Hmannan Yazawin

Etymology

The name of the chronicle comes from Hmannan or the Palace of Mirrors, the building of the Inwa Palace complex where the chronicle was compiled, and yazawin (ရာဇဝင်) from Pali meaning "chronicle of kings". It is conventionally translated as the "Glass Palace Chronicle" although a more accurate translation should be the "Chronicle of the Palace of Mirrors".

Background

In early 1829, King Bagyidaw ordered the Royal Historical Commission to update the royal chronicles. The kingdom had just come off the disastrous First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826) after which Konbaung Burma was forced to cede all of its western empire (Arakan, Manipur and Assam) plus the entire Tenasserim coast south of the Salween River. Moreover, the royal treasury was severely being depleted to pay the British one million pounds sterling (about $2 billion in 2006 US dollars) as war reparations in four installations.(Htin Aung 1967: 220): Bagyidaw would later deliver the balance of the indemnity at great sacrifice in November 1832. Updating the chronicles was perhaps a fitting task "when the future seemed unclear, the present had become so painful, and the lessons of the past needed a more proper accounting."

The standard official chronicle at the time was Maha Yazawin (The Great Chronicle), the standard chronicle of Toungoo Dynasty that covers up to 1711. Konbaung Dynasty's first chronicle Yazawin Thit (The New Chronicle of Myanmar), commissioned by Bagyidaw's predecessor and grandfather Bodawpaya and covers up to 1785, had not been accepted as an official chronicle because the new chronicle contained severely harsh criticisms of earlier chronicles. Although it was Bodawpaya himself who ordered the author of Yazawin Thit to verify the accuracy of Maha Yazawin by consulting a variety of sources including hundreds of inscriptions, the king did not accept the new chronicle when it was presented to him.

Compilation

The 13-member Royal Historical Commission consisted of learned monks, court historians and court Brahmins. When the commission convened the first time on 11 May 1829 (1st waxing of Nayon 1191 ME), they had ready access to a number of historical sources: over 600 inscriptions (some originals and some recast copies of the originals) collected between 1783 and 1793, several prior Burmese chronicles (yazawins and ayedawbons), local pagoda histories (thamaings), Pali religious chronicles and Burmese poetical literature (eigyins, mawguns and yazawin thanbauks).

The commission was led by Monywe Zetawun Sayadaw, one of the "most learned monks" of the day. The monk had already compiled an abridged chronicle in 1810, and had been writing a more comprehensive chronicle when he was appointed to write the next official chronicle. He was assisted by another learned monk, Thawkabin Sayadaw. The two monks were given the task of scrutinizing the earlier chronicles in prose, especially the two main ones: Maha Yazawin and Yazawin Thit. Moreover, they also acted as "consulting editors". The two monks were assisted by an ex-monk and a senior minister at the court, Maha Dhamma Thingyan, who also checked the two main chronicles for historical sources, and decided what to accept and what to reject. U Yauk and U Chein scrutinized twelve volumes of old eigyin poems, and nine minor chronicles (yazawins) and five biographic chronicles (ayedawbons). The other officials were scribes like U Hpyaw and court Brahmins who checked Indian sources for records of court ceremonies like royal coronations, ceremonies for building new palaces, etc.

It took three years and four months for the commission to complete the new chronicle. The commission had organized the chronicle was into two parts: The first part covers from time immemorial to the last dynasty (to 1752); the second part (also called Konbaung-Zet Yazawin) covers then ruling Konbaung Dynasty to 1821. Not all of the authors agreed with the conclusions reached in the new chronicle. The head of the commission, Monywe Sayadaw, felt the portrayal of the last Toungoo kings in earlier Konbaung accounts was too harsh, and decided to publish his own chronicle called Maha Yazawin Kyaw ("Great Celebrated Chronicle") in 1831.

Analysis

Though the main tasks of the commission ostensibly were to verify the accuracy of the prior chronicles, and update the history to their day (1829–1832), the chroniclers had at least another equally important task, which was to provide "legitimation according to religious criteria" of the Burmese monarchy. The new chronicle did bring up Burmese history to 1821, right before the First Anglo-Burmese War. However, despite having consulted the inscriptions and a variety of sources, the commission left much of the accounts of Maha Yazawin largely unchanged.

The authors did try to verify Maha Yazawin's dates which did not agree with those given in Zatadawbon Yazawin. Maha Yazawin's dates for Pagan Dynasty were off by as much as 42 years from Zata (for the accession date of Anawrahta). Earlier historians had already tried to reconcile the glaring differences between the two prior chronicles. In 1798, Yazawin Thit tried to bridge the gap; its dates are about 15 more years closer to Zata's dates but still 27 years off.(Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: 230) gives Anawrahta's accession date as 1017 versus (Maha Yazawin 2006: 154)'s 1002. Compare the dates to the actual date of 1044. (Zata's dates later turned out to be the most accurate based on inscriptional evidence.) The authors of Hmannan chose to stay with Yazawin Thit's dates for the most part with just a few minor tweaks as seen in the table below. It shows a comparison of the regnal dates of the early Pagan kings (from Pyinbya, the fortifier of Pagan, according to the chronicles) as reported in the three chronicles.

The authors of Hmannan also inserted a number of commentaries at several points of Maha Yazawin's text. Still, even when the commission disputed earlier accounts, their commentaries are mostly of an "extremely esoteric nature", and contain "little substantive critical analysis" from a secular history perspective. Of those, the most important development was Hmannan's assertion that the Burmese monarchy had descended from the Sakya clan of the Buddha. This claim was to have a devastating impact on the reputation of the chronicle as a whole in the eyes of British colonial era scholars who dismissed much of the early history reported in the chronicles as "copies of Indian legends taken from Sanskrit or Pali originals". It was the prevalent mainstream scholarship view at least to the 1960s although prominent Burma historians of Burmese origin disagreed with the outright dismissal of the chronicles' early history.(Than Tun 1964: ix–x): the Abhiyaza story has given ammunition to the heavily biased accounts of colonial era scholarship. (Htin Aung 1970: 4–7): Hmannan's sudden linkage to the Buddha itself does not warrant the dismissal of the rest of the early history, for example, that the Tagaung Kingdom did not exist. Latest research does show that when stripped of the legendary elements, which are now viewed as allegories, the chronicle narratives largely conform to the evidence. Archaeological evidence shows that many of the places mentioned in the royal records have been inhabited continuously for over three millennia, and the chronicle narratives of the pre-11th century history are considered "social memory" of the times.

Hmannan becomes increasingly more factual where "after the 11th century, the chronology of Burmese chronicles is reliable." One major reason is that Burmese chroniclers could read the inscriptions of the previous eras. Likewise, a 1986 study of Maha Yazawin, which Hmannan closely follows, finds much of the history for the 16th century, which was also witnessed by many Europeans, largely factual.

Importance

Hmannan Yazawin is the standard Burmese chronicle, and the primary historical source material of Burmese history to the early 19th century. Almost all books on Burmese history down to the imperial period in English are chiefly based on Hmannan. It was also used by Thai historians to correct the pre-1767 chronology of the reconstructed post-1767 Siamese chronicles, which was off by a few decades.

Translations

Although all major Burmese history books are based on Hmannan, the entire chronicle has not yet been translated into a Western language. To date, only a portion—up to the end of Pagan Dynasty—has been translated into English as the Glass Palace Chronicle by Pe Maung Tin and Gordon Luce. In 1987, the Glass Palace Chronicle was translated into French as Pagan, l'univers bouddhique: Chronique du Palais de Cristal by P. H. Cerre and F. Thomas. The chronicle was, however, translated into Chinese in three volumes by the Commercial Press.

Notes

Citations

References

References

1. Hmannan Vol. 1 2003: vi
2. Hla Pe 1985: 39–40
3. The "most important development" in ''Hmannan'' was the replacement of the hitherto prevalent pre-Buddhist [[Myth of origins
4. Aung-Thwin 2005: 144–145
5. Hla Pe 1985: 39
6. Hla Pe 1985: 35
7. Hla Pe 1985: 57
8. Myint-U 2006: 130
9. Thaw Kaung 2010: 50–51
10. Hmannan 2003: xxxvi–xxxvii
11. Woolf 2011: 416
12. [[Thaw Kaung]] 2010: 53–55
13. Aung-Thwin 2005: 142–144
14. Aung-Thwin 2005: 121–123
15. Maha Yazawin Vol. 1 2006: 346–349
16. Hall 1960: 7
17. Myint-U 2006: 44–45
18. Moore 2011: 4–5
19. Harvey 1925: xvi
20. Lieberman 1986: 236–255
21. Htin Aung 1970: 1
22. Phayre 1883: vii
23. Harvey 1925: xviii
24. Harvey 1925: 343
25. Hmannna Vol. 1 2003: viii–ix
26. [https://www.sanmin.com.tw/product/index/000537849 琉璃宫史(全三卷)]