had certain common elements. They shared virtually the same religion and thought systems; similar social customs, values, and mores; familiar political and administrative principles; a common, even if contested, history; and certainly the same writing system. Whatever the dissimilarities were, they did not produce a binary situation of two irreconcilably antagonistic ethnic entities—Burman and Mon as convention has it—rather, these dissimilarities created a dualism of geo-political and cultural differences whose energy and dynamism came from the tension created precisely by those differences. In fact, Ava and Pegu’s relationship not only epitomized Southeast Asia’s “upstream-downstream” paradigm common throughout much of its history, it continues today in Naypyidaw and Yangon.

The Last Decades and the Decline of Ava

The kingdom that was Ava came to an “end” in 1526-7. It can be attributed to both long-term structural causes as well as “incidents of the moment,” events that set “afire” the former “kindling.” These “incidents of the moment” can accelerate but also slow down (sometimes, actually reverse) long-term patterns and trends. In Ava’s case, they accelerated its decline. The merit-path to salvation, court factionalism, the patron-client system, and the growth of Shan ascendancy on the one hand, and military set-backs, serendipitous events, and intransigent personalities on the other, resulted in the “fall” of the First Ava Dynasty in 1527. Thereafter, Ava became an ordinary myosa-ship and ceased being the exemplary center of Upper Myanmar, until raised once again as capital of the Second Ava Dynasty in 1600, which is beyond the scope of this study.

Ava

Throughout most of its life as a state and society—economically, socially, conceptually, politically, administratively, and legally—Ava was essentially Pagan, only on a smaller scale. Ava remained in the same Dry Zone environment as an in-land agrarian polity based on the same economy of redistribution, social hierarchy, religious beliefs, patron-client structure, myosa (“to eat”) administration, and civil and criminal law, the essential components of the Kingdom of Pagan.

The Consolidation of Ava

The two founding fathers of Ava, Thadominbya and Minkyiswa Sawkai were succeeded by four equally strong kings who continued their predecessors’ work and consolidated what the former had begun. In doing so, Mingaung the First and three of his most important successors (Hsinphyushin Thihathu, Mo Nyin Min, and Hsinphyushin Minye Kyawswa Gyi) set the stage for Ava’s efflorescence that reached fruition during the second half of the fabulous fifteenth-century. Fortunately for the Burmese speakers and their culture (and ultimately the modern Union of Myanmar), able leaders emerged at the right time to continue the “classical” tradition, which was carried for several more centuries.

Introduction

The Introduction places the study of Ava and Pegu in a broader historiographic context by addressing several issues: 1) the significance of the history of Ava and Pegu on the history of Myanmar and Southeast Asia, 2) the place of Ava and Pegu in the historiography of the “Early Modern Period,” 3) the role (reified) ethnicity played in their relationship, and 4) the ways in which the field has shaped our understanding (and misunderstanding) of these two kingdoms, the country, and the region.

The Historical Legacy of the First Pegu Dynasty

This chapter focuses on the tangible as well as intangible legacies of the First Pegu Kingdom. It asks whether or not Pegu’s history produced individuals, events, ideas, and institutions that were longer-lasting than themselves, with consequences for the country as a whole, particularly the state. It asks how these legacies affected the country’s subsequent history and one’s understanding (and misunderstanding) of it. The answers show a mixed picture: while the kingdom of Pegu contributed little to the art, language, and literature of Myanmar, especially compared to Pagan and Ava, it did leave a lasting legacy in terms of: a reformed Theravada Buddhism, the idea of a legitimate maritime capital, a woman sovereign, and a contentious historiography.

Prelude to Ava

The immediate cause for the rise of Ava was the decline of the kingdom of Pagan. Yet, decline in this case only meant dis-integration as a kingdom—it only lost its integrative power. Neither the conceptual system and its principles, nor the human and material resources that had made it, disappeared. In fact, these components remained intact to provide the ideological and material wherewithal for the reconstituting of Ava. Hence, by the second half of the fourteenth century, the dis-integrated parts that had earlier made up Pagan were re-integrated as the kingdom of Ava. And because Pagan provided the “blue print” for Ava, it insured that the “classical tradition” continued for another two hundred years. That tradition was characterized by: an agrarian economy, a conceptual system comprised of indigenized Theravada Buddhism, a patron-client political and social structure, and a population led and dominated by Burmese speakers.

The Pegu Convention

For nearly two centuries, colonial historiography had attributed the origins of state formation in the country to Lower Myanmar, so that the process of “civilization” was alleged to have moved south to north. That process was thought to have reached its zenith in the Kingdom of Pegu during the last half of the first millennium BC, whose roots were alleged to have gone back to the mythical Ramannadesa and Buddhist Asokan India. Recent research makes clear, however, that the process of state formation in Myanmar was exactly the opposite and much later. Scientific evidence reveals not only that the earliest dates regarding “the state” lay in Upper, not Lower Myanmar, while the best archaeological and epigraphic evidence suggests it “moved” north to south rather than vice versa. The evidence also shows that during much of that time, Lower Myanmar was the “frontier” of the country and not its center, a “backwater,” largely inhospitable, consisting of marshes and swamps until developed during the second half of the millennium AD by human and material resources from Upper Myanmar, South India, Central Mainland and parts of maritime Southeast Asia. This chapter describes the legendary and historical origins of the Kingdom of Pegu, an old governorship on that “frontier” under the Kingdom of Pagan that was finally established as the center of a new kingdom only by the middle of the fourteenth century. Pegu’s documented origins as a polity, therefore, do not go back to the time of the Buddha as conventional hagiography would have it in the legend that was Lower Myanmar.

Yazadarit the Unifier

Said to have been crowned king “on the spot” as Yazadarit (1383-1423), he was to become one of the most politically and militarily accomplished rulers of the First Pegu Dynasty. Not only did he unify much of Lower Myanmar for the first time--which allowed Pegu to compete effectively with Ava (to eventually become its nemesis)--he was also militarily so successful that he established his kingdom’s territorial integrity for decades more to come. Yet, he was not universally honored by Pegu’s chroniclers who, being monks, judged him by religious rather than political and administrative criteria. But in the end, he had the “last say” as the records regarding his life and achievements are the most voluminous and well known. Without Yazadarit, the First Pegu Dynasty would never have materialized to become part of Myanmar’s historiography.

The Origins of Pegu and Its Founding Fathers

The origins of the First Pegu Dynasty began at Muttama (Martaban) in the second half of the thirteenth-century. It was shaped by several “push” and “pull” factors then current in the region, particularly several long-term patterns between the eleventh and sixteenth-centuries, some of which came together only during the second half of the thirteenth, creating a “conjuncture” in Fernand Braudel’s sense, with a direct and indirect impact on the making of the First Kingdom of Pegu. On the north was Pagan, whose decline allowed Lower Myanmar to assert its independence. To the west lay the maritime region of Arakan with its gaze towards both the Bay of Bengal and the interior of Upper Myanmar. Although it had not yet fully integrated the various components that came together subsequently in the sixteenth-century as the Kingdom of Mrauk-U, its underpinning maritime and commercial foundations were already there and operating, which were to affect the history of Pegu. On the other side of the Gulf of Muttama lay Ayuthaya, dominated by Thai speakers who had moved from their earlier centers in northern and central Thailand (the agrarian interior) to the increasingly blossoming commerce of the coasts, a process that was to have an impact on the rise and development of Pegu subsequently. Towards the south lay many port cities such as Htaway (Tavoy) and Myeik (Mergui), which acted as windows to Pegu’s external world and maritime Southeast Asia.