Many years before the appearance of Gaudama, a king of Kanthalatt (Oude) and Pínjalarít (a kingdom in the Punjab), being desirous of a connection by marriage with the king of Kauliya, sent to him to demand a daughter; but receiving a refusal on the grounds of inferiority of caste, he declared war, and destroyed several cities governed by the Tháki family. These cities were afterwards rebuilt, and the Tháki line re-established; but one of the Tháki race of kings, Abhírájá, the king of Kappilawot, emigrated with his troops and followers from Central India, and came and built Tagoung, which was then also styled Thengat-the-ratha, and Thengat-the-nago. The place had been inhabited before, during the period of the three preceding Buddhas. In the time of Kekkuthan it was called Thanthaya-púra; in that of Gounágoun, Ratha-púra; and in that of Katthaba, Thendwé. On the death of King Abhírájá, his two sons, Kan Yázágyee and Kan Yázangay, disputed the throne, but agreed by the advice of their respective officers to let the question be decided in this way; that each should construct a large building on the same night, and he whose building should be found completed by the morning, should take the throne. The younger brother used planks and bamboos only, and covered the whole with cloth, to which, by a coat of whitewash, he gave the appearance of a finished building. At dawn of day, Kan Yázágyee, the elder brother, seeing the other’s being completed, collected his troops and followers, and came down the Irawadi. He then ascended the Khyendwen, and established himself for six months at Kule[190] Toungnyo, calling it Yázágyo, and sent his son, Moodootseitta, to be king over the Thoonaparan Pyoos, Kanyan, and Thet, who then occupied the territory between Pegu, Arakhan, and Pagan, and had applied to him for a prince. Kan Yázágyee then built the city Kyoukpadoung to the east of the Guttshapanadee, and resided there for twenty-four years. From thence he went and took possession of the city of Diniawadee, or Arakhan, which had originally been founded by a King Mayayoo, and having constructed fortifications, a palace, &c., took up his residence there.
The younger brother, Kan Yázangay, took possession of his father’s throne at Tagoung, and was followed successively by thirty-three kings, the last of whom was Bheinnaka Yázá. During this monarch’s reign, the Chinese and Tartars, from the country of Tsein, in the empire of Gandalareet, attacked and burnt Tagoung. The king and his followers retired up the Malí river, and shortly afterwards died. His people then divided themselves into three portions, one of which established the nineteen Shan states. A second portion allied themselves with the Thunaparanta kingdom, composed of the people of Ranyan and Thet, who were governed by Múdutseitta and other kings of the Tháki race. The last remained near the Malí river, under the command of Nága Zein, the last king’s principal wife.
About this time Gaudama appeared in Central India. In that part of Hindustan, also, a dispute arose between King Pethanadí Kauthala of Thawotta[191] and Maha Nansa of Kappílawot. The dispute originated in a matter of marriage again. Pathanadí had sent an embassy to Maha Nama for one of his daughters. Nama, however, sent him the daughter of a slave girl instead. She was received, and had a son, Prince Wit’hat’hoopa. When he had grown, he went to see his relations in Kappílawot, and then first learned the indignity which had been put upon his father. Gaudama stopped his army three times in its passage to Kappílawot, but let him do as he pleased the fourth time, when he took ample vengeance on the perfidious Maha Nama, and he destroyed Kappílawot and two other cities in the country of Thekka, which, not improbably, is the present Dekkan.
This caused another dispersion of the Tháki race, and we find that Daza Yázá[192] established himself at Tagoung, carrying with him the name of his city, Pínjalárit; he assumed the title of Thado Zaboodipa Daza Yázá, which may be translated Emperor Daza, king of Zaboodipa, the name, as we have seen,[193] of the southern island in the Burmese cosmography. Thus he aspired to the government of the world, for Zaboodipa was to the Burmese the whole world. He founded, also, the city of Pagan. Seventeen kings of his race reigned over Tagoung. “None of these kings,” says Colonel Burney, “reigned long, the country having been much molested by evil spirits, monsters, and serpents.... In the fortieth year after Gaudama’s death, whilst Thado Maha Yázá, the seventeenth king of Tagoung, was reigning, an immense wild boar appeared, and committed great destruction in his country. The crown prince went forth against the animal, and pursued it for several days, until he overtook and killed it near Prome, and then finding himself so far from home, he determined on remaining where he was as a hermit.... Through the recommendation of the hermit prince of Tagoung, the Queen Nan Khan married one of his nephews, Maha Thavibawa, who became king of the Pyús, and established the Prome or Thare Khettara empire, sixty years after Gaudama’s death, 484 B.C.”
A curious account of the origin of the name Thare Khettara is given by Symes,[194] in whose words I shall relate the legend. “It is related, that a favourite female slave of Tutebongmangee, or the Mighty Sovereign with three eyes, importuned her lord for a gift of some ground; and being asked of what extent, replied in similar terms with the crafty and amorous Elisa, when she projected the site of ancient Carthage. Her request was granted, and she used the same artifice. The resemblance of the stories is curious.” It is, however, met with in many parts of the world. Thare Khettara signifies single skin. Symes is mistaken, however, in the town; it is Issay Mew, six leagues from Prome.
Upon the fall of the empire of Prome, Thamauddarit transferred the government to Pagahm, then an inconsiderable place. A young man named Tsaudí destroyed the wild animals of the neighbourhood, and in recompense for this important service he was offered the succession by the king. This, however, he refused, making his former instructor king in his stead; but on the old man’s decease he assumed the sovereignty, in the year 89 of the Pagan æra, A.D. 167. This youth, however, was of the royal race of Tagoung.
In the sixth volume of the Chronicles of Ava, further mention is made of Tagoung. We there find it granted to Yahula by Theehapade, alias Menbyouk. Yahula assumed the title of Thado-Men-bya; he was afterwards driven from his government by the invading Shan tribes, in the Burmese year 725, A.D. 1363. However, he subsequently retrieved his fortunes, and in 726 (A.D. 1364), he founded the city of Ava, and established the line of the kings of Ava which has lasted to our times.
“The great point,” concludes Burney,[195] “with the Burmese historians is to show that their sovereigns are lineally descended from the Thakí race of kings, and are ‘Children of the Sun;’[196] and for this purpose the genealogy of even Alompra, the founder of the present dynasty, is ingeniously traced up to the king of Pagan, Prome, and Tagoung.”
The internal history of Burmah, up to the sixteenth century, is not illustrated by any other documents than the native;[197] but about this time Fitch visited the country, and his descriptions show that the state was on much the same footing as at present. At this period the Burmans first conquered the Peguans, and had almost subdued Siam. But at the close of the seventeenth century the Peguans rose, and in A.D. 1753 carried the Burman king captive to Pegu. But, like the Persians under the Mede governments, the proud Burmans rose, and Alompra, whose adventures will be discussed in the next chapter, beat the Peguans, and restored the Burmans to their ancient supremacy.
Of modern Pegu, or Pegue, the following account by Symes may be interesting:—