Description:
"The Abhiraja/Dhajaraja story, the most important origin myth legitimizing
Burmese kingship, is widely viewed as a central Burmese (Burman) tradition. Based
on evidence from available pre-eighteenth century historical texts, many previously
unexamined by scholars, this article finds that the Abhiraja/Dhajaraja origin myth
developed in western Burma over three centuries before its appearance in central
Burma in a 1781 court treatise. This analysis demonstrates that during a significant
1
The author owes gratitude to numerous colleagues who, at different stages, offered help of various
kinds. Special gratitude, however, is owed to Vic Lieberman, Ryuji Okudaira, and Atsuko Naono for
their extensive comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. In addition, Ryuji Okudaira helped me gain
a copy of one of the chief western Burmese chronicles under examination in this article. Help has also
been provided in gaining access to premodern Burmese texts by Patricia Herbert and the late Daw May
Kyi Win. The author is also indebted to U Saw Tun for raising my interest in premodern Burmese
literature during my language training in literary Burmese.
period of cultural borrowing, from the 1780s until the 1820s, central Burmese
(Burman) literati inserted western Burmese (Arakanese) myths and historical
traditions into an evolving central Burmese historical perspective with which most
scholars are more familiar.
Introduction
Several origin myths made the royal ancestry of Burmese kings sacred by
connecting them genealogically to a solar dynasty. The first, likely pre-Buddhist,
origin myth traced the lineage of Burmese kings to Pyu-zàw-htì (Pyu-mìn-htì), the son
of the Sun God and a naga princess.2 Second, Mahasammata, the first human king of
the world in Buddhist thought, served as both a legitimizing model for unifying
Burmese kings and, secondarily, as an origin myth for certain Burmese kings who
drew up loose genealogies connecting themselves to him.3 A third origin myth
provided a fuller elaboration of these genealogies to demonstrate a clearer lineage
from Mahasammata to the Burmese kings, through the intermediary of the solar race
of the Sakiyan clan (the same clan from whom later sprang Gotama Buddha).
2
Maung Kalà [Ù Kalà], Maha-ya-zawin-gyì, Saya Pwa (ed.), Rangoon: Burma Research Society, 1926,
I, p. 143; Shin Sandá-linka, Maní-yadana-bon, Rangoon: Di-bat-sa Press, 1896, pp. 10-11; Zei-yá-thinhkaya, Shwei-bon-ní-dàn, Yangon: Zwei-sa-bei-reib-myoun, 1957, pp. 99-100; See also the discussion
in Ryuji Okudaira, “Rekishiteki Haikei,” in Ayabe Tsuneo & Ishii Yoneo (eds.)., Motto Shiritai
Myanmar, 2nd ed., Tokyo: Kobundo, 1994, pp. 9-13. This work was thankfully translated for the author
by Atsuko Naono.
3
For Burmese thought on the Mahasammata myth as legitimation for earthly rulers, see William J.
Koenig, The Burmese Polity, 1752-1819: Politics, Administration, and Social Organization in the
Early Kon-baung Period, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian
Studies, 1990, pp. 65-67, 69-71, 73-74, 93; Victor B. Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles:
Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580-1760, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 66, 72-4, 83; S.
According to this myth, a king of this clan, having lost his kingdom in Northern India,
found his way to central Burma. There he established the first Burmese state,
Tagaung. When Tagaung was later destroyed, a second ruler of the Sakiyan clan
reestablished it.4 According to this origin myth, all Burmese kings are descended from
this clan and, given the connection made in Burmese histories between Mahasammata
and the Sakiya clan, from Mahasammata himself.5 Although this origin myth has been
treated in the secondary literature on Burmese history as a development stemming out
of central Burmese thought, it did not surface in central Burmese texts until 1781 in
Shin Sandá-linka’s Maní-yadana-bon.
6
The absence of any reference to this myth in Burmese inscriptions and its late
appearance in Burmese chronicles led the epigraphist G. H. Luce to argue that:
The old view of some (not all) Burmese historians [concerning Tagaung]
is hardly worth discussion. The Abhiraja/Dhajaraja legends were
presumably invented to give Burmans a noble derivation from the
Sakiyan line of Gotama Buddha himself. But one has only to put a
Burman between a North Indian and a Chinese, to see at a glance where
his racial connections lie.7
J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand
Against a Historical Background, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 93-4.
4
Hman-nàn maha-ya-zawin-daw-gyì, Mandalay: Ratana Theiddi Press, 1908, I, pp. 175-182.
5 Koenig, The Burmese Polity, pp. 86-87.
6
Shin Sandá-linka, Maní-yadana-bon, Rangoon: Di-bat-sa Press, 1896. Pe Maung Tin explains,
however, that this myth did not enter central Burmese chronicles until 1785, with the appearance of the
New Pagan Chronicle. See Pe Maung Tin, “Introduction,” in Pe Maung Tin & G. H. Luce (trans.), The
Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, London: Oxford University Press, 1923, p. xv..."
Source/publisher:
School of Oriental and African Studies (London)
Date of Publication:
2002-00-00
Date of entry:
2021-10-10
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Countries:
Myanmar
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
315.6 KB
Resource Type:
text
Text quality:
- Good