The ''Pak Lat Chronicles'', as they are known in English, are a compilation of Mon history texts gathered from palm-leaf manuscripts by the Siamese Mon Monk Phra Candakanto around 1912-13.
This compilation of manuscript texts was published in two volumes as paper bound books. The printing took place at the Mon-language printing press of Pak Lat monastery on the outskirts of Bangkok. This famous Mon printing press published many other Buddhism-related titles in the early 20th century. The content of the compilation is diverse, including texts by different authors, chronicling the history of widely disparate historical eras from the
Pagan Kingdom
The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...
to King
Bayinnaung
, image = File:Bayinnaung.JPG
, caption = Statue of Bayinnaung in front of the National Museum of Myanmar
, reign = 30 April 1550 – 10 October 1581
, coronation = 11 January 1551 at Toung ...
's era of conquest. It also includes a version of the history of the Mon king
Razadarit.
To avoid confusion, it is important to note that scholarship on these texts often refers to the texts (or parts of them) using different names. Nidana Arambhakatha (genealogy of kings) and Rājāvaṁsa Kathā (history of the royal lineage)
[McCormick 2011] are two common names employed.
The Pak Lat chronicle texts are among the most difficult of all historical sources for Mon and Burmese historians to obtain. This is the likely reason why the composition and genealogy of the manuscripts in the compilation has yet to be studied and assessed in any scholarly depth.
The original published Pak Lat volumes can be found in the archives of the Siam Society in Bangkok and manuscript fragments of various sections can be found at Thailand's National archives. Mon scholar
Harry Leonard Shorto translated parts of the published volumes that have circulated in private until now. A plan to publish an edited version of these translations was apparently never realized.
The chronicles have been used extensively in the historical narratives of historians such as
G.E. Harvey,
[Harvey 1925: xviii] Nai Pan Hla
Nai Pan Hla ( my, နိုင်ပန်းလှ, mnw, နာဲပါန်လှ; 1923 – 18 June 2010) was a Burmese historian and cultural anthropologist of Mon descent. Throughout his career, he published many works on Mon ethnog ...
and
Victor Lieberman
Victor B. Lieberman (born 22 July 1945) is an American historian of early modern Southeast Asia and Eurasia. He presently serves as the Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Asian and Comparative History a ...
. Pan Hla used the Pak Lat chronicle texts when he wrote his published Mon version of ''
Razadarit Ayedawbon
''Razadarit Ayedawbon'' ( my, ရာဇာဓိရာဇ် အရေးတော်ပုံ) is a Burmese chronicle covering the history of Ramanya from 1287 to 1421. The chronicle consists of accounts of court intrigues, rebellions, diplomat ...
''.
According to Aung-Thwin, it is also first Mon-language chronicle to mention King
Anawrahta
Anawrahta Minsaw ( my, အနော်ရထာ မင်းစော, ; 11 May 1014 – 11 April 1077) was the founder of the Pagan Empire. Considered the father of the Burmese nation, Anawrahta turned a small principality in the dry zone ...
's conquest of
Thaton
Thaton (; mnw, သဓီု ) is a town in Mon State, in southern Myanmar on the Tenasserim plains. Thaton lies along the National Highway 8 and is also connected by the National Road 85. It is 230 km south east of Yangon and 70 km n ...
, a topic that according to his research all previous Mon language chronicles never once mentioned. He speculates that the British historians' narratives and interpretations were incorporated into the leitmotif of this supposedly ancient text before they were published around 1910.
[Aung-Thwin 2005: 148-149]
References
Bibliography
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* Paphatsaun Thianpanya No Date. "Mon Language in Thailand: The endangered heritage" Assumption Commercial College, Bangkok
*
* Shorto, H. L. No Date. ''Nidana Ramadhipati-katha.'' Unpublished typescript translation of pp. 34–44, 61-264 of Phra Candakanto (editor). On binding Rajawamsa Dhammaceti Mahapitakadhara. Pak Lat, Siam (1912).
{{Burmese chronicles
Burmese chronicles
Burmese Buddhist texts