Alaungpaya

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Statue of King Alaungpaya in front of the Military Academy in Pyin U Lwin

Alaungpaya ( Burmese အလောင်း ဘုရား , also Alaung-hpaya, Alaungmintaya or Alompra, Burmese အလောင်းမင်းတရား , "future Buddha king"; * September 24, 1714 in Moksobo ; †  May 11, 1760 ) was a Burmese king and the founder of the Konbaung dynasty (and with it of the Third Burmese Empire) in the early 18th century , which lasted until the complete annexation of Burma on January 1st, 1886 by the English.

biography

Alaungpaya was born as Aung Zeya ("the victorious") in the small village of Moksobo, about 75 kilometers northwest of Ava , and received other honorary titles early on, such as Yan Gyi Aung , Konbaung and Yadana Theinhka . He was of little birth and rose to rulership of his village when he was given the opportunity to honor highest honors during the invasion of the Mon of Pegu in 1752 . The entire land was at the feet of the conquerors, and the leaders had taken the symbolic "water of loyalty" (thissa yei thauk).

Alaungpaya was an independent spirit who not only arranged for his town to be regained, but could also beat a detachment from Pegu that had been summoned to punish him. Thereupon the Burmese flocked to his flag and marched with him to Ava, which was taken from the conquerors before the end of 1753.

In 1754 the Peguans suffered a major defeat at Kyaukmyaung , whereupon they slew the captured king in revenge. The apparent heir to the throne warned his claims and was supported by the Gwe Shan . Alaungpaya, however, resisted and was determined not to lose his own supremacy. In 1755 he took Dagon and named it Yangon ("the end of the dispute"). In 1757 he consolidated his position as one of the most powerful monarchs in Southeast Asia with the conquest of Pegu, although the French supported it. As early as July 28, 1757, he signed a contract with the British East India Company , which he signed as "King of Ava and Pegu", thus giving the island of Negrais to the company for sole use. In addition, the company was granted extensive trading rights in the empire, and opened its trading centers to the Burmese on the other as far as the Coromandel coast . In return, the company undertook to deliver the king a lot of gunpowder every year and to support him against enemies on land and water.

Historical symbol of Burma under the Konbaung dynasty

The Peguans revolted the following year, but Alaungpaya reacted with his own promptness and put down the uprising. The Europeans were suspected of instigating the uprising. Then there was the Negrais massacre, in which many British people were killed in October 1759, and which was probably approved by Alaungpaya. Alaungpaya proceeded more openly and strictly against the Siamese , who were also suspected of supporting and organizing uprisings by Pegu. He invaded their territory, besieged Ayutthaya and made good progress.

Alaungpaya was a leader who lived closely with his troops and exercised strict control. While monitoring a cannon loading process off Ayutthaya, he was seriously wounded when the cannon exploded. This led to the hasty withdrawal of the Burmese. Alaungpaya died before the troops reached the Saluen . He was 46 years old and his meteoric rise did not even last eight years. His eldest son Naungdawgyi succeeded him to the throne from 1760 to 1763.

The golden letter

The golden letter of 1756

In 1756 Alaungphaya sent the Golden Letter to King George II of England in London, where it did not arrive until two years later.

The golden letter measures 54.7 × 8.5 cm and is 0.2 mm thick. It is engraved on sheet gold and set with 24 rubies . Alaungphaya offered George II, or the British East India Company, a fortified trading post in his domain. The letter is the only one of its kind.

In London, however, the meaning of writing has been misunderstood. The letter therefore went unanswered, but Georg II forwarded it to his home library in Hanover. There it was finally archived with a wrong description and thus fell into oblivion for almost 250 years. It was only after it was rediscovered in 2006 that Jacques Leider , a historian and Southeast Asia expert at the École française d'Extrême-Orient in Paris , managed to translate it, revealing the actual art-historical and geopolitical significance of writing. The Golden Letter is kept in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library in Hanover .

literature

  • Jacques P. Unfortunately : King Alaungmintaya's Golden Letter to King George II (7 May 1756). The story of an exceptional manuscript and the failure of a diplomatic overture. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library, Hanover 2009.
  • Jacques P. Unfortunately: Alaungmintaya, King of Burma (1752-60). Representation and interpretations in western historiography. In: Du Luxembbourg à l'Europe. Homage to Gilbert Trausch à l'occasion de son 80e anniversaire. Editions Saint Paul, Luxemburg 2011, pp. 609–636.
  • Jacques P. Leider: Buddhist Diplomacy - Confrontation and political rhetoric in the exchange of letters between King Alaungmintaya and King Banya Dala of Pegu (1755-56). In: Buddhist Dynamics in Premodern and Early Modern Southeast Asia. edited by D. Christian Lammerts. Singapore: ISEAS, 2015, pp. 371-416.
  • Jacques P. Unfortunately: Kingship by Merit and Cosmic Investiture. An Investigation into King Alaungmintaya's Self-Representation. In: Journal of Burma Studies. 15: 2 (2011), pp. 165-188.
  • Jacques P. Leider: The Rise of Alaungmintaya, King of Myanmar (1752-60): Buddhist Constituents of a Political Metamorphosis. In: Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond. Volume 1, edited by Peter Skilling and Justin McDaniel, Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, Institute of Thai Studies, 2012, pp. 111–126.

Web links

Commons : Alaungpaya  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Dieter Kubitscheck in Biographies on World History. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989, p. 30f
  2. ↑ printed in SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research Vol. 3 (2005), No. 1, pp. 123-125
personal data
SURNAME Alaungpaya
ALTERNATIVE NAMES အလောင်း ဘုရား (Burmese); Alaung-hpaya; Alaung mintaya; အလောင်းမင်းတရား (Burmese); Alompra
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Burmese king and founder of the Konbaung dynasty
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1714
PLACE OF BIRTH Moksobo
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1760