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Ma Phae Wah
Ma Phae Wah ( my, မဖဲဝါ, also spelt as Ma Phae War; ) is a Burmese ''nat'' (spirit). She is the guardian spirit of the graveyards and cemeteries in Myanmar. Ma Phae Wah makes her home in the cemetery, but come midnight she hoists a coffin onto her shoulder and shuffles through town with her long hair waving in the spectral breeze. Woe to the household where she stops and lays her casket on the doorstep, for someone in that family, usually a child will soon sicken and die. Legend During the reign of King Bagyidaw of Konbaung, Ma Phae Wah was said to be Ma Thae U, a native of Pyay. She had an older brother named Maung Kyan Sit. He served as a clerk to the Duke of Pyay. His title was Min Ye Dibba. Soon after her parents' death, she was living with her brother and had to rely on him. One day Maung Kyan Sit rebelled against the Duke of Pyay and fled along the Irrawaddy River. They arrived in a sparsely populated area with many lakes. They lived in obscurity and Ma Thae U c ...
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Burmese Name
Burmese names lack the serial structure of most Western names. The Burmans have no customary matronymic A matronymic is a personal name based on the given name of one's mother, grandmother, or any female ancestor. It is the female equivalent of a patronymic. Around the world, matronymic surnames are far less common than patronymic surnames. In som ... or patronymic system and thus there is no surname at all. In the culture of Myanmar, people can change their name at will, often with no government oversight, to reflect a change in the course of their lives. Also, many Burmese names use an honorific, given at some point in life, as an integral part of the name. Traditional and Western-style names Burmese names were originally one syllable, as in the cases of U Nu and U Thant ("U" being an honorific). In the mid-20th century, many Burmese started using two syllables, albeit without any formal structure. In the late 1890s, British scholars observed that Rakhine people, Rakhines ...
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Irrawaddy River
The Irrawaddy River ( Ayeyarwady River; , , from Indic ''revatī'', meaning "abounding in riches") is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar (Burma). It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Originating from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-South before emptying through the Irrawaddy Delta in the Ayeyarwady Region into the Andaman Sea. Its drainage basin of about covers a large part of Burma. After Rudyard Kipling's poem, it is sometimes referred to as ' The Road to Mandalay'. As early as the sixth century, the river was used for trade and transport. Having developed an extensive network of irrigation canals, the river became important to the British Empire after it had colonized Burma. The river is still as vital today, as a considerable amount of (export) goods and traffic moves by river. Rice is produced in the Irrawaddy Delta, irrigated by water from the river. In 2007, Myanmar ...
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Mythical Creatures In Burmese Folklore
A wide variety of mythical creatures are found in Burmese mythology. Many Burmese creatures are part human or creatures capable of assuming human form. Most mythical creatures are endowed with humanistic mentalities, ability to converse with humans and also supernatural powers. During the 20th century, the role and diversity of Burmese mythical creatures were diversified by Shwe Thway comics which depicted the life of the Buddha, the Jataka tales and Burmese history. The most common mythological being is the Belu, an ogre. The popularity of the Belu is due to the Yama Zatdaw, the Burmese version of the Ramayana, a very popular play in Myanmar, and also their roles in the Jatakas. List of beings and creatures The following is a list of beings and creatures in Burmese mythology: Creatures mentioned in stories, plays and Burmese literature Deities, Demons & Spirits * Athurakal - the lowest form of deities which have pleasure half the day and suffer the other half. Sworn e ...
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Nat (spirit)
The nats (; MLCTS: ''nat''; ) are god-like spirits venerated in Myanmar and neighbouring countries in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 ''Great Nats'' who were designated that status by King Anawrahta when he formalized the official list of nats. Most of the 37 ''Great Nats'' were human beings who met violent deaths. There are two types of ''nats'' in Burmese Belief: ''nat sein'' () which are humans that were deified after their deaths and all the other nats which are spirits of nature (spirits of water, trees etc.). Much like sainthood, ''nats'' can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. ''Nat'' worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas and is practised among ethnic minorities of Myanmar as well as in mainstream Bamar society. However, it is among the Theravada Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen. Every Burmese village has a ''nat k ...
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Kayin State
Kayin State ( my, ကရင်ပြည်နယ်, ; kjp, ဖၠုံခါန်ႋကၞင့်, italics=no; ksw, ကညီကီၢ်စဲၣ်, ), also known by the endonyms Kawthoolei and Karen State, is a state of Myanmar. The capital city is Hpa-An, also spelled Pa-An. The relief of Karen State is mountainous with the Dawna Range running along the state in a NNW - SSE direction and the southern end of the Karen Hills in the northwest. It is bordered by Mae Hong Son, Tak, and Kanchanaburi provinces of Thailand to the east; Mon State and Bago Region to the west and south; Mandalay Region, Shan State and Kayah State to the north. History The region that forms today's Karen State was part of successive Burmese kingdoms since the formation of the Bagan Empire in mid-11th century. During the 13th to 16th centuries, much of the region belonged to the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, while the northern part of the region belonged to Taungoo, a vassal state of Ava Kingdom. The r ...
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Tharrawaddy Min
Tharrawaddy Min ( my, သာယာဝတီမင်း, ; 14 March 1787 – 17 November 1846) was the 8th king of the Konbaung Dynasty of Burma. He repudiated the Treaty of Yandabo and almost went to war with the British Empire, British. Tharrawaddy was born Burmese name#Honorifics, Maung Khin to Crown Prince Thado Minsaw (son of King Bodawpaya) and Princess Min Kye on 14 March 1787. When his elder brother Bagyidaw ascended the throne in 1819, Tharrawaddy was appointed Heir Apparent. As crown prince, he fought in the First Anglo-Burmese War. In February 1837, he raised the standard of rebellion after escaping to Shwebo, the ancestral place of the Konbaung kings. Tharrawaddy succeeded in overthrowing Bagyidaw in April and was crowned king. Princess Min Myat Shwe, a granddaughter of Hsinbyushin, whom he married in 1809, was crowned as his chief queen (''Nanmadaw Mibaya Hkaungyi''). In 1841 King Tharrawaddy donated a 42-ton bell called the Maha Tissada Gandha Bell and of goldpl ...
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Gold Leaf
Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-karat yellow gold. Gold leaf is a type of metal leaf, but the term is rarely used when referring to gold leaf. The term ''metal leaf'' is normally used for thin sheets of metal of any color that do not contain any real gold. Pure gold is 24 karat. Real, yellow gold leaf is approximately 91.7% pure (i.e. 22-karat) gold. Silver-colored white gold is about 50% pure gold. Layering gold leaf over a surface is called gold leafing or gilding. Traditional water gilding is the most difficult and highly regarded form of gold leafing. It has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years and is still done by hand. In art Gold leaf is sometimes used in art in a "raw" state, without a gilding process. In cultures including the European Bronze Age it ...
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Shwedagon Pagoda
The Shwedagon Pagoda (, ); mnw, ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ်; officially named ''Shwedagon Zedi Daw'' ( my, ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော်, , ) and also known as the Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda is a gilded stupa located in Yangon, Myanmar. The Shwedagon is the most sacred Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar, as it is believed to contain relics of the four previous Buddhas of the present kalpa. These relics include the staff of Kakusandha, the water filter of Koṇāgamana, a piece of the robe of Kassapa, and eight strands of hair from the head of Gautama. Built on the high Singuttara Hill, the tall pagoda stands above sea level,The pagoda's pinnacle height (to the tip of its ''hti'') is tall per (UNESCO 2018), and is built on the Singuttara Hill, which is tall per , and tall above sea level per and dominates the Yangon skyline. Yangon's zoning regulations, which cap the maximum height of buildings to above sea level (75% of the pagoda's sea ...
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Pyay
Pyay (, ; mnw, ပြန် , ; also known as Prome and Pyè) is principal town of Pyay Township in the Bago Region in Myanmar. Pyay is located on the bank of the Irrawaddy River, north-west of Yangon. It is an important trade center for the Ayeyarwady Delta, Central and Upper Myanmar and the Rakhine (Arakan) State. The British Irrawaddy Flotilla Company established the current town in the late 19th century on the Irrawaddy as a transshipment point for cargo between Upper and Lower Burma. The English novelist Jane Austen's brother Rear Admiral Charles Austen died here in 1852. The district of Pyay encompasses the valley of the Irrawaddy, located between Thayet, Hinthada and Tharrawaddy districts. Along the western side of Pyay District are the Arakan Mountains and along the eastern side are the Pegu Range. Pyay District's main towns are Pyay, Shwetaung, and Paungde. Etymology The name "Pyay" means "country" in Burmese, and refers to the ruins of the main city of the Pyu c ...
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Nat (spirit)
The nats (; MLCTS: ''nat''; ) are god-like spirits venerated in Myanmar and neighbouring countries in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 ''Great Nats'' who were designated that status by King Anawrahta when he formalized the official list of nats. Most of the 37 ''Great Nats'' were human beings who met violent deaths. There are two types of ''nats'' in Burmese Belief: ''nat sein'' () which are humans that were deified after their deaths and all the other nats which are spirits of nature (spirits of water, trees etc.). Much like sainthood, ''nats'' can be designated for a variety of reasons, including those only known in certain regions in Burma. ''Nat'' worship is less common in urban areas than in rural areas and is practised among ethnic minorities of Myanmar as well as in mainstream Bamar society. However, it is among the Theravada Buddhist Bamar that the most highly developed form of ceremony and ritual is seen. Every Burmese village has a ''nat k ...
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Konbaung Dynasty
The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘုရားမင်းဆက်, Alaungphra dynasty) and the Hunter dynasty (မုဆိုးမင်းဆက် Mokso dynasty / မုဆိုးဘိုမင်းဆက် Moksobo dynasty), was the last dynasty that ruled Myanmar, Burma/Myanmar from 1752 to 1885. It created the second-largest empire in history of Myanmar, Burmese history and continued the administrative reforms begun by the Toungoo dynasty, laying the foundations of the modern state of Burma. The reforms, however, proved insufficient to stem the advance of the British Empire, British, who defeated the Burmese in all three Anglo-Burmese Wars over a six-decade span (1824–1885) and ended the millennium-old Burmese monarchy in 1885. An expansionist dynasty, the K ...
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Bagyidaw
Bagyidaw ( my, ဘကြီးတော်, ; also known as Sagaing Min, ; 23 July 1784 – 15 October 1846) was the seventh king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma from 1819 until his abdication in 1837. Prince of Sagaing, as he was commonly known in his day, was selected as crown prince by his grandfather King Bodawpaya in 1808, and became king in 1819 after Bodawpaya's death. Bagyidaw moved the capital from Amarapura back to Ava in 1823. Bagyidaw's reign saw the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826), which marked the beginning of the decline of the Konbaung dynasty. Bagyidaw inherited the largest Burmese empire, second only to King Bayinnaung's, but also one that shared ill-defined borders with British India. In the years leading to the war, the king had been forced to suppress British supported rebellions in his grandfather's western acquisitions (Arakan, Manipur and Assam), but unable to stem cross border raids from British territories and protectorates.Owen 2005: 87–88 His ...
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