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Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Online ISBN:
9780824875688
Print ISBN:
9780824867836
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press
Book

Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Michael A. Aung-Thwin
Michael A. Aung-Thwin
University of Hawai'i, Manoa
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Published online:
18 January 2018
Published in print:
31 May 2017
Online ISBN:
9780824875688
Print ISBN:
9780824867836
Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press

Abstract

When the kingdom of Pagan—representing the “classical state” and “golden age” of Myanmar—declined politically by the early fourteenth century, Upper Myanmar reconstituted itself into three smaller centers of power, each controlled by a minister of the old court, while Lower Myanmar, finally freed from Upper Myanmar’s hegemony, began the process of state formation for the first time. This transitional situation continued for the next half century until two new kingdoms emerged. In Upper Myanmar, it was the First Ava Dynasty and Kingdom in 1364 and in Lower Myanmar, the First Pegu Dynasty and Kingdom in 1349. BoThattained their pinnacles by the fifteenth century, and both had declined before the first half of the sixteenth century was over. That period of nearly 200 years is the only gap left in the mainstream historiography of Myanmar, which this book seeks to fill, by reconstructing the origins, development, and decline of each kingdom separately, and then examining the impact of that history on their relationship. The study shows that whereas in-land agrarian Ava continued the classical tradition of Pagan, maritime commercial Pegu was an entirely new kingdom, the first in Lower Myanmar. The situation generated a symbiotic and dualistic geo-political “upstream-downstream” relationship between the two kingdoms that became, thereafter, a recurring historical pattern until today, currently represented by in-land Naypyidaw and “coastal” Yangon.

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