Thaton was the capital of the
Thaton Kingdom, a
Mon Kingdom which ruled present day Lower Burma between the 4th and 11th centuries. Like the
Burmans and the
Thais, some modern Mons have tried to identify their
ethnicity and, specifically this kingdom at Thaton, with the semi-historical kingdom of
Suwarnabhumi ("The Golden Land"); today, this claim is contested by many different ethnicities in
south-east Asia, and contradicted by
scholars. In the kingdom of
Dvaravati, Thaton was an important
seaport on the
Gulf of Martaban, for trade with India and
Sri Lanka.
Shin Arahan, also called
Dhammadassi, a
monk born in Thaton and raised and educated in
Nakhon Pathom, an old
capital of the Mon kingdom of Dvaravadi, now in
Thailand, took
Theravada Buddhism north to the Burmese kingdom of
Bagan. In 1057, King
Anawrahta of Bagan conquered Thaton. However,
Michael Aung-Thwin, has disputed the entire traditional narrative of a "Thaton Kingdom" and its conquest by Anawrahta. No contemporary inscriptions refer to Thaton or its conquest by Anawrahta, and the full version of the conquest story does not appear in later chronicles until
U Kala's
Mahayazawingyi, written in the early 1700s. Aung-Thwin also disputes the existence of Thaton itself during this time period, writing that "it is not even certain that the area... was not under the ocean" during the first millennium CE, since the shoreline likely would have been much farther inland at the time.
Contemporary epigraphy The first undisputed mention of Thaton is in the 1479
Kalyani Inscriptions, which were written in the
Middle Mon language and attributed to
Dhammazedi. This inscription uses "Sudhuim", which is the usual Mon form of the name. The inscriptions record the renovation of the stupas under Kyanzittha.
Archaeology An urban site at Thaton was excavated between 1975 and 1977 under U Myint Aung. The site is small, with an area of about 1,500 square yards and "at most three major stupas". A large structure that may have been a palace has partially been excavated, at the center of the site. Part of the city walls also remain. Another relief found at Thaton is a 1.2 m-tall depiction of Shiva sitting down, with his bull
Nandi shown below his right leg and a "buffalo demon" below his left knee. There is also a set of
sema, or boundary stones, at the Kalyani Thein
ordination hall near the Shweyazan stupa. The Kalyani
sema are each over a meter tall and carved with panels depicting the life of
Gautama Buddha and floral designs at the top. Their date is highly uncertain — stylistically similar
sema found in Thailand are associated with the
Dvaravati culture and dated to the 6th through 9th centuries, but the Kalyani
sema also have their own distinct forms that have been tentatively associated with Mon migrations from
Haripuñjaya in the 12th and 13th centuries. Myint Aung's excavation in the 1970s did not produce any radiocarbon dating, so the exact date of the site is uncertain. According to Moore and San Win, repeated renovations and additions to pilgrimage sites has made detecting first-millennium remains "extremely difficult". However, as mentioned above, they identify the fingermarked bricks as evidence of first-millennium occupation at Thaton.
Historiography of the conquest story The origins of the conquest story by Anawrahta in 1057 are unclear and "apparently does not go back to any single source". According to Michael Aung-Thwin, the story may have originated from Bagan's conquest of Lower Burma during this period. Anawrahta's southward expansion is well-documented in contemporary inscriptions, with about 28 votive tablets recording his activity as far south as
Mergui. But no Bagan-era inscription mentions a conquest of Thaton, which would be unusual because it would have been directly on the route to Mergui.
In the Zambu Kungya The earliest text to mention something like the conquest of Thaton is the
Zambu Kungya, written by
Wun Zin Min Yaza, who served as a minister under the Ava-period kings
Mingyi Swasawke and
Mingaung I in the late 1300s and early 1400s. The only surviving part of this is an 1825 copy, although some of its content was also incorporated into the
Maniyadanabon, which was written in the late 1700s. This version (the one incorporated into the
Maniyadanabon) says nothing about a conquest of Thaton; it only says that in 1054 "the king, ministers, officers, people, and monks of Thaton carried the three
Pitakas of the scriptures" to Bagan. Although the version in the
Maniyadanabon was only written in 1781, Aung-Thwin writes that it "is very likely a good preservation" of the
Zambu.
In the Kalyani Inscriptions The Kalyani Inscriptions of 1479, which are relatively close in date to the
Zambu Kungya, are often cited to illustrate the conquest of Thaton, However, Aung-Thwin writes that the Kalyani Inscriptions contain no direct reference to this event. Instead, they refer to two completely separate things: in one part, the Pali version of the inscription says simply that Anawrahta "took a community of monks together with the
Tipiṭaka and established the religion in Arimaddanapura, otherwise called Pugāma", without saying where the monks or texts came from; in another part, the inscriptions refer to the decline of Thaton during the reign of a king Manohor, without mentioning any sort of conquest. These two parts were then conflated, according to Aung-Thwin, into a single narrative of conquest in 18th-century chronicles and then repeated by 19th-century colonial scholars. Aung-Thwin interprets the Kalyani Inscriptions as a way of legitimizing Dhammazedi's religious reform to more closely follow what he saw as a more "orthodox" form of Theravada Buddhism of the
Mahavihara tradition. Thus, the story of Thaton's decline under Manohor was meant to "illustrate what happened when Buddhist kings allowed the religion to decay". It also "invented the tradition of an 'earlier' Thaton" that had practiced an earlier, more "pure" version of Buddhism before being corrupted, so that his own religious reforms could appeal to an even older tradition and overcome opposition from "conservative forces in Lower Burma" who were following an allegedly corrupted strain of Buddhism.
In the Jinakālamālī The
Jinakālamālī, written in Pali in the early 1500s by an author from
Chiang Mai, is the first work to mention Anawrahta's conquest of Manohara's kingdom. It appears to treat the story as "an illustration of Buddhist principles": a weak ruler like Manohara, who fails to properly uphold Buddhist ideals, would inevitably be defeated by a strong ruler who does.
In the Mahayazawingyi The "first chronicle of Burma with the most comprehensive and complete version" of the conquest story is
U Kala's
Mahayazawingyi, written sometime between 1712 and 1720. It is not clear where U Kala got this story from — none of the sources he is said to have used mention the conquest of Thaton. He may have been using older sources that are now lost, or he may have synthesized or embellished it based on the sources he was using. In any case, U Kala's version proved influential: it was used as a source for both the
Yazawin Thit and especially the
Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi, which "depended heavily on his work".
In the Yazawin Thit The
Yazawin Thit, written by
Twinthin Taikwun Maha Sithu in the late 1700s, introduces a couple of details not found in previous or contemporary sources. First, Twinthin — a well-educated scholar who was already familiar with Old Burmese inscriptions — was the first scholar to specifically cite the Kalyani Inscriptions as a source for the conquest of Thaton (probably because he interpreted it as confirming what was by his time "common knowledge"). Second, he was the first one to write that Shin Arahan was born at Thaton, which was repeated in the
Hmannan. == Sites of interest ==