From:
Asian Perspectives
Volume 40, Number 1, Spring 2001
pp. 143-145 | 10.1353/asi.2001.0013
Asian Perspectives 40.1 (2001) 143-145
REFERENCES
Ledgerwood, Judy L.
1995 Khmer kinship: the matriliny/matriarchy
myth. Journal of Anthropological
Research 51 : 247—261.
Parkin, Robert
1990 Descent in old Cambodia: Deconstructing
a matrilineal hypothesis.
Zeitschrift fu¨r Ethnologie 115 : 209—
227.
Myth and History in the Historiography of Early Burma: Paradigms, Primary Sources,
and Prejudices. Michael A. Aung-Thwin. Athens: Ohio University Center for International
Studies, 1998. 220 pp., maps.
Reviewed by Patrick A. Pranke, Middlebury College, Vermont
This book brings together •ve essays by
Michael A. Aung-Thwin on the history
and historiography of the Burmese kingdoms
of Pagan and Ava between the
twelfth and early fourteenth centuries. In
these essays, each of which is presented as a
chapter, the author reexamines •ve events
that, over the course of the last century of
Western scholarship, have come to be viewed
by Burma scholars as watersheds in the history
of Pagan and its successor state, Ava. Stated
brie•y, the •ve events are: (1) the Sinhalese
capture of Pagan and execution of its king,
Kulakya, in 1165 c.e., (2) the •ight of
Pagan’s King Narathihapade in the face of
the Chinese (Mongol) invasion of 1284, (3)
the destruction of Pagan by Chinese forces
in 1284, (4) the murder of Pagan’s King
Kyawswa by the ‘‘Three Shan Brothers’’ in
c. 1304, and (5) the founding of the kingdom
of Ava by a descendant of the Three Shan
Brothers, Thadominbya, in 1364 (p. 2).
Leading Burma scholars have commented
on the signi•cance of the •ve events and in
the process woven them into a more or less
continuous narrative. G. H. Luce claimed
the Sinhalese capture of Pagan ushered in
Pagan’s golden age, insofar as it led to the
ascendancy of Burman over Mon culture at
the capital, and the adoption of Sinhalese
Theravada Buddhism as the state religion
(p. 26). Pe Maung Tin and G. E. Harvey
saw the •ight of Narathihapade and the
sacking of Pagan by the Chinese as marking
the end of the Pagan Empire. And
D.G.E. Hall, among others, asserted that
the political machinations of the Three
Shan Brothers led to the birth of a new
Shan dynasty at Ava in the aftermath of
Pagan’s destruction (p. 126).
Through a careful review of epigraphic,
archaeological, and chronicle evidence,
Aung-Thwin demonstrates that the •ve
events are myths with little or no basis in
historical fact. Exploring their origins and
the motivations underlying their articulation,
he shows that four of the myths (nos.
1, 3—5) are of recent vintage, being the
product of late nineteenth- and twentiethcentury
British colonial historiography,
while the •fth (no. 2) can be traced to indigenous
Burmese chronicles. He argues
that these myths were shaped by particular
political and intellectual biases of their
creators, and that when these biases are
recognized and set aside, an entirely di€erent
and more cogent picture of Burmese
history comes into view.
Aung-Thwin develops his critique incrementally
in each of the •ve chapters, and in
each he o€ers an alternative to the prevailing
historical theory under consideration.
In his conclusion, he discusses the intellectual,
political, and social trends in nineteenth-
and twentieth-century Burma that
shaped the historiography of pre-colonial,
colonial, and independent Burma (p. 3).
He ends with a brief look at contemporary
Burma in the aftermath of the failed democracy
uprising of 1988, where he touches
upon the continuing process of historical
myth-making in the rhetoric of the
military junta and its opponents in the democracy
movement.
Asian Perspectives, Vol. 40, No. 1, ( 2002 by University of Hawai‘i Press.
book reviews 143
Aung-Thwin identi•es three prejudices
in particular that have in•uenced the interpretation
of Burmese history by modern
scholars. The •rst is the ‘‘rei•cation of ethnicity’’
by which he means the attribution
of historical causation to ethnicity. He notes
that Western scholarship has tended to view
Burmese history as an ‘‘endless series of battles
between ethnic groups,’’ a perspective
not shared by indigenous chronicles. Burmese
sources, he observes, do not portray
the various rebellions, wars, and coups they
record as being caused by ethnic di€erences...
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