The kingdom of Arakan (the Lemro)

Who rules

Title

King of Arakan (Rakhine), reigning in the Lemro valley

Since

not known: the Rakhine chronicles' king list has untrustworthy dates and no source dates any king to 1 January 1200

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

English Wikipedia (Arakan; Letya Min Nan, citing the Akyab District Gazetteer; Mahamuni; Waithali; Dhanyawadi; Pagan Kingdom). Leider, Charney and Gutman, the standard modern work, were not reachable. No king is named, as the brief orders.

Overlord

None attested. The Hmannan treats Arakan as Pagan's by right of Anawrahta's attempt on the Mahamuni and later interventions; Lieberman finds Pagan had no effective authority over it (English Wikipedia, Pagan Kingdom).

What the realm holds

• The Lemro valley and its seats: Pyinsa (Sambawak), Parein (founded 1106 by Letya Min Nan on the chronicle, English Wikipedia), Hkrit, with Launggyet a site not yet a court
• The Kaladan plain: Dhanyawadi with the Mahamuni image and its keepers, Vesali's ruins, and the Kaladan mouth as the harbour for Bengal
• The coast and islands: Ramree, Cheduba, Sandoway at the southern end (the exposed flank) and the western feet of the An and Taungup passes
• The sea trade with Bengal and the Bay of Bengal (rice, beeswax, stick-lac; salt and cloth in)

How it was acquired

The kingdom is older than any Rakhine record: the Waithali (Vesali) Chandra line, the Anandachandra inscription of 729 and Chandra coins are the firm base; the political centre moved to the Lemro valley after Waithali declined (dated variously to about 818 and the tenth century). The Letya Min Nan story (restored in 1103 'in the name of the Pagan sovereign' after the usurper Thinkhaya, per English Wikipedia) is the chronicle's account of a Pagan hand in the succession.

Allies and rivals

Pagan across the Yoma: claims the country, intervenes in successions on the chronicle (Anawrahta's failed attempt on the Mahamuni, Kyanzittha's and Alaungsithu's support to a refugee line); no dated Pagan action in Arakan in 1174-1211 is on record. Bengal: the sea neighbour and trading partner; the Sena kingdom ends at Chittagong (Northern India map ground) and the Turkish raids of Bakhtiyar Khalji are still in Bihar. Chin and Mro hill peoples on the Yoma and the north: neither side rules them.

The realm that morning

No dated event for 1199 or 1200. The court is on the Lemro, at Parein or Hkrit (not pinned). The passes are open only in the dry season. The Mahamuni is in its place on the Dhanyawadi hill; Pagan's claim is a paper one.

Wealth

Rice, beeswax and stick-lac; the Bengal trade through the Kaladan mouth and the coast; salt and cloth in. Vesali's Chandra coinage is the best hard evidence of a going state but is centuries older than 1200; no Lemro-period coin series is known to me.

Military

Boats and coastal craft; the passes can be held by a handful of men. No numbers.

Threats

• A Pagan army by the An or Taungup pass in the dry season (no such campaign is dated to this reign)
• A succession quarrel in which Pagan or Bengal backs a rival (the chronicle's pattern)
• Sea raiders and Bengal's frontier politics (the Turkish advance in Bengal has not yet reached the delta)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1237 or 1251 (the two reckonings the Rakhine chronicles allow; English Wikipedia's Arakan article has the Launggyet dynasty 1251-1429)The court moves downstream to Launggyet.Depends on: The chronicle's own count of reigns; no inscription fixes it. Stopped by: A move earlier or later, or no move at all.
2. 1404 to 1430Burmese forces from Ava take Launggyet (1404); the king flees to Bengal and returns in 1428 to found Mrauk-U (1430).Depends on: Ava's reach and Bengal's help. Stopped by: Not applicable to 1200.

Places of note

• Parein (Lemro seat): The seat founded in 1106 by Letya Min Nan on the chronicle.
• Dhanyawadi and the Mahamuni: Brick walls of an irregular circle about 9.6 km round (archaeology), and the bronze Mahamuni image.
• Vesali (Waithali): Decayed old capital with Chandra coins and the Anandachandra pillar.
• Kaladan mouth (Sittwe reach): The harbour for Bengal; the anchorage has moved with the silt.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry parein-lemro / launggyet / pyinsa-lemro are all 'contested'. We keep Parein as the seat on the chronicle's 1106 foundation (English Wikipedia, Letya Min Nan) with Hkrit as the alternative; Launggyet is a site only until 1237 or 1251.
• The campaign board entry powers.txt says the Arakanese 'mint their own coin in the earlier centuries': true of Waithali's Chandra coinage, not shown for the Lemro.
• English Wikipedia's Arakan article gives the Lemro period as the ninth to fifteenth centuries, its infobox as the eleventh century, and Waithali's fall as about 818 or the tenth century: the article contradicts itself.
• The campaign board entry dhanyawadi-mahamuni at 20.866, 93.123: used. Anawrahta's attempt on the Mahamuni is from the Burmese chronicle tradition, repeated on English Wikipedia (Mahamuni Buddha Temple); no dated event.

Evidence: Waithali's inscription and coins are firm but centuries older; the Lemro period rests on the Rakhine chronicles, whose dates the campaign board itself calls worthless (one later king with a reign of 106 years), on a colonial gazetteer and on a few modern historians we could not read.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A coastal kingship with no certain borders; the Lemro plain and coast are drawn from the modern Rakhine geography. Tidal creeks and the shore have moved, and the ownership of the Naf and Mayu hills is a guess.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• 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