Pyinbya

Pyinbya ( Burmese : ပျဉ် ပြား , spoken pjɪ̀ɴbjá ; * around 826 or around 801; † 906 or 878 in Bagan ) was the founder of the city of Bagan and the royal family in Burma named after it .

Life dates

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Burmese chronicles report that Pyinbya ruled between 846 and 878; however, like most of the Southeast Asian chronicles from that time, they cannot be regarded as reliable. In fact, a back calculation with the known date of the accession to the throne of King Anawrahta (1044) shows that Pyinbya will have ruled between 874 and 906. In addition, the Burmese sources from that time portray him as the 33rd king of a dynasty founded in the 2nd century, but historians today assume that he was one of the first kings of Upper Burma, which was ruled by the Pyu at the time.

The Tharabha Gate, the only remnant of the old city walls of Bagan

Foundation of Bagan

According to the Burmese Chronicles, Pyinbya ascended the throne in 846 and founded the city of Bagan in the third year of his reign. The date of the founding of Bagan is given as 211 in the Burmese calendar , that is December 23, 849. If you take Anawrahta's accession to the throne and subtract the years of the governments before him, you get 877 as the year Bagan was founded.

The establishment of Bagan marks the first Burmese settlement in the Irawaddy valley after the kingdom of Nanchao had devastated the valley some 40 years earlier. Subsequently, the Pyu were greatly weakened and warriors from Nanchao stayed with their families in the valley. Bagan was built as a fortified settlement at a strategically important point near a well-irrigated rice-growing area.

Pyinbya's son, Tannet , succeeded him to the throne.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lieberman (2003), p. 90
2. ↑ Thant Myint-U (2006), p. 56

literature

• Victor B. Lieberman: Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in global context, c. 800 - 1830. Vol. 1: Integration on the Mainland . Cambridge Univ. Press ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7 .
• Thant Myint-U: The River of Lost Footsteps - Histories of Burma . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6 .