Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms by Michael A. Aung-Thwin (review)

In Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century: A Tale of Two Kingdoms, Michael Aung-Thwin reassembles the histories of the kingdoms of Ava and Pegu between the decline of Pagan at the end of the fourteenth century and the rise of the Toungoo dynasty in the sixteenth century. Aung-Thwin's analysis draws on primary sources, including stone inscriptions (kyauksa) and chronicles (yazawin). He uses these to create a detailed narrative of the history of each kingdom, in the process critiquing previous scholarly assumptions about each.

The book is arranged symmetrically, its two main parts corresponding to the northern and southern kingdoms of Upper and Lower Myanmar. In each part, Aung-Thwin introduces a historiographic convention relating to Ava or Pegu dating from the colonial era that he goes on to challenge; he then tracks the rise, consolidation, fall and legacy of each kingdom. The 'Ava Convention', as Aung-Thwin defines it, is the notion that the kingdom of Ava originated as a Shan kingdom, founded then ruled by T'ai or Shan speakers. Aung-Thwin argues that there is no primary source evidence to support this colonial-era explanation of Ava's origins, and he then presents a narrative history of Ava following the extant primary sources. He emphasizes the ways in which the kingdom of Ava built on and borrowed from the kingdom of Pagan that preceded it—Ava reached its height in the early fifteenth century, and thus chapter 6, which describes the kingdom in this period, is titled "Pagan Writ Small". The factors that ultimately led to Ava's decline in the sixteenth century were also similar to those that ended Pagan. They included the outflow of funds to the sangha, court factionalism, and the rise of regional power centres capable of challenging the throne, including both elites within the kingdom and Shan polities. In addition to the detailed narrative he presents, Aung-Thwin assesses Ava's lasting legacy. He argues for Ava as a precursor to the modern state of Myanmar, as Ava's literary heritage preserved the importance of the Burmese language, and the foundation of Ava in the northern 'Dry Zone' of present-day Myanmar blocked the potential expansion of a T'ai kingdom there.

The second part of Myanmar in the Fifteenth Century discusses the rise of the kingdom of Pegu in Lower Burma. Here, Aung-Thwin has less material to work with: there are far fewer inscriptions extant. In parallel with his discussion of Ava, Aung-Thwin defines a 'Pegu Convention' with two parts, the first being what the author calls the 'myth of Ramannadesa'—the supposed historical connection between this ancient kingdom and the kingdom of Pegu in Lower Burma. Aung-Thwin argues that there is no primary source evidence for an ancient Rman kingdom in Lower Burma, and that the idea of Ramannadesa was promulgated by the fifteenth-century King Dhammazedi to create an "imagined community" to "conceptually strengthen Pegu" (p. 188). Centuries later, according to Aung-Thwin, colonial historians adopted the myth as history for their own purposes. Aung-Thwin's earlier The Mists of Ramanna: The Legend that Was Lower Burma (2005) presents this argument about the early history of Lower Burma in detail. The 'myth of Ramannadesa' sits uneasily with the second part of the 'Pegu Convention', the multilayered 'Mon Narrative', the descriptor that Aung-Thwin uses for the Mon-language sources of Lower Myanmar. After outlining the rise, 'golden age' and decline of Pegu, Aung-Thwin returns to Ramannadesa when he assesses Pegu's legacy in the penultimate chapter, emphasizing the importance of the 'myth' to colonial scholars despite its lack of basis in historical fact. In the book's conclusion, Aung-Thwin emphasizes the connections between Ava and Pegu, describing these connections as consistent with a larger "Upstream-Downstream" (p. 300) dualism that has characterized Myanmar's history.

Aung-Thwin demonstrates a deep familiarity...