Arakanese history
Websites/Multiple Documents
| Title: | | Scholars' Column |
| Description/subject: | | "Collected Papers and Articles on Arakan written by various eminent scholars around the world".
Several scholarly articles on Arakanese history (not to be confused with the political items which have been slipped into the same page. These have their own, different value.). |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Rakhapura.com (Arakanese nationalist site) |
| Format/size: | | html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
|
Individual Documents
| Title: | | The Development of a Muslim Enclave in
Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma (Myanmar |
| Date of publication: | | September 2005 |
| Description/subject: | | Conclusion:
"After Burma gained independence, a concentration of nearly ninety
percent of the area’s population, the distinguishing characteristics
of their own culture and the Islamic faith formed an ethnic and
religious minority group in the western fringe of the republic. For
successive generations their ethnicity and Islam have been
practically not distinguishable. At the beginning they adopted the slogan, “Pakistan Jindabad,” (Victory to Pakistan). This policy
faded away when they could not gain support from the government
of Pakistan. Later they began to call for the establishment of an
autonomous region instead. Pakistan’s attitude toward the
Muslims in Arakan was different from the Islamabad’s policy
toward Kashmiris. During the Independence War in Bangladesh
most of the Muslims in Arakan supported West Pakistan. After
Bangladesh gained independence Dhaka followed the policy of
disowning those Chittagonians. Consequently they had to insist
firmly on their identity as Rohingyas. Their leaders began to
complain that the term “Chittagonian Bengali” had arbitrarily been
applied to them. But the majority of the ethnic group, being
illiterate agriculturalists in the rural areas, still prefers their
identity as Bengali Muslims.
Although they have showed the collective political interest for
more than five decades since Burma gained independence, their
political and cultural rights have not so far been recognized and
guaranteed. On the contrary the demand for the recognition of
their rights sounds a direct challenge to the right of autonomy and
the myth of survival for the Arakanese majority in their homeland.
A symbiotic coexistence has so far been inconceivable because of
the political climate of mistrust and fear between the two races and
the policy of the military junta. The Muslims from the other parts
of Arakan kept themselves aloof from the Rohingya cause as well.
Thus the cause of Rohingyas finds a little support outside their
own community, and their claims of an earlier historical tie to
Burma are insupportable." |
| Author/creator: | | Aye Chan |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, Autumn 2005, ISSN 1479- |
| Format/size: | | pdf (246K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 21 January 2006 |
|
| Title: | | Interview with Guest Editor Stephan van Galen |
| Date of publication: | | October 2001 |
| Description/subject: | | "By the time of his first visit to Arakan in 1999,
Van Galen had already read about Southeast
Asia and Arakan for several years. At a young
age, he had read the children's book, De
Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe, which was
based on the seventeenth-century travel logs of
an East India ship's captain named Bontekoe,
who was shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean. 'The story had become a classic already during the
seventeenth century. Of course, I never realized just to what extent the stories were true until I
started doing my research on Arakan, and going through the archival material I came across his
name again,' he recalls. But visiting the country one studies as a historian is felt by Van Galen to be
a vital part in the process of understanding it..." |
| Author/creator: | | Tanja Chute |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Newsletter, Issue 25, International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
|
| Title: | | Rediscovering Arakan: Studying cultural change on an Asian frontier |
| Date of publication: | | October 2001 |
| Description/subject: | | "Covering the biggest part of Myanmar's northwestern sea coast, Arakan faces the Bay of
Bengal and shares its northern border with Bangladesh and India. Called either Roshang
(in Bengal), Rakhangapura (in Sri Lankan chronicles), Yakhai (in Ayutthayan chronicles),
or Rakhine by its own inhabitants, the study of the history of Arakan has suffered from
the area's peripheral situation, at least in the divisions of Asia familiar to us..." |
| Author/creator: | | Jacques P. Leider |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Newsletter, Issue 25, International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
|
| Title: | | Rise of a Mainland Trading State: Rahkaing Under the Early Mrauk-U Kings, c. 1430-1603 |
| Date of publication: | | 1998 |
| Description/subject: | | This study of the rise of the maritime kingdom of Rahkaing (Arakan) in the 15th and 16th centuries attempts to demonstrate how the kings of Danya-wati gradually drew other power centers in the Rahkaing littoral (including Mekha-wati, Dwara-wati, and Chittagong) into its political orbit. Vital to this political centralization were the collateral processes of increasing maritime trade, demographic growth spurred by resettled war captives, the suppression of rival lowland tribes, supplies of firearms, and the development of a multi-directional system of religious patronage. By the end of the 16th century, Mrauk-U rulers, as both Buddhist kings and Islamic sultans, controlled the entire Rahkaing littoral as one kingdom and had begun their expansion into neighboring regions as distant as Dacca in Bengal and Pegu in Burma. |
| Author/creator: | | Michael W. Charney |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Journal of Burma Studies Vol. 3 (1998) |
| Format/size: | | pdf (2.19MB) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://www.grad.niu.edu/burma/webpgs/abstractsVol3.html |
| Date of entry/update: | | 10 March 2009 |
|
| Title: | | ARAKAN, MIN YAZAGYI, AND THE PORTUGUESE: |
| Date of publication: | | June 1993 |
| Description/subject: | | "A thesis presented to the Faculty of The College of Arts and
Sciences of Ohio University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree Master of Arts
Michael W. Charney
(June 1993)..."Until Min Yazagyi’s reign, then, I think that the Arakanese were
the dominant partner in the Arakanese-Portuguese relationship. When
Min Yazagyi forgot the importance of the Arakanese king’s role in
maintaining this dominance in their relationship, however, the
Portuguese were given the opportunity to declare themselves
independent. In response, Min Yazagyi, preoccupied with himself and his
royal regalia, allowed his royal court to “fall prey” to factionalism and
wasted the best of the Arakanese military forces in poorly-crafted
campaigns under the command of local military leaders of doubtful
abilities. This hurt Arakan’s credibility as a powerful empire and
weakened the international alliance system, which had been carefully
constructed by past Arakanese kings. Further, the repeated Arakanese
military disasters presented a tremendous drain on Arakanese economic
resources which Min Yazagyi was not able to remedy. The collapse of
Arakanese dominance in the Arakanese-Portuguese relationship,
however, was short-lived. Min Khamaung, Min Yazagyi’s son and
successor, brought the Arakanese government back firmly under
monarchical control through his careful selection of new, capable
military and civilian leaders. Min Yazagyi, in the tradition of Min Bin,
sought a new foreign model, the Dutch, to help him defeat the
Portuguese. But Min Khamaung deserves full credit for crushing the
rebellious Portuguese who served the pirate “king” Sebastião Gonsalves y
Tibau and brought an end to the last of the Portuguese rebellions. In
Pegu, however, Min Khamaung was too late to reassert Arakanese
dominance, since the Avan king, Anaukpetlun, had already crushed De
Brito at Syriam and had brought Pegu under firm Avan control. Thus, a
combination of new Arakanese leaders, the selection of a new foreign
model, the resurrection of the nearly-destroyed maritime-based
Arakanese economy, and Min Khamaung’s military genius, saved Arakan
at least partially from the damage it had suffered under Min Yazagyi and
the attendant Portuguese revolts.
I think it should also be mentioned that the Portuguese
mercenaries captured in both Syriam and the Sundiva campaigns, by
Ava and Arakan, were forced to continue their service to both kingdoms
as slaves. Anaukpetlun turned his Portuguese captives into a hereditary
class of artillerymen whose descendants served in the Avan army for
several centuries.595 In the case of Arakan, Min Khamaung, once
himself a prisoner of the Portuguese, placed his Portuguese captives into
Arakanese military units which guarded the northwestern border of
Arakan in Bengal. The Arakanese-Portuguese relationship thus can be
seen as a continuum of Arakanese dominance, with the exception of the
hiatus of the reign of Min Yazagyi..." |
| Author/creator: | | Michael W. Charney |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | Ohio University |
| Format/size: | | pdf (800K) |
| Date of entry/update: | | 21 January 2006 |
|
| Title: | | Ancient Arakan |
| Date of publication: | | 1976 |
| Description/subject: | | Abstract: "The early history of Arakan has been generally considered to be that of a province of eastern India, and hence its study has been neglected by both Indian and Southeast Asian historians. This dissertation seeks to examine the dynamics of the history from the beginnings of urbanization until the rise of the Burmese empire which subsequently dominated Arakanese culture. The first chapter deals with the geographical and ethnolinguistic background to the development of the earliest cities. In the second, all the inscriptions of the period, in Sanskrit, Pali and Pyu are catalogued and edited. The inscriptions issued by the kings establish a chronology for the period and illustrate the nature of the cult surrounding the institution of kingship, while copper-plate and votive inscriptions elucidate the nature of state organisation and the popular religion. Chapter Three deals with the coinage which emerged following the development of a centralised economy, and discusses the impetus for this and the role of the king on whom the prosperity of the country depended. A comparison with similar coin types in Southeast Asia is made and the catalogue includes all the coins yet discovered. The sites of the most important monuments are discussed in Chapter Four, which catalogues all the architectural and sculptural remains. A comparative analysis of the Buddhist and Hindu images and of the minor arts reveals, to a greater extent that do the inscriptions, the nature of contact with India and the rest of Southeast Asia. The conclusion deals with the political and cultural history which thus emerges, examining in detail the rationale behind the development of the concept of divine kingship in Arakan." |
| Author/creator: | | Pamela Gutman |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | The Australian National University |
| Format/size: | | pdf |
| Date of entry/update: | | 25 November 2007 |
|
| Title: | | An Account of the Frontier Between Ava and the Part of Bengal Adjacent to the Karnaphuli River |
| Date of publication: | | 1825 |
| Description/subject: | | Editor’s note:
This article by Francis Hamilton, also known as Francis Buchanan, first appeared in The
Edinburgh Journal of Science (vol. 3, April-October, 1825, pp. 32-44). Despite its relatively late
dating, Hamilton’s understanding of the area and the people were not substantially different
from those found in the his earlier diaries during his travels in the area in 1798.
M.W. C. ... "...The river called Naaf by Europeans, which enters the sea in about 20º 50’ north, for a short way
forms the boundary between Ava and Bengal; and across it is the only communication known
between the kingdom of Arakan subject to Ava and Chatigang subject to Britain. North from the
forks of this river, so far as I could learn in 1798, there was no district boundary; but there
extends north, along the whole of the Chatigang district, a mountainous frontier occupied by
several rude tribes. Through this region flow many rivers; some into the sea, either through
Chatigang or Arakan, and some into the Erawadi; and the high land at the sources of such of
these rivers as run through the district of Chatigang was commonly supposed to be the actual
boundary. The rude tribes indeed, which occupy the hilly countries on both sides of the central
eight, claim independence, and support it, so far as their slender means will admit..." |
| Author/creator: | | Francis Hamilton (Francis Buchanan) |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, Autumn 2003 |
| Format/size: | | pdf (51K) |
| Alternate URLs: | | http://web.soas.ac.uk/burma/vol__i,_no__2.htm |
| Date of entry/update: | | 09 April 2004 |
|
| Title: | | Arakan, Burma's forgotten kingdom |
| Description/subject: | | "For more a millennium the policy we know as Arakan existed as a culturally strategic border state, the only
state in Southeast Asia to be connected to India by both land and sea routes. The study of its culture is of
particular interest as it reveals which elements of Indian cultural were adopted in Arakan and in the land to
its east. We can then ask why some elements and not others were adopted, and attempted to relate this to
the political, social and religious developments of the wider region..." |
| Author/creator: | | Pamela Gutman |
| Language: | | English |
| Source/publisher: | | TAASA Rewiew , Vol. 7, No. 4 |
| Date of entry/update: | | 03 June 2003 |
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