Rise of a Mainland Trading State: Rahkaing Under the Early Mrauk-U Kings, c. 1430-1603

This study of the rise of the maritime kingdom of Rahkaing (Arakan) in the 15th and 16th centuries attempts to demonstrate how the kings of Danya-wati gradually drew other power centers in the Rahkaing littoral (including Mekha-wati, Dwara-wati, and Chittagong) into its political orbit. Vital to this political centralization were the collateral processes of increasing maritime trade, demographic growth spurred by resettled war captives, the suppression of rival lowland tribes, supplies of firearms, and the development of a multi-directional system of religious patronage. By the end of the 16th century, Mrauk-U rulers, as both Buddhist kings and Islamic sultans, controlled the entire Rahkaing littoral as one kingdom and had begun their expansion into neighboring regions as distant as Dacca in Bengal and Pegu in Burma.