The kingdom of Pagan under Narapatisithu

Who rules

Name

Narapatisithu (Sithu II)

Title

King (min) of Pagan

Since

1174: between 27 March and 10 August 1174 on the Hmannan's count, most likely April or May (English Wikipedia, Narapatisithu); reign 1174-1211 by the inscriptions, the day of death (18 August 1211) from the chronicle

Born

not pinned: 8 October 1150 on one modern reckoning, 1138 in the Hmannan and Yazawin Thit; the age at death (73) fits 1138 and not 1150, so no age is given here

Family

Son of Narathu (the king who killed his father Alaungsithu) and Myauk Pyinthe; younger brother of Naratheinkha (king 1171-1174); took the name Sithu for his grandfather Alaungsithu. Five sons in the chronicle: Zeya Thura, Yaza Thura, Ginga Thura, Pyanchi Zeya and Theinkha; the heir at his death was Htilominlo (b. 4 February 1175 on the Zatadawbon).

Confidence

high

English Wikipedia (Narapatisithu; Pagan Kingdom; Htilominlo) carrying the Hmannan Yazawin (1829), Zatadawbon Yazawin and Maha Yazawin; modern readings by Luce, Than Tun, Aung-Thwin and Lieberman as cited there. Dated inscriptions of the reign (Sulamani 1183, Dhammayazika 1196) are quoted second hand; the Pagan corpus itself was not reachable (archive.org full-text search was refused). Confidence is high for the reign, medium for the day and month, low for his birth and age.

Overlord

None. Pagan sends and receives monks and letters (Ceylon) and claims the tribute of its margins; no Chinese overlordship is recorded in this reign in anything we could read.

What the realm holds

• The walled city of Pagan on its bluff, the royal landing at Lawkananda, and the crown villages and workshop villages round it (Myinkaba, Nyaung-U, Minnanthu, Otein Taung, Tuyin Taung)
• The Kyaukse irrigation tract: nine districts on the later chronicle list (five on the Zawgyi, four on the Panlaung), eleven in the list called the Letwin Satit Khayaing (English Wikipedia, Myinsaing and Kyaukse): the capital's granary, with a weir ('Min Ye Dam') credited to this reign
• The Minbu, Salin and Sagu tracts west of the river, and the canals of the Mu valley north of Sagaing begun in this reign; a southward canal into Minbu was tried and abandoned (English Wikipedia, Narapatisithu)
• River tolls and landings: the Chindwin mouth, Pakhangyi, Sagaing, Pakokku reach, Tagaung, and the Bhamo landing at the foot of the Yunnan road
• Salt (the Halin brine wells, the Bawzaing wells on the plateau edge), earth-oil pits at Yenangyaung, teak floated down the Chindwin, sandstone from Tuyin Taung, the potters' mounds at Otein Taung
• Governors at the lower river and the ports (Prome, Bassein, Dala; Martaban, Tavoy and the peninsula) sent to supervise trade (Lieberman, via English Wikipedia, Pagan Kingdom); the chronicle puts princes of the blood at Prome, Bassein and Dala
• The right to levy labour and soldiers from hereditary service villages, and the Palace Guards founded in 1174 (chronicle)
• Temple estates: tax-free land and bonded people (kyun) given to pagodas and monasteries, the king himself the largest donor

How it was acquired

The kingdom was drawn together by Anawrahta (1044-1077) on the chronicle's story, with the conquest of Thaton in 1057 disputed by Aung-Thwin as a later legend. Narapatisithu took the throne in 1174 after his brother Naratheinkha, killed on the chronicle's account by eighty men led by Aungzwa when he seized Narapati's wife Weluwaddy; Luce's nine-year interregnum (1165-1174) is vigorously disputed.

Allies and rivals

Ceylon: a war in 1180 (the Culavamsa has Parakramabahu I's fleet strike Kusima/Pathein; the Devanagala rock inscription of Ceylon rewards a general for victories in Ramanna), then friendly exchange and the Mahavihara reform of the Sangha. The Khmer under Jayavarman VII lie beyond the Tenasserim ridge; the two are the main mainland powers and Pagan is said to check Khmer pressure on the Tenasserim coast and the upper Menam (Wikipedia, scholarly gloss), but no clash is dated. Arakan: claimed in the chronicle, not shown to be governed (Lieberman: no effective authority).

Dali (the Duan kingdom of Yunnan): the Bhamo-Tengchong road joins the two; no dated contact in this reign. The Song: Pagan envoys reached the Song court in 1004 and Kyansittha was recognised in the 1080s; no embassy is dated to 1174-1211 in anything we read. The Mongols (demands 1271 and 1273, invasion from 1277) are seventy-odd years off.

The realm that morning

Narapatisithu holds the Irrawaddy dry zone as his own ground: the capital, Kyaukse and Minbu granaries, the river towns and the lower river to Prome. The delta and the Mon coast are under governors but the evidence is thin (a Sinhalese rock inscription of 1165 names Kusima, the Devanagala inscription records the raid of 1180, a Pagan inscription of 1176 is said to name Martaban, and the oldest Burmese record of Pathein is of 1265). Tenasserim is a claim backed by one pagoda (Zetawun, Myeik district) and a few governors.

The Shan scarp, the Kachin reach, the upper Chindwin and Arakan are claims. The Sangha is split between the old Arahan (Thaton) line and the Ceylon-ordained order that Uttarajiva (died about October 1191) and Chapata have brought home; the quarrel is about who may receive land and labour. The Gawdawpalin is not dated to any year before 1203 in the one source that dates it. No crisis, war or succession is recorded for the year.

Wealth

Irrigated rice (Kyaukse, Minbu, the Mu canals); tolls on the two rivers; salt, earth-oil, teak, sandstone, glazed ware and tiles from the workshops; trade through the peninsular and delta ports (coral, pearls and textiles in, rice and forest goods out, silver from domestic mines and Yunnan, per Lieberman via English Wikipedia). Money is lump silver by weight; there is no coinage. Gifts of land and people to the Sangha grow steadily from about 1050 to 1250 (Aung-Thwin, Than Tun, Luce); the figure of over 60 percent of cultivated land is an estimate for the late thirteenth century and is not applied to 1200.

Military

The Palace Guards (inner and outer companies) founded in 1174 are the first standing force on record (chronicle); conscription follows the system of hereditary service villages, with elephant, cavalry and boat corps drawn from them (scholarly summary). Sithu II's own inscriptions claim 17,645 soldiers in one and 30,000 soldiers and cavalry in another (cited by English Wikipedia, Pagan Kingdom; the inscriptions were not read, and the figures are the king's claims). Forts: the chronicle credits Anawrahta with forts along the borders and rivers (nine river forts in the Kyaukse country, 43 forts in all).

The sea fleet is not described for this reign.

Threats

• The slow loss of tax base: every endowment of a pagoda or monastery takes land and people off the king's rolls for ever (Aung-Thwin and Than Tun; the late-thirteenth-century figure does not apply to 1200)
• The quarrel of the two orders of monks over who may receive gifts
• A seaborne blow on the delta, as the Ceylon raid of 1180 showed
• Mon, Kadu and other revolts on the margins (the chronicle has them at the accession and none after)
• Distant, and not yet in sight: the Mongols in Yunnan (Dali falls in 1253)

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. 1203 (English Wikipedia; the only date offered, unsourced)Work on the Gawdawpalin is said to begin; completed 26 March 1227 under Htilominlo. The campaign board has it 'going up now'.Depends on: The king keeps his building programme; nothing in the sources we read shows it standing on 1 January 1200. Stopped by: A fiscal or political crisis that stops the royal works.
2. 18 August 1211Narapatisithu dies (the chronicle's day, in Burmese Era 573); Htilominlo succeeds; the king becomes a nat at the Kuni shrine at Pakhan.Depends on: The reign runs its natural span. Stopped by: A palace coup or an earlier death.
3. 1253The Mongols overrun Dali; the road from Yunnan to the Irrawaddy changes character.Depends on: Mongke's campaign in Yunnan; the Dali kings fall. Stopped by: A Mongol failure in Yunnan.
4. 1277 to 1287Mongol armies defeat a Pagan force at Ngasaunggyan (1277), reach the Irrawaddy (1283-1285), and the kingdom dissolves in 1287, Wareru taking Martaban.Depends on: Mongol pressure plus the loss of the tax base to the Sangha. Stopped by: A Mongol withdrawal or a strong Pagan fiscal reform.
5. 1298The three Shan brothers of Myinsaing in the Kyaukse country depose the last king and rule from Myinsaing, Pinya and Sagaing.Depends on: The collapse of 1287 and the control of the Kyaukse granary. Stopped by: A king who keeps Kyaukse in his own hand.

Places of note

• Pagan (Old Bagan): The walled royal city on the bluff, with the Tharabha gate of about 1020 (radiocarbon, English Wikipedia, Bagan).
• Kyaukse: The granary; the Zawgyi and Panlaung weirs.
• Minbu: The second granary.
• Prome (Pyay) and Sri Ksetra: Hinge to the lower river; Sri Ksetra ruins at Hmawza.
• Pathein (Bassein): Door to the Bay of Bengal; Kusima of the Ceylon records.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry powers.txt (Pagan): 'He holds the whole Irrawaddy from the Kachin hills to the sea, the Mon country of the lower Salween and the Tenasserim ports': overstated. The core is the dry zone and the lower river; the Mon coast is held on thin evidence, Tenasserim and the Kachin reach are claims.
• The campaign board entry powers.txt names the Dhammayazika 'of 1198'; the brief and English Wikipedia give 1196 as the foundation. The campaign board's 1198 may be a dedication; we could not read the inscription. The campaign board entry dhammayazika is at 21.157, 94.883; English Wikipedia gives 21.145, 94.883.
• The campaign board entry powers.txt says the Gawdawpalin 'is going up now'. English Wikipedia says work began in 1203 and ended on 26 March 1227; no inscription dates the start. Not pinned for 1 January 1200.
• Board: 'the king is roughly in his fifties': the two readings of his birth (1138, 1150) give 61 or 49. No age is given here.
• Board: 'princes at Prome, Bassein and Dala' is the Hmannan's; English Wikipedia says senior royal princes ruled them only in the second half of the thirteenth century. Governors there in 1200 are not named by any source we read.
• Brief trap 11 and the assignment: 'Pegu added in 1195' is a Chinese-source claim for the Khmer (English Wikipedia, Bago, citing a 1939 article) and is not a Pagan item; unverified.

Evidence: Firm for the reign and the building programme (dated inscriptions of 1183 and 1196, the brief's list), thin for 1199 and 1200 themselves, and thin for the reach of Pagan over the Mon coast, Tenasserim, Arakan and the hills. Most of the political detail (queens, sons, governors, ministers, the 1174 palace guard, the forts, the revolts) is the Hmannan Yazawin of 1829 or the other late chronicles; the inscriptions we could not search.

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

On the map: The core and the lower river follow the Irrawaddy dry zone and the Yoma and Shan scarps as we understand them; the delta and Tenasserim polygons are drawn on the modern coast though the 1200 shore lay inland, and the Mon coast is held on thin evidence. The claimed margins show a paper claim only.

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
• 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