JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &c. 



No. II.— 1869. 



On the History of the Burma race. By Colonel Sir Arthur Phayre, 



K. C. S. I., C. B., Bengal Staff Corps. 



[Received 2nd April, 1869.] 



In a former paper on the history of the Burma race, it has been 

 stated that the Maha-Ra-dza-weng relates that king Kyau-tswa, 

 youngest son of Na-ra-thi-ha-pa-te who reigned at Pu-gan, was 

 dethroned and eventually murdered by three brothers of Shan race 

 in the year 660, being 1268 A. D.* 



The story of these three brothers is thus related : In the reign 

 of Na-ra-thi-ha-pa te, surnamed Ta-ruk-pye-meng, the Tsau-bwa or 

 Chief of Bhein-na-'kha, a small Shan state, died, leaving two sons. 

 They quarrelled regarding their inheritance, and the younger, named 

 Theing-kha-bo fled into Burma, where he settled at Myin-tsaing, 

 some thirty miles south of the present city of Ava. For many years 

 an immigration of the Shan or T'hai race had been going on into 

 the valley of the Irawati. They had established an independent 

 kingdom in the upper portion of the country, and about the begin- 

 ning of the thirteenth century of the Christian era, had poured into 



* There is. as has before been mentioned, a discrepancy of seven years 

 between this date, and that obtained by the total number of years of 

 the reigns of the kings of Pugan, ending with that of Kyau-tswa. I have, 

 however, considered it better to accept the year given in the text of the Maha- 

 Ra-dza-weng, namely 660 of the Burmese era (= 1298 A. D.) us the year 

 when the three Shan brothers commenced to reign. 



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