The royal chronicles of Myanmar ( ; also known as Burmese chronicles) are detailed and continuous chronicles of the monarchy of Myanmar (Burma). The chronicles were written on different media such as parabaik paper, palm leaf, and stone; they were composed in different literary styles such as prose, verse, and chronograms. Palm-leaf manuscripts written in prose are those that are commonly referred to as the chronicles. Other royal records include administrative treatises and precedents, legal treatises and precedents, and censuses.
The chronicle tradition was maintained in the country's four historical polities: Upper Burma, Lower Burma, Arakan and the Shan states. The majority of the chronicles did not survive the country's numerous wars as well as the test of time. The most complete extant chronicles are those of Upper Burma-based dynasties, with the earliest extant chronicle dating from the 1280s and the first standard national chronicle from the 1720s.
The subject matter of the chronicles is mainly about the monarchs, and the chronicles provide little information about the general situation of the kingdom. Nor were they written solely from a secular history perspective but rather at times to provide "legitimation according to religious criteria" of the monarchy. Nevertheless, the chronicles' "great record of substantially accurate dates" goes back at least to the 11th century. Latest research shows that even the pre-11th century narratives, dominated by legends, do provide a substantially accurate record of "social memory", going back over three millennia.
Myanmar possesses the most extensive historical source material in Southeast Asia, and the Burmese chronicles are the most detailed historical records in the region. Yet much of the extant Burmese records have not been properly maintained, and many of the less well-known chronicles are yet to be studied systematically.Aung-Thwin 1996: 895–896Goh 2009: 115
Overview
The Burmese royal chronicles are "detailed and continuous registers of events in chronological order", revolving "chiefly around the Burmese kings". The chronicles by themselves offer little or no commentary on the situation of the kingdom of the regular people inside or outside the capital unless the king happened to be involved in the event. Other royal records such as legal treatises and precedents (dhammathats ()) and censuses (sittans ()) and the chronicles of regional courts as well as temple histories (thamaings ()) need to be consulted to get a glimpse of the life outside the palace.Hla Pe 1985: 37
The royal records were written on different media and in different literary styles. They can be inscriptions on stone () and bells (), or more commonly, they were written on palm-leaf manuscripts () and on special thick sheets of paper called parabaiks ().(Raghavan 1979: 6): Parabaiks are thick sheets of paper that are blackened, glued and folded together. In general, parabaiks contain non-religious matter such as medicine, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, history, social and economic matters, poetry, etc., and are much more important to the study of Burmese history. They also came in different literary styles: in prose (yazawins ( and ayedawbons (); in verse (eigyins () and mawguns ()); and as chronograms (yazawin thanbauk ()).
The prose versions are those most commonly referred to as the chronicles. In general, Yazawins ("chronicle of kings" from Pali rāja-vaṃsa)Hla Pe 1985: 45 are a record of events in chronological order of kings organised by dynasties whereas ayedawbons ("memoirs of royal events/struggles") are more detailed records of more celebrated kings.Hla Pe 1985: 42Thaw Kaung 2010: 14–17 These definitions are loose generalisations: some ayedawbons are full-fledged chronicles of several kings (e.g., Razadarit Ayedawbon) or even dynasties (e.g., Dhanyawaddy Ayedawbon) while some yazawins such as Zatadawbon Yazawin and Yazawin Kyaw have narrower scopes.(Aung-Thwin 2005: 121–124): Zatadawbon covers regnal dates of kings from Pagan to Konbaung periods while Yazawin Kyaw covers religious history.
Inscriptions
Inscriptions, most of which were set up by the kings, the royal families and their court officials as well as wealthy families, are the earliest surviving royal records. Most surviving inscriptions are from religious dedications, and contain valuable historical material; indeed, they represent the primary extant historical record down to the 16th century.Hla Pe 1985: 36–37
Inscriptions are considered most accurate of all Burmese historiographic material because they are less susceptible to copying errors due to their longevity. A typical stone inscription lasts many centuries while the average life of a palm leaf record is only 100 to 150 years. Though some stone inscriptions too were recast, and some copying errors (mostly in spelling) have been identified,Sein Myint 2007: 30–34 they do not show the same degree of copying errors of palm-leaf records, many of which were recopied many times over. The oldest extant inscriptions in Burma are dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE in Pyu city-states.Aung-Thwin 2005: 35–36 Inscriptions were still "rare in the 5th to the 10th centuries but from the 11th, there is literally a deluge of them".Harvey 1925: xvi The earliest original inscription in Burmese is dated 1035 CE; an 18th-century recast stone inscription points to 984 CE.Aung-Thwin 2005: 172, 185
Inscriptions have been invaluable in verifying the events described in the chronicles written centuries later. The Myazedi inscription (1112), for example, confirmed the reign dates of kings Anawrahta to Kyansittha given in Zatadawbon Yazawin while disproving Hmannan's dates for those. (Myazedi, inscribed in four scripts, is the Rosetta Stone that helped unlock the Pyu language.) Likewise, King Bayinnaung's Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription (1557) provides the exact dates of 17 key events of his first six years in power, enabling modern historians to check the chronicles.Thaw Kaung 2010: 106–109 However, not all inscriptions are reliable records of secular events. The famous Kalyani Inscriptions (1479), for example, make claims of legitimacy of the Hanthawaddy monarchy on religious grounds.
Myanmar possesses the largest number of historical stone inscriptions as well as most complete historical records in all of Southeast Asia.Hall 1968: 909–910Harvey 1925: xix The first systematic effort to preserve the inscriptions was launched by King Bodawpaya per the royal order dated 23 July 1783 to check then existing chronicles with inscriptional evidence. By 1793, over 600 inscriptions from throughout the country were copied (recast), and kept at the capital Amarapura. European scholars in the British colonial period greatly expanded the collection effort, with a 1921 edition of Epigraphia Birmanica by Charles Duroiselle listing some 1500 inscriptions in original spelling and a large photograph of each text. The most complete set of inscriptions, called She-haung Myanma Kyauksa Mya (; lit. "Ancient Inscriptions of Myanmar") was only recently published by Yangon University's Department of Archaeology in five volumes from 1972 to 1987.Aung-Thwin 1996: 900 Aside from over 500 Pagan period inscriptions, most of the other stone inscriptions have not been studied systematically.
Early chronicles
Early chronicles on palm-leaf manuscripts are those written prior to the 18th century when national chronicles first emerged. Of the earliest chronicles, those of Pagan and early Ava (to early 15th century), whose names have been mentioned in inscriptions and later chronicles, only two supplementary chronicles from the late 13th and early 15th centuries survived. The rest of early chronicles date only from the 16th century.(Aung-Thwin 2005: 121–124, 358): Zatadawbon is the earliest surviving chronicle, whose first portions may have been written circa 1285. The next extant chronicle is Yazawin Kyaw (1502 and 1520). (Harvey 1925: xvi-xvii): the rest of them do not date before the 16th century.
Many of the early chronicles did not survive for a number of reasons. First, the earliest manuscripts prior to the 15th century were rare and extremely costly. (A 1273 Pagan manuscript of Tripiṭaka cost 3000 kyats of silver, which could buy over 2000 hectares of paddy fields.Lieberman 2003: 118) The cost of producing manuscripts (creating as well as recopying) did come down in the Ava period as literacy rates improved, and the Burmese literature "grew more voluminous and diverse".Lieberman 2003: 131 Even then, most did not survive warfare, the main factor in destruction of historical records in Burmese history.Harvey 1925: xvi–xvii Burmese history is littered with instances of conquering forces destroying the conquered's records: Pagan records in 1287 during the Mongol invasions; Ava records in 1525 and in 1527 by the armies of Confederation of Shan States; Hanthawaddy records in 1565 by a rebellion; Toungoo records in 1600 by Mrauk-U forces; more Toungoo records in 1754 by Restored Hanthawaddy; remaining Hanthawaddy records in 1757 by Konbaung forces; Arakanese records in 1785 by Konbaung; Konbaung records in 1885 by the British. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most complete surviving chronicles are those of Upper Burma-based dynasties, which often were the victors of the wars. Even for those that survived the wars, "there were no record-room methods; mildew, ants, the accident of fire prevented many manuscripts reaching a great age". Those that survived did so only because private individuals outside the capital had painstakingly copied the original palm leaf manuscripts.See (Thaw Kaung 2010: 13–37) on the chronicle writers and copiers, many of whom were monks and hailed from outside Ava (the capital). Copying the manuscripts was a painstaking and at times error-prone process. See (Pan Hla 1968: 3–4) and (Sein Myint 2007: 30–34) on copying errors. For a more detailed analysis on how chronicles were changed or altered, see (Aung-Thwin 2005: 121–153) which covers all the standard chronicles and all known Mon chronicles. The survival of the manuscripts was also facilitated by the increasing literacy rates in the Irrawaddy valley. In the 15th century, when the literacy rate was still low, the scribal work was chiefly handled by monks, but by the late 18th century, it was routinely handled by commoners as adult male literacy exceeded 50 percent.See (Lieberman 2003: 188–190) on the literacy rates of pre-colonial Burma. The first British censuses find that adult male literacy, defined as the ability to read and write simple materials, exceeded 50 percent. The 1891 census, conducted five years after the last Anglo-Burmese War, finds 62.5% of all adult males (age 25 and over) in Upper Burma were literate. Excluding non-Burmans would have raised this figure even higher. Female literacy was very low. A mere 1.5% of girls over age five were in school compared to 53.2% of boys who were. A 1901 census finds only 5.5% of the females in all of Burma were literate although the rate for Burman women was higher. (Steinberg 2009: 23–24): According to early British observers, "Burma was the most literate state between Suez and Japan", and one early 19th-century British observer "believed that Burmese women had a higher percentage of literacy than British women."