''Mon Yazawin'' ( my, မွန်ရာဇဝင်, ; also spelled Mun YazawinAung-Thwin 2017: 221), translated from Mon into Burmese by Shwe Naw, is a

chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

about the

Hanthawaddy Kingdom ( Mon) ( Burmese) , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Hongsarwatoi (Hanthawaddy) Pegu , common_name = Hongsarwatoi (Hanthawaddy) Kingdom / Ramannya (Ramam) , era = Warring states , status = Kingdom , event_pre ...

as well as of earlier Mon polities. It is one of the two extant chronicles named "Mon Yazawin" (or "Mun Yazawin").

Provenance

There are two known extant chronicles with the Burmese language name of မွန်ရာဇဝင် (''Mon Yazawin''). The subject of this article refers to the work, first machine published in 1922. According to J.A. Stewart, the source of the 1922 publication, whose title he transliterated as ''Mun Yazawin'', was a 19th-century compilation (and translation into Burmese) of older

Mon language The Mon language (, mnw, ဘာသာမန်, links=no, (Mon-Thai ဘာသာမည်) ; my, မွန်ဘာသာ; th, ภาษามอญ; formerly known as Peguan and Talaing) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon peopl ...

manuscripts by one U Shwe Naw.(Aung-Thwin 2017: 221–222, 337): citing (Stewart in ''Journal of the Burma Research Society'', Vol. 13, No. 2, 1923: 69–76) Stewart continued that the reference Mon manuscripts were actually those collected by Sir

Arthur Purves Phayre Sir Arthur Purves Phayre (7 May 1812 – 14 December 1885) was a career British Indian Army officer who was the first Commissioner of British Burma, 1862–1867, Governor of Mauritius, 1874–1878, and author. His brother, Sir Robert Phayre (18 ...

from

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

; and that Shwe Naw's Burmese language manuscript was found at the Mingun Pitaka Taik (Mingun Library) at

Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with numerous Buddhist monasteries is an important religious and ...

.Aung-Thwin 2017: 221–222 According to

Michael Aung-Thwin Michael Aung-Thwin (1946 – August 14, 2021) was a Burmese American historian and emeritus professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specializing in early Southeast Asian and Burmese history. Early life and education Aung-Thwin wa ...

who followed up on Stewart's statement, the only Mon language history manuscript found in the Sir Arthur Phayre Collection in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

is a palm-leaf manuscript, cataloged as ''History of the Talaings''.(Aung-Thwin 2017: 222): The Mon language palm-leaf manuscript for ''History of the Talaings'' is cataloged as OR 3414 in the British Library. Note that Aung-Thwin, who does not read Mon, does not state that the text is indeed the work (or one of the works) Shwe Naw used to compile the ''Mon Yazawin'' chronicle. Furthermore, the epilogue section of the 1922 publication states that the manuscript—presumably the Mon language manuscript Phayre collected—was completed on the 6th waning of

Tabodwe Tabodwe ( my, တပို့တွဲ) is the eleventh month of the traditional Burmese calendar. Festivals and observances *Full moon of Tabodwe **Harvest Festival () **Mon National Day Rakhine tug of war festival, Yatha Hswe Pwe. *Pagoda fes ...

1146 ME (30 January 1785).Mon Yazawin 1922: 107

Subject matter

The chronicle mainly covers the history of Martaban–Pegu monarchs from

Wareru Wareru ( mnw, ဝါရေဝ်ရောဝ်, my, ဝါရီရူး, ; also known as Wagaru; 20 March 1253 – 14 January 1307) was the founder of the Martaban Kingdom, located in present-day Myanmar (Burma). By using both diplomatic a ...

to Takayutpi. It also contains brief early histories of the Thuwunnabhumi and Hanthawaddy kingdoms. The chronicle's chronology is highly unreliable. Not only are many of its dates wildly divergent from other chronicles' dates for the same events, but the dates in different sections of the chronicle do not agree with one another.See (Mon Yazawin 1922). Shwe Naw did not check the dates with those of other chronicles. For example, (Mon Yazawin 1922: 39) says King Wareru seized the governorship of Martaban on the 6th waxing of Tabodwe 1064 ME (6 January 1703) whereas all other chronicles say 643 ME (1281/82) or 646 ME (1284/85). Nor is it consistent with its own dates. Although it says Wareru seized the governorship in 1064 ME (1702/03), (Mon Yazawin 1922: 44–45) reports 83 years and 7 monarchs later, the eighth king Binnya U ascended the throne in 1060 ME (1698/99). The following table is a summary of the monarchs of the Wareru dynasty as reported in the chronicle.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Burmese chronicles Burmese chronicles History of Myanmar 1785 non-fiction books