The delta and Tenasserim ports live on Indian cloth and the ships that bring it: the campaign board makes Bassein (Kusima) the door onto the Bay of Bengal where Indian cloth comes in and rice goes out, and a Sinhalese rock inscription of 1165 gives the first record of a place called Kusima.
Indian merchants from the coasts across the bay are therefore a likely presence at the ports, though we found no source that counts them, names a headman or locates a temple. The Nathlaung Kyaung at Pagan and the Brahmanical images of the Nanpaya show Hindu worship at the capital; at the coast the evidence is the trade, not any building. In the general accounts we know, Indians appear in the Pagan inscriptions as 'Kula'; we did not read any such inscription.
Who holds it
- Title
- Headmen of the Indian traders
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No page we read names a headman or a temple at a Burmese port in 1200.
What it holds
- Cargoes and credit, not land (inferred)
How things stand that morning
A trading community with its own gods and brokers, probably small, perhaps influential at the customs.
Places of note
- Bassein (Pathein): Western delta port.
- Martaban: Salween port.
- Tenasserim: Peninsular customs town.
Where the sources disagree
- Brief asks for Hindu communities of the ports. The thinness is the finding.
Evidence: Inference from trade; no source of the date names a person or a place of worship.
Primary sources for Kingdom of Pagan
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, The Royal Historical Commission of King Bagyidaw (Monywe Sayadaw and others), drawing on U Kala's Maha Yazawin (about 1724) and earlier chronicles (1829 to 1832). The standard Burmese court chronicle, compiled six centuries after 1200 from older chronicles now lost. Read online
- The later Tai, Lao and Mon chronicles of the north, Ratanapanna (Jinakalamali); Bodhiramsi (Chamadevivamsa); anonymous monks and court scribes (the Chamadevivamsa about 1410; the Jinakalamali 1516 to 1528; the Chiang Mai Chronicle in its surviving form 1827; the Nithan Khun Borom 16th to 17th century). There is no text of 1200 for the Mon kingdom of Haripunjaya, the Tai muang of Ngoenyang (Chiang Saen), Chiang Rung, the Yom and Nan valleys, or the Lao middle Mekong.
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
- Epigraphia Birmanica, being lithic and other inscriptions of Burma, Various, edited by Taw Sein Ko, C. Duroiselle and C. O. Blagden (inscriptions of the 11th to 15th centuries; the series ran from 1919 to 1936). The Archaeological Survey of Burma's series of edited inscriptions with full translations. Read online
- Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Ava; Inscriptions of Burma, Various (the Pagan kings, queens, ministers and donors), edited by Tun Nyein, Taw Sein Ko, G. H. Luce and Pe Maung Tin (inscriptions of the 11th to 14th centuries; editions 1899 and 1933 to 1956). The dedicatory inscriptions of Pagan are the only contemporary texts for the kingdom of Narapatisithu (reigning 1174 to 1211). Read online
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.