Scholars have long accepted the belief that a Theravada Buddhist Mon kingdom, Râmannadesa, flourished in coastal Lower Burma until it was conquered in 1057 by King Aniruddha of Pagân—which then became, in essence, the new custodian and repository of Mon culture in the Upper Burmese interior. This scenario, which Aung-Thwin calls the "Mon Paradigm," has circumscribed much of the scholarship on early Burma and significantly shaped the history of Southeast Asia for more than a century. Now, in a masterful reassessment of Burmese history, Michael Aung-Thwin reexamines the original contemporary accounts and sources without finding any evidence of an early Theravada Mon polity or a conquest by Aniruddha. The paradigm, he finds, cannot be sustained. 
How, when, and why did the Mon Paradigm emerge? Aung-Thwin meticulously traces the paradigm’s creation to the merging of two temporally, causally, and contextually unrelated Mon and Burmese narratives, which were later synthesized in English by colonial officials and scholars. Thus there was no single originating source, only a late and mistaken conflation of sources. The conceptual, methodological, and empirical ramifications of these findings are significant. The prevalent view that state-formation began in the maritime regions of Southeast Asia with trade and commerce rather than in the interior with agriculture must now be reassessed. In addition, a more rigorous look at the actual scope and impact of a romanticized Mon culture in the region is required. Other issues important to the field of early Burma and Southeast Asia studies, including the process of "Indianization," the characterization of "classical" states, and the advent and spread of Theravada Buddhism, are also directly affected by Aung-Thwin’s work. Finally, it provides a geo-political, cultural, and economic alternative to what has become an ethnic interpretation of Burma’s history. 
The Mists of Râmanna is a tour de force that challenges our fundamental understanding of early Southeast Asia. It will be essential reading for those interested in the history, art history, linguistics, ethnic studies, and archaeology of the region.

The Mists Of Ramanna: The Legend That Was Lower Burma

History

Aung-Thwin, Michael A.

Asia

Univ of Hawaii Pr

When the great kingdom of Pagan declined politically in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, its territory devolved into three centers of power and a period of transition occurred. Then two new kingdoms arose: the First Ava Dynasty in Upper Myanmar and the First Pegu Dynasty in Lower Myanmar. Both originated around the second half of the fourteenth century, reached their pinnacles in the fifteenth, and declined before the first half of the sixteenth century was over. Their story is the only missing piece in Myanmar’s mainstream historiography, a gap this book is designed to fill. Renowned historian Michael Aung-Thwin reconstructs the chronology of this nearly two-hundred-year period while challenging a number of long-held beliefs. Contrary to conventional histories, he contends that Ava was the continuation of an old kingdom (Pagan) led by its traditional ethno-linguistic group, the Burmese speakers, while Pegu was a new kingdom led by more recent arrivals, the Mon speakers. Although both kingdoms shared many cultural components of the “classical” Pagan tradition, Ava was inland and agrarian, while Pegu was maritime and commercial, so that each was shaped by very different geopolitical and economic environments. In that difference rests the dynamism of their “upstream-downstream” relationship, which, thereafter, became a regular historical pattern in Myanmar history, represented today by inland Naypyidaw and “coastal” Yangon. Original in conception and impressive in scope, this well written book not only fills in the history of early modern Myanmar but places it in a broad interpretive context based on years of familiarity with a wealth of primary sources. Full of arresting anecdotes and colorful personalities, it represents an important contribution to Myanmar studies that will not easily be superseded.

Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

University of Hawaii Press

After careful re-reading and analysis of original Old Burmese and other primary sources, the author discovered that four out of the five events considered to be the most important in the history of early Burma, and believed to have been historically accurate, are actually late-nineteenth and twentieth-century inventions of colonial historians caught in their own intellectual and political world. Only one of these is a genuine indigenous Burmese myth, but it too has been embellished by modern historians. The author discusses each of these five myths and concludes with an assessment of the current situation in Burma in the context of the new myths springing up today, thereby bringing the thirteenth century into the twentieth.

Myth & History In Historiography of Early Burma: Pardigms, Primary Sources and Prejudices (Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series) (Volume 102)

Ohio University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Aung-Thwin, Michael A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Aung-Thwin, Michael A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Aung-Thwin, Michael A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Mists Of Ramanna: The Legend That Was Lower Burma

Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Myth & History In Historiography of Early Burma: Pardigms, Primary Sources and Prejudices (Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series) (Volume 102)