A dormant volcano 1,518 m high about forty miles south-east of Pagan, the home of the Mahagiri nats and Me Wunna and the most important centre of nat worship in the country (English Wikipedia).
The Mahagiri legend (two nats from Tagaung, refuge from a king of Bagan in the fourth century) and the story of Me Wunna and Byatta under Anawrahta are legends; the page dates no shrine or building on the mountain and does not mention Kyansittha or Narapatisithu. The Pagan court brought the cult inside the faith: a royally sanctioned list of thirty-seven nats, a shrine for them at the Shwezigon, and nat worship allowed in temples and pagodas; over ninety percent of recorded religious gifts came from the court and its dependents, while peasants leaned to the nats (English Wikipedia, Burmese Buddhism). The chronicle's banished Ari monks went to Popa.
The campaign board says the kings go on making offerings here; no page we read dates one. Narapatisithu himself is honoured after death as a nat at Pakhan.
Who holds it
- Title
- Keepers of the nat shrines
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
English Wikipedia, Mount Popa (citing the Hmannan and modern sources) and Burmese Buddhism.
What it holds
- The sacred mountain and its slope villages (not itemised)
How things stand that morning
The oldest holy place in the country, kept up by the villages of the volcano's slopes; the king's patronage is the campaign board's claim.
Places of note
- Mount Popa: The volcano.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry mount-popa: 'forty miles south east of Pagan', 'the Buddhist court... the kings go on making offerings here'. The distance is about 49 km, or thirty miles, not forty; the kings' offerings are not on the pages we read. The campaign board entry coordinates 20.921, 95.249; page 20.92417, 95.25056.
Evidence: Legend plus a modern description; no dated event.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
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.