Arakan Library - Arakan Expansion Under The Warrior

Arakan: - One Who Preserves and Takes Care of Their Own Nationality.

Publication by Arakan Action Association (AAA.)

ARAKAN'S ASCENT DURING THE MRAUK U PERIOD

EDITED BY SUNAIT CHUTARANOND & CHRISBAKER

ARAKAN'S EXPANSION UNDER THE WARRIOR KINGS (1578-1629)

The conquest of Chittagong by King Man Phalaung (1578-1593) around 1578, and the attack of the Arakanese fleet on Dhaka by King Sirisudhammaraja in 1624, mark the major period of Arakan's territorial expansion. Whie military successes and the architectural splendour under Man Pa were the outcome of a century of slow growth, Man Phalaung established Arakan's regional power status in less than twenty years by taking control of Chittagong and using the royal fleet as an instrument of political hegemony over the northeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. He resisted the Burmese invasion of 1580-81, crushed the power of the tribal lords in the mountainous northeast, and eliminated Tripura as a compertitor for Chittagong. At the end of the sixteenth century, southern Tripura had to recognize Arakan's king as its overlord (Chowdhury 1997, 151). For eighty years Chittagong became a military and economic cornerstone for the kingdom. Curiously, this domination was not specially celebrated in the Arakanese chronicles. The reason could be twofold: on the one hand, southeast Bengal was looked upon as an area which came legitimately under Arakan's sway; on the other hand, there may not have been one single dramatic conquest, but rather a progressive military and political domination of the city. Parallel to the Arakanese political and military ascent, the Luso-Asian community in Chittagong and its neighbourhood (their major basis was Chittagong's suburb, Dianga) gained unprecedented strength. Many Portuguese and their descendants entered the service of the Arakanese and were richly paid for their efforts. The Arakanese chronicler celebrates the reign of Man Phalaung as a time when religious life prospered, trade flourished, and foreign rulers sent presents to the court.

Man Phalaung's regin has been unduly overshadowed by the even more active reign of his son, King Man Raja-kri (1593-1612). In 1597-98, he accepted an offer from the king of Toungoo (Taungngu) to join him in an attack on Pegu, the capital of the already weakened Burmese empire. The Arakanese sent a fleet that took part in the siege of the city. After the emperor Nandabayin surrendered without a fight, the Arakanese king took home the famous white elephant, a daughter of the emperor, possibly some other members of the royal household, and hundreds of war prisoners. When the Siamese under King Naresuan invaded the ruined empire, the king of Toungoo felt directly threatened, abandoned Pegu, and fortified himself in Toungoo. The intervention of a fleet under the Arakanese crown price (the future King Man Khamaung) saved Toungoo. The Arakanese cut off the lines of supply of the Siamese troops who finally returned home empty-handed. The Arakanese then asked for their share in the booty that the prince of Toungoo had earlier taken to his home city. This was no mean issue if we believe contemporary western descriptions which portray the events as the pillaging of an amazing treasure (Guedes 1994, 221-2, 232). Jesuit sources also say that the Arakanese king was furious when he heard that the prince of Toungoo had assassinated the old emperor Nandabayin and immediately ordered an expedition against Toungoo, mainly to collect what he could get from the riches of Pegu (Guerreiro 1930, 14:47). In 1598, Goa instructed the Portuguese trades of the Bay to keep away from Peguan ports, and the rubies of Ava reached the Bay of Bengal over the trans-Arakanese road (Blackmore 1985, 30)

While the forces of Toungoo and Arakan may have been roughly equal, the Arakanese were in a better position to control the waterways. They occupied Syriam, the key to Upper Burma's trade. The king of Arakan was thus in a position to give a new lease of life to Lower Burma, which had been desolated and depopulated by a decade of warfare.

At the Arakanese court, two factions were battling to gain control over the trade of Syriam: a Muslim faction representing the interests of Masulipatam traders, and a Portuguese faction which had to its credit the military help given to the king over many years. The king saw greater opportunities trusting the latter. Around 1600, king Man Raja-kri entrusted Syriam to one of his Portuguese captions, Filipe de Brito. After his appointment, De Brito mainly pursued his own interests. There was an Arakanese garrioson in Syriam, but it was not strong enough to constrain De Brito and his entourage. In 1601, De Brito went to Goa to seek official support for establishing a Portuguese outpost under Goan protection. Which Portuguese trader came back to Syrian (Guedes 1994, 128, fn. 37), a certain Salvador Ribeiro, who was in charge of the port, was enmeshed in conflicts with a local Mon lord (the Binnya Dala) whom he ultimately subdued (Mouzinho 1990). De Brito returned to Syriam in June 1603, and began to transform the city into the centre of his own principality. A stone walled fort took the place of the old wooden stockade. Despite his obvious treason, he still tried to be on good terms with King Man Raja-kri arguing that the Portuguese king's support was vital for defending the northeastern border of Arakan againt the Mughal threat. He sweetened his rhetotric with rich donations to the Mrauk-U court and ingratiated himself also with the lords of Martaban and Toungoo (Guedes 1994, 133, 233).

Astonishing, the Arakanese king took a long time to react to events in Syriam. It was only in 1605 that he renewed his alliance with Toungoo and sent an expendition force to gain back control over Syriam and put an end to Fillipe de Brito's sudden ascent. But the Arakanese crown prince was captured on the river up to Pyay (Prome) by De Brito's men and the whole expendition failed. De Brito either went himself to Mrauk-U (as an Arakanese source says) or sent an embassy to negotiate peace. Finally the crown prince was set free. The Portuguese captain asked for one third of the customs revenues at Chittagong, but he likely got no more than what U Kala's report of the events suggests: a grudging recognition of his sovereignty over Syriam. Two years later in 1607, the Arakanese tried once more to regain control of Syriam (Brito 1607). The Arakanese had to ask for peace terms and the Puge adventure of the Arakanese king was over. Charney argues that 1599 was “the most important year in Arakanese imperial history” as it brought Arakan “a decisive victory over its ancient enemy (i.e. Puge).” But eight years later, the result of the enormous investment in military efforts was nil.

At least during the first decade of Arakan's control over Chittagong the port was administered by a local Muslim lord under the authority of a member of the Arakanese court. The king dispatched a fleet to suppress an occasional revolt and enforce his authority. A disgraced rebel or a newly sanctioned lord then submitted to the king of Arakan and sent tribute. Such was the traditional way of administering a conquered territory. It did not work in Syriam because the Arakanese failed to establish in Lower Burma what succeeded so well in Chittagong: a fort, a garrison, and an active control over the trade of the local Portuguese and Muslim communities. The reasons for this failure are not difficult to find. Man Raja-kri called himself emperor of Pegu (Guedes 1994, 216-7) but had no sound concept for administering Lower Burma or parts of it. Unlike Chittagong, the port of Syriam was not put under the authority of a close member of the royal family. Prince Man Khamaung, the heir apparent, was commader in chief of the fleet, but was not entrusted with the government of Syriam. The Arakanese king deported several thousand Mon from Lower Beurma to Arakan, with the result that the remaining people tended to hide in the jungle. De Brito succeeded in attracting the population to Syriam by reviving trade and restoring normalc. He thus bolstered his troops and extended his control over Syriam's hinterland. De Brito also had the support of local Mon lords while the Arakanese king could not rely on his ambiguous alliance with the king of Toungoo, his de facto rival for the control of Lower Burma. Moreover De Brito, at least temporarily, enjoyed the political and military support of Goa.

Unlike in Chittagong at the time of its conquest, the socio-economic situation in Lower Burma was disastrous. Treasures had been pillaged, trade was disrupted, and the settled population was sparse. Contemporary Portuguese accounts contend that the Arakanese had enough people to populate the devastated country, but there was obviously no will no behalf of the Arakanese court to take the lead in rebuilding a country much larger than their own.

A further reason for this failure was the political turmoil in eastern Bengal which required Man Raja-kri's full attention. De Brito himself had failed to gain any influence over the Luso-Asian community in the northeastern Bay of Bengal. But while the Afghan landlords were strenuously resisting the progression of Mughal power, some enterprising members of the Luso-Asian community in southeastern Bengal shared De Brito's ambitions and created their own power base in the neighbourhood of Chittagong. They colluded with the zamindars (landlords) of Sripur and Bhallua and put themselves in control of the salt-producing island of Sandwip. With their ships and an intimate knowledge of local conditions, they became an immediate threat to the Arakanese hegemony. Sebastiao Tibau ruled Sandwip. With their ships and an intimate knowledge of local conditions, they became an immediate threat to the Arakanese hegemony. Sebastiao Tibau ruled Sandwip between 1609 and lords. In 1610, the Arakanese governor of Chittagong rebelled and fled to Sandwip. Man Raja-kri replaced him with one of his younger sons, Cakrawate. Two years later, Prince Man Khamaung inherited the throne and immediately turned against his rival brother. While the local Portuguese community supported Cakrawate, Man Khamaung could not rally the help of Sebastiao Tibau to defeat his brother who succumbed nonetheless after a siege. After betraying most of his allies , Tibau found some support in Goa where the government deplored the lost opportunity to secure a stronghold at De Brito's Syriam. Tibau's suggestion to conquer Mrauk-U and lay the foundations of a territorial establishment on the northeast coast of the Bay of Bengal came as a welcome invitation to invade Arakan. But the Portuguese fleet under admiral De Menezes was repulsed on the Kaladan at its first encounter with the well-armed Arakanese who had secured the assistance of two Dutch VOC ships. De Menezes was shot and his successor was not ready to give any further support to Tibau (Guedes 1994, 166-7). In 1616, Sandwip became an Arakanese dominion and over the next years the Luso-Asian community was firmly integrated into the political and economic system of Arakan. Approximately at the same time, a first Mughal attempt at invading Arakan failed (Nathan 1936, 1:404-5).

At the end of Man Khamaung's rule (1612-1622). Arakan did not only enjoy the reputation as a strong contestant in the regional power struggle, but also gained sufficient recognition to send embassies to Bengal, Goa, Burma, and Siam. Peace nonetheless did not prevail, as the geopolitical situation was rapidly changing. In 1600 there had been no unquestioned authority or central control either in Burma or Bengal. The First Toungoo empire had been torn apart by the political ambitions of provincial lords. Bengal was divided among those who supported the Mughals and those who resisted them. The two countries thus offered opportunities for military intervention from outsiders. Two decades later, Mughal power was strongly entrenched in Bengal and a renewed Burmese kingdom, with its capital relocated at Ava, was on the rise. But Arakan's military resources and natural defences repelled these threats. In 1618, the Mughal general Ibrahim Khan Fath-Jang attacked Tripura whose king (Yashodharamanikya) vainly tried to flee to Arakan (Majumdar 1973, 165). Tripura's capital was taken and given as a jagir (land grant) to a Mughal general. All this was meant as a preliminary step to an invasion of Arakan that the emperor Jahangir was calling for. The Arakanese king reacted without delay by mobilizing a substantial fleet. Nathan gives the inflated figure of “007ghurabs (two-mast sailing ships) and 4000 jaliya boats (moved by oar).” Fath-Jang prepared himself for a naval encounter (“within a short time 4000 to 5000 war-boats were found ready”), but Man Khamaung's troops turned back “leaving 2000 jaliya boats in the frontier of his kingdom” (Nathan 1936, 2:630). The governor of Bengal undertook another expedition some two years later (the date, somewhere between 1621 and 1623, is difficult to ascertain). It turned into a complete failure as the troops starved in the jungle before reaching Arakan (Nathan 1936, 2:632-3: Qanungo 1988, 262). The repeated Muslim failures to challenge Arakan's position in the Bay fostered the belief among Bengalis that Arakan was invincible. The annual raids and endemic deportations of East Bengal villagers nurtured the arrogance of Arakan's court.

Arakan Library was founded by a group of Arakan Action Association (AAA) in exile in Thailand from Burma in 2007 doing to voice for the knowledge, the people democratic and human rights.

Arakan Action Association (AAA)

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