Part 5

In the fourteenth century a new king, nominally Burmese, but connected with the Shans,--came into full power, and founded Ava. But early in the fifteenth century (1426) the Burmans lost their capital and all the territory north of Toungoo and Prome, to the Shans. The new city of Toungoo, built about this time, was the seat of an independent prince. Pegu had been ruled by kings of Shan race since 1281. In 1538-9 the Toungoo Burman prince, Tabin Shwe' Htee, conquered Pegu, in the following year Martaban, and after being proclaimed king in Pegu, extended his sway in 1542, as far north as Pagan. Two years later, with an allied army of Burmans, Shans and Talaings, he invaded and conquered Arracan, but not Chittagong. But his success as king at Pegu was short-lived. Expensive but fruitless wars, and excessive dissipation turned the people against him. He soon became the victim of a conspiracy and was treacherously murdered. In 1551 the Burmans were again victorious at Pegu, pursuing and destroying the Talaing king. Three years later they regained Ava from the Shans, but retained the capital at Pegu. Pressing his successes, the Burman king, in 1557, conquered the Shans in the extreme north of Burma, and a little later at Thibaw, Mone and "Zimme"; northern Siam becoming tributary to Burma. Steps were taken to make the then non-Buddhist Shans (many were doubtless already Buddhists), conform to the Buddhist customs of the Burmese. The Burman ruler, Nawartha, was now what his ambition craved,--the "King of Kings."

But before the end of the century Pegu and all the territory south to Tavoy had been lost. Between 1600 and 1613 a Portuguese adventurer named Philip de Brito reigned as king of Pegu, with residence at his own fortified city of Syriam. By the marriage of his son with the daughter of the king of Martaban, the cooperation of that section was secured. In 1612 De Brito and the king of Martaban marched against the prince of Toungoo, who had broken faith with De Brito by forming an alliance with Ava. "They plundered the city, burned the palace and retired." This high-handed aggression soon reacted on his own head.

The Burman king advanced from Ava with an immense army, laid seige to Syriam, and starved the garrison to surrender. De Brito, who had been guilty of many sacrilegious acts, destroying pagodas and other sacred objects in search of plunder, could hope for no mercy at the hands of his captors. The leading Portuguese were slaughtered. The remainder, including the women, were carried away captive to Ava as slaves. Their descendants may now be found throughout Burma, many of them being Roman Catholic priests. In 1634 Ava was made the permanent capital.

An immense pagoda was built, and a costly image of Gautama cast to add to the sacredness of the place, and to the merit of the king.

But Burman fortunes were uncertain. Ava the Great was taken and burned by the Talaings in 1752. Not long were the Talaings allowed to hold the Burman capital. A Burman who took the name of Alaungpra, with wonderful vigour and ability rallied his people. Little more than a year had passed when Alaungpra recaptured Ava. In 1755 he took his armies southward, conquering as he went, not content until he reached Dagon. There he founded a new city, which he designed should be the chief port of Burma, and named it Rangon (or Yangon), the word meaning the war ended.

A legend says that Dagon village was founded and the Shwe Dagon pagoda built in 586 B. C., which is probably within a few centuries of the true date. The village was rebuilt by the Talaing king of Pegu about 744 A. D. The great pagoda, upon which an expensive _htee_ or umbrella had been placed in 1540, was still further improved, "to rival the one at Pegu." (The present _htee_ was placed on the Shwe Dagon pagoda in 1871, by Mindon Min.) But the Talaing capital of Lower Burma, Pegu, had not yet been taken. We have seen that in 1613 Syriam was destroyed by the Burmans because of De Brito's aggressions.

Now, in 1755, both British and French traders were established there. During the struggles between the Burmans and Talaings, the Europeans hardly knew which should have their favour and help. Everything depended on being on the side which should prove victorious.

Alaungpra, after securing Rangoon, returned to Ava. This was interpreted as a sign of weakness, and thereafter the Europeans openly showed their sympathy with the Talaings. When the Talaings attacked the Burmese, they were assisted by the ships of both British and French.

But alas, Alaungpra returned early in the following year. After a blockade of several months Syriam was taken and destroyed, including the European factories. The principal Europeans, after being held a short time as prisoners, were put to death. The downfall of Pegu soon followed, marking the end of Talaing supremacy.

Six years later, 1762, Sagaing became the capital of the Burmese Empire. Passing over the wars with Siam, Manipur, and China, we find the capital changed, in 1783, to Amarapura, a new city built for the purpose. The following year Arracan was invaded and conquered. The most valued booty was an immense brass image of Gautama, cast in the second century, said to possess miraculous powers. This image, taken over the mountains, a wonderful feat, was placed in a building erected for the purpose, on the north side of Amarapura, the new capital, where it may now be seen by visitors to the "Arracan Pagoda."

In 1795 the first envoy to the king of Burma was sent by the government of India. The envoy was not well received, and secured no permanent advantage. The following year another was deputed to be resident at Rangoon, instead of Ava. He met with the same discourteous treatment, and accomplished nothing. Up to 1812 five successive attempts were made to arrive at an understanding with the Burman king, with reference to political and commercial relations, but without success. Envoys were either ignored or made the bearers of insolent replies. At this time war between England and the United States was about to begin. Adoniram Judson was getting ready to sail as a foreign missionary.

In 1823 the capital was restored to Ava. A great fire at Amarapura destroying some of the royal buildings, together with certain "bad signs," induced the king to abandon the city which had been in existence only forty years. During the previous year the Burmans had overrun Manipur and parts of Assam, and claimed the territory as a part of the Burman Empire. The first battle ever fought between the Burmese and English was at Cachar--in January, 1824. The Burmans were defeated. In 1824-5 the British and native troops succeeded in driving the Burmans back into their own country. The bulk of the Burmese army had already been recalled to repel the British who were advancing from the south, war having been formerly declared in March, 1824. In the meantime the American missionaries, Judson and Price, together with all Europeans at Ava were imprisoned as suspected spies, or in league with the enemy.

After eleven months they were transferred to Aungbinle, with the intention to put them to death. The first Burmese war lasted two years.

Arracan, and all the country east of the Gulf of Martaban was ceded to the British. Rangoon reverted to the Burmese. But the most interesting result to American readers, was the release of the missionaries, Judson and Price, who were utilized as messengers to negotiate the terms of surrender. After the second installment of indemnity had been paid, and the British troops withdrawn to territory ceded by the humiliated king the following record of the affair was added to the royal chronicles. "In the years 1186, 1187 (Burmese) the white strangers of the west fastened a quarrel upon the Lord of the Golden Palace.

"They landed at Rangoon, took that place and Prome, and were permitted to advance as far as Yandabu, for the king, from motives of piety and regard to life, made no preparation whatever to oppose them. The strangers had spent vast sums of money in their enterprise, so that by the time they reached Yandabu their resources were exhausted, and they were in great distress. They then petitioned the king, who, in his clemency and generosity, sent them large sums of money to pay their expenses back, and ordered them out of the country." The record modestly omitted to mention the fact that the strangers had permission to take with them the Arracan, Ye, Tavoy, Mergui, and Tenasserim provinces!

The whole period from 1826 to the second Burmese-English war, in 1852, was marked by heartless cruelties inflicted by successive Burman kings upon all real or suspected offenders; by persistent repudiation of the terms agreed upon at the close of the first war; and by gross insults to British representatives. The second Burmese-English war lasted a year and a half, and resulted in the annexation of the Province of Pegu, which included Rangoon and extended to a point about thirty miles north of Toungoo. In about 1837 the capital was again transferred to Amarapura, where it remained until Mandalay was founded, in 1860, by Mindon Min. A new king, Mindon Min, was soon proclaimed at Amarapura. Throughout his reign, from 1853 to 1878, relations between the British and Burmese were greatly improved. Mindon Min was the best king Burma ever had. Moreover, the loss of Arracan, Tenasserim, and Pegu had inspired some degree of respect for representatives of the British Indian Government. With the death of Mindon, and the ascension of Thibaw, trouble began. The great massacre, in which about seventy of royal blood, including women and children, were ruthlessly butchered, called forth a vigorous remonstrance from the British Government. An insolent reply was returned, rejecting outside interference.

In August 1879 the resident at Mandalay was withdrawn. Massacres soon followed, rivalling the horrors of the past. At this time many thousands of Burmese migrated to Lower Burma to escape oppression.

Thibaw then began a flirtation with France. The Bombay Burma Trading Company was accused of defrauding the king in the matter of royalty on teak logs. An enormous fine was inflicted. Arbitration was rejected. The French were conspiring with the king to gain commercial advantages, giving them practically full control of Upper Burma, including the only route to western China. In June, 1885, the government of India obtained conclusive evidence as to the nature of these negotiations. A demand was made that a British resident be received at Mandalay, and that Thibaw reveal his foreign policy. This ultimatum was refused. The British immediately advanced on the capital. On the 28th of November, 1885, Mandalay was taken, and King Thibaw made a prisoner. The great, self-sufficient Burman kingdom had fallen to rise no more.

French diplomatists had outreached themselves, and precipitated the annexation of Upper Burma.

On the first of January, 1886, the following proclamation was issued: "By command of the Queen-Empress it is hereby notified that the territories formerly governed by King Thibaw will no longer be under his rule, but have become a part of Her Majesty's dominions, and will during Her Majesty's pleasure, be administered by such officers as the viceroy and government of India may from time to time appoint."

It will be seen that the Burmese throughout their history have been a warlike people. The adoption of Buddhism, as the national religion, with its strict rules concerning the taking of life, does not seem to have wrought any change in this respect. The grossest cruelties were practiced, suspected conspirators slaughtered by hundreds, generals who had failed in battle, as well as others of high rank or noble blood were executed, sewed up in red sacks, and sunk in the Irrawadi River. Sometimes the preliminary execution was dispensed with.

Victorious kings built great pagodas, at the expense of the people, to expiate their sins of bloodshed,--and then renewed the carnage.

The cruelties inflicted upon Judson and his companions at Ava and Aungbinle; the history of Burman dacoity since the English occupation; together with many other evidences,--stamp the Burman as far from being the tolerant, peace-loving, life-reverencing character that many of his admirers, on the interest of Buddhism, or Theosophy, have pictured. It is said that a professor in a certain theological seminary, seeking to cast discredit on the historical authenticity of the Book of Daniel, called the attention of his class to the unlikelihood that any Oriental monarch would have issued such decrees as are attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, in the third chapter. To say nothing of Mohammedan fanaticism, familiarity with Oriental character as exhibited by Burman kings would have dispelled the professor's doubts.

When Naungdawgyi had completed the great Shwe Dagon pagoda, in comparison with which Nebuchadnezzar's image was Liliputian, he made a decree that all peoples must fall down and worship it, on penalty of death. The majority of the people being spirit-worshippers, the decree could not be enforced. To let himself down easily, the king commanded that a _nat-sin_, or spirit-house be erected near the pagoda. The people coming to make offerings to the _nats_--would also be coming to the pagoda, and so the decree would be obeyed, and, in time, its purpose effected. The character of the Burman king Bodaw-para, who was on the throne when Judson came to Burma, is thus described by Father San-Germano, who lived in Burma twenty years during this king's reign. "His very countenance is the index of a mind ferocious and inhuman in the highest degree,--and it would not be an exaggeration to assert that during his reign more victims have fallen by the hand of the executioner than by the sword of the common enemy....

"The good fortune that has attended him ... has inspired him with the idea that he is something more than mortal, and that this privilege has been granted him on account of his numerous good works....

"A few years since he thought to make himself a god." He did in fact, proclaim himself as the fulfillment of the national expectation of a fifth Buddha. Priests who refused to recognize his claims, were punished. Who can doubt that the late King Thibaw would have been quite capable of repeating Nebuchadnezzar's decree, had he thought of it, and seen any advantage in it, to himself.

The census of 1901 gives the total population of the province as 10,490,624. Of this total the Burmese number 6,508,682, while the number returning the Burmese language as their ordinary tongue was 7,006,495. The total number of Buddhists, including the Shans and Talaings, is 9,184,121. The area of the province is 286,738 square miles. To the casual visitor the country seems to be peopled almost exclusively by Burmese, and Buddhism the only form of worship, the other races inhabiting isolated parts of the country, far removed from the main lines of travel. The population of Rangoon is about 235,000. Buddhists and Hindus number about the same, with more than half as many Musalmans as of either. Fifty per cent. of the population are immigrants. Rangoon is no longer a Burman city.

In Mandalay, their last capital, and second city of Burma, the situation is quite different. In a total of 178,000 over 152,000 are Buddhists. This city has been in existence only sixty-three years. Its outward appearance is much the same as it was when taken by the British in 1885. The same brick wall, twenty-six feet high, with its crenelated top, a mile and a quarter on each side of the square, forming an impregnable (!) barrier against all comers,--still surrounds what was the royal town. On each side are three gates, reached by bridges across the wide moat, which is kept filled with water by a connection with a natural lake a few miles to the northeast.

Inside of the walled town comparatively little now remains as it was when captured. The natives occupying thatched houses, were compelled to move outside the wall, taking their shanties with them. For this they were amply compensated by the British Indian Government. A large city, regularly laid out with straight wide streets, was already flourishing outside of the walled section. Within the walls the palace and monasteries still remain, the former now being restored by the provincial government, at great expense. Services of the Church of England are held in one of the large halls. In one of the buildings near the palace the Mandalay Club is comfortably established. Several old cannon, used by the Burmese in their wars, more for the noise they could make than for any death-dealing powers they possessed, now adorn the grounds. The king's monastery, and the queen's monastery, are objects of interest. Near the former is the site of the "Incomparable" temple, destroyed by fire in 1892. This immense structure, with its gilded columns and lofty ceiling, was the grandest building in the city. Near by is a huge pagoda within a high rectangular wall. The space enclosed is subdivided into three compartments by low walls extending around the pagoda, to represent the threefold division of the Buddhist scriptures. These spaces contain seven hundred and twenty shrines about fifteen feet high, their tops supported by four columns. In the centre of each shrine, set like a gravestone in the cement floor, is a stone tablet about three feet wide by five and a half feet high, covered on both sides with portions of the sacred writings. The floor around each tablet is polished by the bare feet of many devotees,--for the "Law" is one of the "three precious things" of Buddhism--commanding their worship. For all this immense outlay of time and money devoted to sacred objects Mindon Min is supposed to have secured the royal merit, freeing him from the countless existences through which the ordinary mortal must pass. The prevailing impression that as a result of the monastic school system all of the Burmese males can read and write, is not corroborated by the recent census. A little less than half (490 in each 1,000) are able to both read and write. Doubtless a large majority spent enough of their childhood in the monastery to acquire these accomplishments, but, to many, they have become lost arts, through disuse. Only fifty-five in each thousand of Burmese women can read and write. Girls are not admitted to monastic schools. This small gain is chiefly due to mission schools. The demand for female education is rapidly increasing. All Burmans, except the relatively small number of converts to Christianity, are Buddhists. Nearly all are worshippers of idols.

A sect called Paramats was founded at the beginning of last century. The Paramats will have nothing to do with pagodas and idols. They respect the ordinary Buddhist priests, as representatives of Gautama, who was the incarnation of eternal wisdom. They do not hold that eternal wisdom is reincarnated in the priests, and therefore do not worship them as orthodox Buddhists do. This eternal wisdom, which existed before the world was made, and will exist throughout eternity, fills all space, but exercises no influence over this world. Eternal wisdom is not, except in a very vague sense, personified--as an equivalent of the Christian conception of an eternal God. But the Paramats have the germ of a true belief, and, as a rule, are thinking men, which is more than can be said of the ordinary Buddhist. Numerous in the district midway between Mandalay, and Rangoon, they furnish a hopeful field for missionary effort.

THE SHANS

_The Shans_ rank second in point of numbers. Max Muller held that the Shans were the first to leave their original home in western China. Contact with the Chinese has left its mark upon them, sufficient, apart from other evidence, to prove their origin. Having been forced out of western China they drifted southward, and founded some of the large towns in the territory now known as "Shan-land" as early as 400, or 500 B. C.--if their own chronicles can be believed. But at this point different conclusions have been reached from the same sources of information, some accepting these dates as approximately correct, others rejecting them as too remote by several centuries. Indeed, it is difficult to determine whether the first migration was southward, or to the southwest, or whether there were two migrations simultaneously. As we have seen in our study of the Burmese, the Shans were supreme on the Upper Irrawadi early in the Christian era, having expelled the Burmese and taken possession of that part of the country. It may have been as early as 400 or 500 B. C., when they overthrew the Tagaung monarchy. My own view is that the Shans first migrated to the southwest across the Namkham valley, founding the "Maw Kingdom," which finally extended to the Irrawadi and Chindwin rivers in northern Burma. And that not until several centuries later did they extend their sway to the southeast, founding Thibaw, Mone, and other towns.

That there is a discrepancy of ten centuries or more between this view and the Shan Chronicles, in which the most striking feature is exaggeration, need not disturb any one. In fact, a sound "principle of interpretation" of legendary history, whether Burmese or Shan, is to cut down its figures by about one half.

Near the end of the tenth century the Shans occupied Arracan about eighteen years. The Shan kingdom continued until overcome by the Burmese, in the middle of the eleventh century. They still remained in power in the far north. In 1281 Shans from Siam joining with Shans of Martaban, conquered Martaban, then with assistance of Shans from the north they captured Pegu from the Burmans. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Shans were again in the ascendant in Upper Burma, the Burmans having been weakened by Chinese invasions. The Shans now ruled the country from the upper reaches of the Irrawadi as far south as Prome, but not including Toungoo. All Burma was threatened with Shan supremacy. This might have been realized but for the Shan emperor's own recklessness and tyranny, working his own downfall.

Kings of Shan race controlled Pegu from 1281 until conquered by the Toungoo Burman prince, Tabin Shwe' Htee, in 1539. The Shan power in the north having become weakened, the Burmese in 1554, captured Ava, and in 1557 conquered the Shans throughout the Upper Irrawadi region. Thibaw, Mone, and "Zimme" in northern Siam, fell to the Burmans a year later. The Shans seem to have remained subject to the Burman kings until the annexation of Upper Burma; and sometimes assisted the Burmans in their wars with the Talaings and Siamese.

The census of 1901 gives a total of 751,759 Shan-speaking people.

Besides the northern and southern Shan States, a large number of Shans are still found in Upper Burma, and many Shan villages throughout Lower Burma. It is not definitely known when the Shans adopted Buddhism. There are evidences that the Shans, who were supreme on the Upper Irrawadi at the opening of the Christian era, and for several centuries after, were influenced by Buddhism introduced from India by way of Manipur, and that many accepted it. After the introduction of Buddhism from the south it spread rapidly among the Burmese, and through them to the Shans, becoming the national religion of both races.

It is said that many Shan Buddhist priests sought reordination according to the rules of the southern type of Buddhism.

The Shans established monasteries throughout their country. Under the later Burman kings, Burman priests were sent to propagate Buddhism in the Shan country. In some places the sacred books were destroyed, and other books written in the Burmese language substituted, Burmese becoming the language of the Monastic schools for Shan boys.

Burman kings adopted the same tactics in dealing with the Talaings.