Mon History
Pre-Colonial
the Mon were one of the earliest distinct groups to occupy Burma, moving into the area possibly as early as 1500 BCE. The Mon history has their first kingdom, Suwarnabhumi, founded around the port of Thaton in 300 BCE. They were converted to Theravada Buddhism in the 200s BCE. Ashoka is known to have sent an envoy of monks for this purpose, however tradition states that the Mon had previous contact with the religion through seafaring.The Mon prospered in southern Burma until around 1000 when they came under pressure from new ethnic groups arriving from the north. Successive waves of Burman and Thai groups slowly eroded the Mon kingdoms until the final collapse. The last Mon kingdom was Hongsavatoi - they reconquered much of their lost territory until the energetic Burman leader U Aungzeya forced them back and captured the kingdom by 1757. The Mon religious leaders were forced to flee to Siam and the Mon were harshly repressed.
Colonial
Burma, including the Mon territories, was conquered by the British by 1824 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The Mon aided the British in the overthrow of the Burman monarchy.
Post-Colonial
The Mon soon became anti-colonialists and following the grant of independence to Burma in 1948 they sought self-determination, U Nu refused them this and they rose in revolt to be crushed again. They have remained a repressed and defiant group in the country since then. They have risen in revolt against the central Burmese government on a number of occasions, initially under the Mon People's Front and from 1962 through the New Mon State Party. A partially autonomous Mon state, Monland, was created in 1974 covering Tenasserim, Pegu and Irrawaddy. Resistance continued until 1995 when NMSP and SLORC agreed a cease-fire and in 1996 the Mon Unity League was founded. SLORC troops continued to operate in defiance of the agreement.
In 1947 Mon National Day was created to celebrate the ancient founding of . (It follows the full moon on the 11th month of the Mon lunar calendar, except in Phrapadaeng, Thailand, where it is celebrated at Songkran.)
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Dvaravati
ancient kingdom of Southeast Asia that flourished from the 6th to the 13th century. It was the first Mon kingdom established in what is now Thailand and played an important role as a propagator of Indian culture. Situated in the lower Chao Phraya River valley, Dvaravati extended westward to the Tenasserim Yoma (mountains) and southward to the Isthmus of Kra. The Mon, who are believed to have originated in western China, entered the area in the 1st millennium BC, penetrating westward from the upper Mekong River. Dvaravati emerged as an independent entity late in the 6th century AD, maintaining its independence until late in the 11th century. Rarely politically dominant and continually under the shadow of stronger neighbours, Dvaravati was prevented by geographic barriers from establishing close political ties with other Mon states to the west in southern Myanmar (Burma) and with the Mon state in northern Thailand. Dvaravati experienced political domination by neighbouring peoples on three separate occasions: in the 10th century, when the Burmese conquered the Mon state of Thaton west of the Tenasserim Yoma; from the 11th to the 13th century, when the Khmer empire (Cambodia) arose in the east; and finally, in the late 13th century, when Dvaravati was absorbed by the Thai empire. Subjugation did not, however, mean extinction. The Dvaravati Mon retained their customs and a relative degree of racial homogeneity under their own rulers.
Dvaravati was historically important as a transmitter of Indian culture. Having had early commercial and cultural contact with India, the Mon assumed the role of disseminators of the main features of Indian culture. They were the most receptive of Southeast Asian peoples to Indian art and literature. Indian influence was apparent in matters of sculpture, writing, law, and governmental forms.
Despite political domination, Dvaravati exerted another important force in relation to its conquerors. Whereas contacts with India had contributed to the development and character of Mon civilization, the Dvaravati Mon in their turn became the teachers of their conquerors, the Khmer, the Burmese, and the Thai. All three conquerors were influenced by Dvaravati in writing systems, art forms, government, religious terminology, and scholarship.
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Mon Kingdom
It also called Hanthawaddy Kingdom, kingdom of the Mon people, who were powerful in Myanmar (Burma) from the 9th to the 11th and from the 13th to the 16th century and for a brief period in the mid-18th century. The Mon migrated southward from western China and settled in the Chao Phraya River basin (of southern Thailand) about the 6th century AD. Their early kingdoms, Dvaravati and Haripunjaya (qq.v.), had ties with the ancient Cambodian kingdom of Funan and with China and were also strongly influenced by Khmer civilization.After the Mon moved westward into the Irrawaddy River delta of southern Myanmar in the ensuing centuries, they acquired Theravada Buddhism, their state religion, from Ceylon and South India, and they adopted the Indian Pali script. By 825 they had firmly established themselves in southern and southeastern Myanmar and founded the cities of Pegu and Thaton.
About the same period, southward-migrating Burmans took over lands in central Myanmar and established the kingdom of Pagan. In 1057 Pagan defeated the Mon kingdom, capturing the Mon capital of Thaton and carrying off 30,000 Mon captives to Pagan. This event was to prove culturally decisive for the Burmans because the Mon captives included many Theravada Buddhist monks, who converted the Burmans to Theravada Buddhism; Pali replaced Sanskrit as the language of the sacred literature, and the Burmans adopted the Mon alphabet.
After the fall of Pagan (1287) to the invading Mongols, the Mon, under Wareru, regained their independence and captured Martaban and Pegu, thus virtually controlling their previously held territory. The next 200 years witnessed incessant warfare between the Mon and the Burmans, but the Mon managed to retain their independence until 1539, when they came under the domination of Toungoo Myanmar. In the mid-18th century the Mon rose in rebellion and reestablished their kingdom of Pegu, but it lasted only some 10 years. The Burmans triumphed permanently over the Mon when their leader Alaungpaya razed Pegu in 1757. Many of the Mon were killed, while others fled to Siam (now Thailand). The Mon are still centred in southeastern Myanmar, though their numbers are small compared to those of the ethnic Burmans.
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Haripunjaya
an ancient Mon kingdom centred in the Mae Nam (river) Ping Valley in northwestern Thailand. It was founded in the mid-7th century by a queen of Lopburi, the capital of the Mon Dvaravati kingdom to the south. Although originally established as a colony of Dvaravati, Haripunjaya maintained its independence and its own ruling dynasties as a member of a loose confederation including the Mon states of Dvaravati and Thaton.
Haripunjaya flourished and developed an advanced civilization. Espousing the conservative Theravada Buddhism, the kingdom acted as a transmitter of Indian cultural influences. The development of irrigation systems, law, and art forms were among its accomplishments.Haripunjaya was barely able to maintain its independence against attacks by the Thai in the 9th century and the Khmer (Cambodians) in the 10th century. It also conducted continual warfare against Dvaravati, which was conquered by the Khmer in the early 11th century.
After centuries of independence, the advanced civilization of Haripunjaya was absorbed by the Thai when the Thai ruler Mangrai conquered Haripunjaya in 1292, establishing the city of Chiengmai a few miles from Lamphun, the old capital of Haripunjaya. The Mon became the teachers of the Thai and influenced the development of Thai writing, scholarship, and art forms.
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Burman ethnic dominated central government also adopted “assimilation policy” or “Burmanization policy” with a main strategic plan to assimilate all other ethnic people to become Burman.
In the implementation of this policy, the military regime have restricted the use of ethnic language in schools, in the public places and banned not to use as official language.
UN Envoy returns from Myanmar - Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Myanmar, retuned from his latest visit to the country on the 10th of November, 2003. He spoke with Karishma Vyas from the UN Information Services about the outcomes of his visit.


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Historical background of the Mons. Mons of the Mon-Khmer Family migrated from Mongolia into Thailand along the Mekong valley, into Burma along the Salween and Irrawaddy valleys and into India along the Bramaputra valley earlier than 600 B.C. In this respect John F. Cady’s book entitled "Thailand, Burma, Laos & Cambodia" gives some historical facts about the Mons. Extracts from pp. 32-33 & 45 are given below: "Leading Peoples: Mons and Khmers" "The Mon-Kher peoples, who moved into Indochina in B.C. times, were ethnically Mongoloid, but non-Chinese. Their languages are described as Austroasiatic to distinguish them from that of their Austronesian predecessors who also inhabited much of the Indochina peninsula. The Mons probably moved southward from western China via the Salween and Mekong River gorges into Lower Burma and the Menam valley and the Malay isthmus during the first millennium and prior to their making contact with north China civilization of Chou times (edning around 240 B.C.). The Mons may have preceded their Khmer cousins by several centuries. Burma’s Mons were closely associated with the Pwo Karens, probably in a master-slave relationship. Their first capital was at Thaton, which developed in early A.D. times, fruitful cultural and commercial contacts with India’s Telengana section of the upper Deccan and with ports of the lower Coromandel coast. On the eastern side of the Salween-Menam divide the Mons established another state known as Dvaravati, with one center at Lopburi (Lavo) on the lower Menam and a second upstream around a capital known as Harpunjaya. For a time in the tenth and eleventh centuries a loosely structured Mon confederacy called Ramanyadesa included Thaton, Dvarawati and Harpunjaya was in existence.
"The Mons were widely dispersed and poorly integrated. They were seldom dominant politically, but were important both economically and culturally. Their substantial economic skills as hydraulic agriculturalists, craftsmen, shipbuilders, seamen, and traders were matched by their civiliziningrole as transmitters of Indian culture. Indian governmental practices and kingship symbols, Vishnu worship, Buddhism, and Sanskrit and writing systems were all transmitted by the Mons to Burman neighbours, to Khmer cousins located to the east of the Menam valley, and finally to the later-entering Thai peoples."
* * * (…) The Dvarawati Mons also gained control over the mouth of Menam River and down the peninsula extending southward into Malaya. Small but economically important Indianized states, notably Tambralinga and Lankasuka appeared in northern Malaya. It was not until around 800 A.D. that a united Cambodia again emerged as the successors of Funan.
"The Khmer learned much from the conquered Funanese, and also from the Mons, about the Indian symbols of devine kingship, Hinduism, and Buddhism. They eventually demonstrated in the Great Lake region their own superior talents in hydraulic agriculture, governmental organization, art, architecture, and literature (…)"
* * *"Around 800 A.D. a vigorous Khmer ruler, Jayaverman II, finally succeeded in reuniting the states of Water Chenla and in establishing Cambodian control over vassal domains located around the shores of the Gulf of Siam. The lower portion of the Annam coast above modern Saigon was taken over by this time by the Hindunized Chams.
Meanwhile the Buddhist Mon peoples established political and cultural along both sides of the Tenasserim watershed and up the Menam valley. Mon Thaton became the teacher of the Pagan Burmans of the eleventh century, while Mon Dvarawati (from Lopburi southward to Chaiya) and Mon Haripunjaya (at Lamphun) to the north became the mentors of the Khmers and later the Thai. Prince Uthong, a Thai leader long resident in Mon Dvarawati, subsequently founded the Thai capital of Ayuthia in 1350".
Thus history shows that Mons have had independent states off their own tracing over two thousand and five hundred years. The most known in latter days history was Rehmonnya or Hongsawatoi (Homsavati) or Pegu covering the whole of Lower Burma until it was wrested from them by the Burmese in 1757. During the periods when Mons were masters of lower Burma, the people were happy and prosperous. Those glorious periods were expressed by distinguished historians as golden ages under wise Mon rulers. Relations with foreign countries and foreign nationals were peaceful, cordial and harmonious. That was how the Mons blended their native culture with Theravada Buddhism which elevated them as teachers of their homeland, more than half of the Mon populace migrated into Thailand where they were given refuge and treated as equals. Mons when they were masters of the olden days Thailand received the Thais when they migrated south from Yunan with open arms and they were always in close ties in history. This time it was Mons’ turn to receive Thais’ hospitality. Hundreds of thousands of Mons returned back to Burma - their old homeland - when it came under the British.
Mons had developed themselves into a nation possession a rich culture and were a prosperous people. It is one of those cases in history when the people defeated in war conquer in culture.
After under Burmese rule for 67 years, Tenasserim Division which formed part of old Rehmonnya feel into the hands of the British together with Arakan Division in 1826 after the First Anglo-Burmese War. The other part of old Rehmonnya covering the present Pegu and Irrawaddy Divisions fell to the British in 1854 after the second Anglo-Burmese War. Finally, when Upper Burma, known in the chronicles as Ava was annexed by the British in 1885 after the Third Anglo-Burmese War, the whole of Burma came under the British as a colony til 1942, when the British withdrew from Burma dring World War II.
When the British government inaugurated steps for granting independence to Burma after the second World War, Mons urged the Burmese political leaders, who were in power as Executive Councillors to the British Governor, to include satisfactory provisions and safeguards for them in the Constitution which was in the making. The Burmese chauvinists instead of ceding to the Mon aspirations waved it lightly by giving a far-fetched excuse saying that Mons and Burmese are indistinguishable in racial identity and characteristics, and separate minority rights should not be contemplated. But when the demand for the right of self-determination became popular and an upsurge of Mon mass support came to climax in 1948, the Burmese government took measures to detain some of the Mon leaders and assassinate many of them.
A four-point pledge was made between the Karens and the Mons in August 1948 for joint effort to attain Mon and Karen States. The pledge says:
Mons and Karens agreed to struggle jointly for the attainment of Mon and Karen States;
Mons and Karens committed themselves to face all obstacles even at the risk of their lives in struggling for the ultimate goal;
Either party should not go into any agreement with a third party without the consent of the other; and (4) When success is achieved the aspirations of Mons and Karens would be decided democratically. The fourth point was included because the claims made by the Mons and the Karens were overlapping in most areas. The pledge was signed by Nai Hla Maung for the Mons and by Saw Ba U Gyi for the Karens. In a matter of days after the signing of the pledge the Burmese government detained 19 Mon leaders in Moulmein jail under section 5 of Public Order Preservation Act. This move on the part of government prompted the Mons and Kanrens to occupy Thaton and Moulmein together with a substantial part of the present Karen State without bloodshed on the 30th and 31st August, 1948 respectively. A week later the Burmese government announced that it would form a Regional Autonomy Enquiry Commission for the Mon, Karen and Arakanese. At the first meeting of the Commission, Mons put up their claim including Tenasserim, Pegu, and Irrawaddy Divisions covering the whole area of old Rehmonnya to be demarcated as Mon State. The Karens claimed Tenasserim Division, Irrawaddy Division, and Toungoo District, Naunglebin Subdivision, Hanthawaddy District, Insein District and Tharrawaddy District in Pegu Division to be incorporated as Karen State. Later the Arakanese claimed Arakan Division as Arakanese State. Situation worsen and by the third week of December 1948 the government declared illegal the two armed wings of the Mons and Karens, namely, the Mon National Deferce Organization (MNDO), and the Karen National Defence Organization (KNDO).
Thus finding themselves under the same heavy hand of power as practised over other indigenous non-Burmese brethren of Burma, Mons and Karens had no other alternative but to resort to unconstitutional means to defend their democratic rights and freedom. They collaborated, in a commeon cause, with other resistance forces to fight against the Burmese government.
The intransigent and chauvinistic national characteristics of the Burmese showed up in full and no compromise was made to any of the above ethnic groups. The Burmese leadership tried to impose its will through military force which plunged the country into civil war up till this day.
To put an end to all forms of colonialism, a resolution by the Afro-Asian group condemning colonialism and urging the colonialist powers to grant independence to their subject people was passed by the 15th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
But there is still one form of colonialism overlooked, the Burmese colonialism. The Burmese in their hey-day of their imperialist monarchical dynasty, conquered the Arakanese, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Mon and Shan people and usurped their sovereignty and land of birth. They invaded Thailand but failed to hold it, leaving a trial of devastations. From these it is clear beyond doubt, that the Burmese was a colonialist on his own, which role he resumed over the non-Burmese as soon as the British restored Burma her independence under him.
It is therefore only logical and natural for the non-Burmese, to hanker for and ask for their own independence from the Burmese rule; having been under Burmese colonial rule first, then the British, and now reverting back again to the Burmese colonial rule. The Burmese have no justifiable right to be in Lower Burma or old Rehmonnya except by conquest.
After nearly four decades of Burmese administration the country is politically in turmoil and economically in slump. That clearly indicates historical failure of the Burmese leadership.
To ease up the political, economic, social and military crises General Ne Win’s government had demarcated Moulmein and Thaton districts as Mon State in Article 31 of the new constitution published in April 1972 for national referendum. In the same article Arakan and Chin Divisions were demarcated as Arakanese and Chin States respectively. The National Assembly had already approved the new constitution on January, 3, 1974 at 1930 hours. Thus the three states had come into existence since January, 1974.

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MON HISTORIES

Superintendent, archacological Survey, Burma Circle 1960Superintendent Government Printing and Stationery,Union of Burma, Rangoon,p. 69-84
General Introduction he Mon People and their history
Effects of Burmese Rule On The Mon People and Language
Historical Position of The Mon Inscriptionsn
Mon Influence on Burmese Civilization
The Mon Inscriptions of Upper and Lower Burma
Linguistic Importance of the Mon Inscriptions
The Indian Element in the Inscriptions
Alphabet, Spelling, And Transcription
Beginnings of Mon Epigraphical Study
Acknowledgments of Assistance
General Introduction he Mon People and their history The people who call themselves “Mon” and who are known to the Burmese, and generally to Europeans, as “Talaing” are probably the descendants of a race that settled in Burma earliest of all the races that now inhabit the province. They seem to have preserved no traditions of their migration into the country. At the present time they inhabit a small fringe of the coast-line of Lower Burma on both sides of the mouth of the Salween River, from some where in the neighbourhood of Pegu to little to the south of the town of Ye. In the Census of 1911 the persons returning themselves as Mon by race numbered 320,629, of whom however only 179,443 claimed to be Mon in speech. Of this latter number 175,127 wre returned as living in the Tenasserim division (139,970 in the Amherst district, where they considerably outnumber the Burmese inhabitants, and 34,805 in the Thaton district), while in the Pegu division there were only 1,960, and in the rest of the province the numbers and negligible. Plainly the language is moribund outside of the Amberst and Thaton districts, but in these and particularly in the former it still retains considerable vitality, though it is carrying on a very unequal contest with the much more important and growing official vernacular of the province, Burmese. However, as between the Census of 1901 and that of 1911, there has been a revival amounting to an increase of nearly 25,000 in the number of those who wish to be considered Mon in speech; so it would appear, either that the Mon-speaking population is actually augmenting now or, that there has been a recrudescence of national self-consciousness in the race, leading it to insist more distinctly on its specific differences. This bids fair to postpone indefinitely the extinction of the language in Burma, which at one time seemed to be inevitable and imminent.
In a remote past, which we cannot precisely date, inasmuch as it precedes local recorded history, the area occupied by the Mon people must have been very much more extensive that at present. To the northward their linguistic influence seems to have penetrated as far as Prome, where a completely different people and language were centred. To the southward the race seems to have wandered very far. There is some reason to believe that at a very early period they settled in Ligor (on the isthmus leading to the Malay Peninsula); and as far south as the northern border of Johor (the most southern state in the Peninsula) there are jungle tribes who to this day use a series of numerals (up to “seven”) which are substantially identical with the 11th century Mon numerals. About the middle of that century the Mon area was much reduced by Burmese conquests, culminating in the total annexation of the Mon country to the Burmese kingdom of Pagan and the settlement of Tavoy and Southern Tenasserim by Burmese, who thus cut off the Mon race from their connexion with the more distant south. To the kingdom of Pagan they remained annexed (apart from occasional revolts of local Burmese governors or casual Tai incursions) until A.D. 1281, when they again became at least partially independent under the rule of a adventurer, probably o Tai origin. He founded a dynast, which rapidly assimilated itself to its Mon subjects and by degrees united the bulk of them into a kingdom comprising the three provinces o Bassein, Pegu and Martaban, with its capital eventually fixed at Pegu. This, the medieval Mon kingdom (as one may xonveniently style it), was in the clerkly Pâli terminology of the time called “Râmaññadesa” a name coined from the ethnic appellation “Rman,” which is the medieval form of the word “Mon” and appears constantly in inscriptions of the 15th century. The kingdom lasted till A.D. 1540, when it was conquered by a Burmese dynasty from Taungu, which soon annexed Upper Burma as well. This event involved the final extinction of Mon political independence. Save for a few shortlived revolts and other, mainly locsl, episodes and for a brief and revolutionary interval in the 18th century, when a temporary Mon revival threatened to turn the tables and subject Burma to Mon rule, the Mons of Burma now remained definitely subject to Burmese until the wars of the 19th century broungt first one great section of them and soon afterwards the remainder under British rule.
Effects of Burmese Rule On The Mon People and Language One result of Burmese rule, which was often oppressive and became particularly severe under the Alompra dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries, was the assimilation of a large part of the Mon people to their Burmese conquerors and a progressive dwindling of the area in which the Mon language prevailed. Its use was “strongly discouraged” after A.D. 1757 and “absolutely proscribed” in Pegu from 1826 to 1852. Hence the great preponderance of the Mons of the Tenasserim division, where the British Government laid no restrictions on the use of the language, though on the other hand they took no active steps to encourage it. Another result was the degradation of the spoken language from its old position as a national tongue with a literary standard. Into the disintegrated state of a congeries of local dialects, differing almost from village to village even in the small area where it still forms a general medium of communication. Burmese has largely taken its place as the form of speech of the educated and influential sections of the community. The Mon written language has remained more uniform than the spoken, but its use is even more restricted. On the other hand the positive influence of the Burmese language on the Mon done not appear to have been as great as might have been expected under the circumstances. The two languages are fundamentally distinct and unconnected, and they contrast to a marked degree in phonetics, morphology, and syntax. Apart from a certain amount of mutual borrowing of words it does not seem that they have greatly modified each other, though it is possible that Burmese influence has been a contributory cause in the Mon tendency towards monosyllabism (which, however, is capable of another explanation) and that certain conventionalities of Burmese orthography have been imitated in medieval and later Mon. A third consequence of Burmese rule was the emigration at various periods of considerable sections of the Mon population to Siam, where their descendants still flourish in large numbers and keep up their ancestral speech and customs under the tolerant and sympathetic sway of the Siamese Government.
Historical Position of The Mon Inscriptions the foregoing preliminary observations will have served to pave the way towards a clear under standing of the historical position of the Mon records that are contained in this collection. Some of them rank among the oldest vernacular records of Burma, being approximately coeval with the earliest of the Burmese ones. It is true that of the first period of Mon history, which terminated in the Burmese conquest of the 11th century, nothing apparently remains in the way of inscriptions, though probably some may yet be discovered when the work of excavation is systematically undertaken. But the second period, the subjection to Pagan, and the third, the time of the medieval Mon kingdom, are well represented. They are not, however, illustrated quite in the some way by their respective sets of records, for these do not run in precisely parallel lines. The earlier ones, though in the Mon language and found in various parts of Burma, nearly all emanated from the Burmese headquarters at Pagan and were in substance Burmese records; they really throw more light on Burmese than on Mon conditions. The later ones, belonging to the medieval Mon kingdom, with its centre at Pegu, were found in the really Mon country of Lower Burma, the old Râmaññadesa, and are purely Mon records.
Mon Influence on Burmese Civilization This difference ahould be borne in mind; but on the other hand, it must not be forgotten that in a sense, apart from the linguistic one, even the Burmese records were to a very great extent, and probably more so in early times that in later ones, a reflex and copy of Mon thought and life. The conquest of the old Mon capital of Sadhuim (in Burmese pronounced Thaton) was a critical moment in Burmese history in the same way that the Roman conquest of Greece was in the history of Rome. In each case the conquerd nation imparted to the conqueror may things which he lacked and which he eagerly accepted. The Burmese took over from the Mons their form of Buddhism with its Pâli canon, their particular variety of the Southern Indian alphabet, and certain useful or ornamental arts and crafts. Monks, scholars, and skilled artisans were imported in considerable numbers from the Mon country to the Burmese capital, and it is largely due to the religious, scholarly and artistic impetus thus given that Burmese civilization, as illustrated for example in the temples and inscriptions of Pagan, took its particular line and form. That is not to say that the Burmese prior to this period were a mere race of savages, any more that were the Romans before they fell under glamour of Greek art and literature. But just as Rome became in a great measure Hellenized, so the Burmese adopted much from the Mons, and a great deal of what is now supposed to be distinctively and characteristically Burmese was in fact derived by them from the Mons, who had themselves originally borrowed most of it from India or Ceylon. For a brief period and under rather exceptional conditions the Mon language seems to have become a favourite vehicle for epigraphic records at Pagan, Prome, and elsewhere in Burma, side by side with Burmese.
The Mon Inscriptions of Upper and Lower Burma This use of Mon was fostered by the patronage of a Burmese king whose reign covers the end of the 11th, and the beginning of the 12th, century; and it is to him and to the fortunate circumstance of his having been a great author or inspirer of such records (which were largely panegyrics on himself) that we owe nearly all the earliest Mon inscriptions yet discovered. Apart from the much briefer documents engraved on small votive tablets and on glazed tiles illustrating Buddhist legends, these early records constitute the whole of the material available for the study of he Mon language of the 11th and 12th centuries. After this period there is an almost blank interval of about, three hundred years. It may be that the use of Mon for epigraphic purposes in Upper Burma was dictated mainly by the fancy of an individual monarch and practically ceased when that influence was no longer operative. Or it may be that as Burmese scholarship developed it became more independent, a Burmese national reaction set in, and Mon ceased to be a fashionable literary medium at the Burmese capital. At any rate, soon after the death of their chief royal patron, Mon inscriptions apparently became scarce in Upper Burma; there are only two, not very long or important specimens, in the collection, one being a brief record of a donation by a later king and the other, which is probably of Mon authorship, commemorating the foundation of a provincial monastic building. The next big group of inscriptions in the collection dates from the 15th century, the high-water mark of the medieval Mon kingdom, and especially from the time of the great Mon king Dhammacetî. As already stated, these document were found in the really Mon country of Lower Burma. To that fact, partly on account of the “exceedingly rainy” climate of that region and partly by reason of the destructive wars which have devastated it, we own the unfortunate circumstance that these medieval inscriptions are often less well preserved than the older records that have been left undisturbed in the deserted metropolis of Upper Burma. Both sets are, for the most part, temple records, and the temples in both cases were dedicated to the same faith. But, as even the most recent experience has again taught us, that fact is no safeguard in time of war; and there is reason to believe that in Lower Burma., as elsewhere, the destruction of consecrated buildings was often systematic and intentional. Both the early and the medieval records are characterized by abundant expressions of religious sentiment, and both were probably as a rule, and perhaps invariably, drafted by ecclesiastics. But there is a marked difference between them. The earlier ones contain a much larger element of royal panegyric and also introduce, in some cases, many particulars about the state of the country and people. The picture is, no doubt, somewhat idealized, but it is drawn with graphic, vivid touches. Indeed, one or two of these documents have some claim to be considered as pieces of literature and not merely as specimens of epigraphy. The medieval records, on the other hand, restrict themselves more to specifically Buddhist matters (such as the incidents of Buddha’s life, but including also the local legends or traditions about the introduction of the faith into Lower Burma, etc.), and to the details of the pious donations or of the construction or restoration of the buildings with which the records are connected. From the point of view of their contents they are, therefore, perhaps of somewhat less general interest that the older documents, but incidentally they sometimes contain items of historical, chronological, or topographical value.
Linguistic Importance of the Mon Inscriptions Owing to the fact that the Mon language, especially in its older forms, is at present almost a sealed book to European scholars, the chief point of interest in this collection of records is the language in which they are written. In that respect their value is beyond price. Mon is a member of a fairly large but much broken down and scattered family of languages, which extends (in detached fragments) from the extreme west of the Central Provinces of India through Assam and Indo-China right down into the Malay Peninsula. The family is of the highest linguistic interest, being very peculiar and characteristic in its structure, and apparently constitutes a series of links in a broken chain that formerly connected the still more extensive and important Malayo-Polynesian (or Austronesian) family with its original Asiatic home. Further, be it remembered that of all the languages of scattered Austroasiatic family (as it has been styled) only one other besides Mon, namely Khmer (or Cambojan), possesses literary records going back beyond the most recent times. All the rest are known only in their modern forms. When these facts are borne in mind, it will be realized how important these Mon records are, especially the older ones. From them alone can we form anything like an adequate picture of the language in its earlier phase, when its structure was still relatively unimpaired and perspicuous: for there too, as is so often the case in the history of languages, the process of change, both phonetic and morphological, has been mainly in the direction of decay; there has been a progressive breaking down and obliteration of distinctive features.
The medieval records represent, of course, a transitional stage between the early and the late, or modern, Mon, but on the whole they may be said to approximate more to the latter than to the former. That is, however, more apparent than real, and is due in great part to the fact that the written language (like our own) has lagged behind the spoken one. Its orthography does not constitute a simple, straightforward system, but an elaborate tangle of conventions, complicated of course by the dialectic differentiation referred to in §3. Some of these conventions in attempting to link the present with the past have only succeeded in falsifying both and producing spellings that never had any phonetic basis at all. The medieval records, standing as they do between the early form of the language and the modern form, often throw light on both, and with their help the whole process of evolution of the Mon language during more than eight centuries can now be studied in detail. The fuller illustration of this subject must be left to a later stage, and it will suffice to have drawn attention here to its great importance from the point of view of linguistic study.
The Indian Element in the Inscriptions One point worth noting, on account of the general interest attaching to it and the historical conclusions to which it may lead, is the Indian element which is such a marked feature in these records. Having regard to the fact that the Mons at some very early period became acquainted with the form of Buddhism which uses Pâli as its sacred language, it is not in the least surprising or remarkable that several of the inscriptions contain at the beginning, or the end, or in the middle, short Pâli sentences testifying to the somewhat pedantic erudition of the draftsmen. Mone important is the considerable number of Indian loanwords in the Mon text itself: for these form an integral part of the language and are not merely tacked on like the Pâli sentences. They are very common in the early inscriptions, and many of such loanwords have survived through the medieval into the modern form of Mon. A remarkable proportion of these words is of Sanskrit origin, not Pâli. Sometimes we find mixed forms, partly Sanskrit and partly Pâli, and of course also forms that are taken straight from Pâli. The Sanskrit forms include some of commonest religious terms, such as Dharmma, swar (from svarga), and the like. As to the reason for their presence in early Mon allowance must be made for the fact that Brahmans, who are often mentioned in the inscriptions, played a great part at all the Indo-Chinese courts, from Burma to Champa Vestiges of Hinduism have been found in Lower Burma, though they are not so common as in several other parts of Indo-China. But there is much reason to believe that some form of Buddhism using Sanskrit as its sacred language also existed there in former times, just as it did, for example, in Camboja. The fact is not without some bearing on the much discussed question of the Sanskrit words in Burmese: there seems to be no necessity for the assumption which has been made that they must have come through a Chinese channel, in view of the occurrence of words of the same class in Mon. The soundest inference seems to be the one drawn by Finot (T.A.,l.c.) that Sanskrit and Pâli (and the several forms of religion with which they are respectively associated) were more or less concurrent influences in the Mon country from an early period. Whatever may have been the channel or channels through which he Sanskrit words came in, they are present in such numbers that the strength of the influences that introduced them must have been considerable and probably extended over a fairly long period.
Other, more superficial, evidences of Indian influence are not wanting in our records: in the earlier ones the proper names are Sanskrit, Pâli, or mixed; and this persists more or less in the medieval ones, though here a few other names occur which appear to be native. The kings, both Burmese and Mon, seem to have indulged in a double nomenclature: an elaborate Indian name, sometimes of stupendous length, was used by them as their royal style, though they had shorter native names as well, by which (as a rule) they are known in the histories. In the inscriptions the Indian style is given the preference, presumably because it sounded grander and was the specifically royal name, the other one being personal. Certain conventional phrases based on Indian originals are also sometimes used: for example, the people in general are styled “the four castes,” although there is no real reason to believe that, apart from the Brahmans, who were of foreign introduction, any real division into castes was recognized in Burma.
Alphabet, Spelling, And Transcription The alphabet of the inscriptions, like the generality of the so-called native alphabets of Indo-China and Indonesia, is manifestly derived from some South Indian type, akin to the old Telugu-Canarese. Its form in the early Mon records (as the late Professor Kern pointed out to me) is very nearly identical with that of contemporary Javanese inscriptions. It is evident that in the early centuries of our era there was constant intercourse between Southern India and the Eastern regions to which Indian civilization spread itself, and that the fashions in the former country were readily followed in the latter. The identification of the various symbols used in the early Mon iscriptions and their derivation from their Indian prototypes offer no special difficulties. The Mons discarded some of the Indian letters, as they had no use for them; others they used only in words of Indian origin. But they also invented two new signs, both labial letters. The first of these is really a new letter and is found in the early inscriptions, where it has the shape of a circle with a smaller one inscribed in the centre of it, looking in fact exactly like their combination im, except of course that the latter is superscript whereas the new labial b is on the line. This may have been based on some northern form of b, and finds its analogue in the so-called Pyu script. The sound denoted is in modern Mon described as something between b and p, i.e. a b deprived of sonority, and to me it sounds somewhat nasal and vaguely like w. The other is simply derived from the combination mb, the b here being in a subscript form which has been slightly modified in the modern language, where the combination, when initial, is treated as a genuine letter (as it has bow in fact become). It is extremely rare even in modern Mon, and of doubtful existence in the earlier phases of the language, and I have adhered to the transcription mb.
the alphabet of early Mon has become in its turn, through the medieval stage, the ancestor of the modern Mon alphabet, which is substantially the same as the modern Burmese one. In the early stage the letters, though already showing a tendency to become circles, or parts of circles, or aggregates of such elements, are still very distinctive and include some complex and beautiful forms. In the medieval period the tendency is towards less distinctiveness: certain of the letters and combinations of letters become very similar to one another, thereby increasing the difficulty of deciphering blurred or otherwise damaged passages. As regards the size of the letters, the descriptions of the several records should be referred to. Speaking generally it may be said that in the early stage there is much variability, the height of the typical letters varying from about an inch to three-eighths of an inch as between one inscription and another. The medieval ones tend to a more generally uniform scale of about half an inch. These particulars refer, of course, to the generality of the letters, neglecting all such as by their special forms project above or below the general limits, and also excluding superscript and subscript symbols from consideration.
As regards the use of the letters, it may be noted that when a word has two medial consonants (without an intervening vowel) the matter can be treated in two ways: the first consonant receives a virâma and the second then follows on the line; or the second is written under the first, without any virâma. The two methods are used interchangeably, but the second is proferred. The letters r and n are sometimes superscript, the former very frequently, and are then to be read immediately before the letter over which they stand. Superscript letters and many of the subscript ones affect special modified forms. Initial vowels have their own proper forms, but may also be represented by the symbol for initial a with the appropriate auxiliary vowel symbol added to it. These several alternative methods are not differentiated in my transcription. Apart from such formal varieties as these (and a few others hereafter mentioned) and from certain interchanges of cognate vowels, early Mon spelling is relatively regular and appears to be a genuine attempt, in the main fairly successful, to write phonetically. Its transcription therefore offers few difficulties. Medieval spelling is less genuinely phonetic; it is partly more or less under the influence of the early spelling, partly and attempt to meet the phonetic changes that had taken place in the meantime. In fact it is on the way to the complexities of the modern system, and consequently the transcription is more remote from the phonetics in the medieval records than in the early ones. It is, of course, impossible to represent in a literal transcription the modifications which the various sounds have undergone in the course of the historic evolution of the language. An attempt will, however, be made hereafter to trace the outlines of these changes.
The system of transcription here adopted for Mon is as follws:--- Vowels and Diphthongs
a å â i î u û e ai o au
Consonants Velars: k kh g gh n· Palatals: c ch j jh ñ Cerebrals: t¸ t¸h d¸ d¸h n¸ Dentals: t th d dh nLabials: p ph b bh mUnclassed: y w r ls' s¸ s h l¸b¸ , m· h¸
Excepting the addition of some extra letters, this scheme differs only in one particular from the system of transliterating the Indian alphabet that has won the widest international consent. The letter w has been adopted instead of v, partly because it is the modern representative in Mon (as in almost all the languages of Indo-China) of the Indian v, and chiefly because it is used in early Mon to form diphthongs and must therefore have had the value of w in the position at any rate, as it most probably had in all others. In the Indian sentences that occur in the inscriptions (but not in Indian loanwords and proper names found in a Mon context) the letter v will be used, in conformity with Indian spelling. Theoretically, the vowel a is, as in other Indian alphabets, inherent in the consonants in general, unless negatived expressly (in one of the ways indicated in § 14). It therefore represents no separate symbol save when initial of a word or syllable. As a matter of fact the actual sound is not always a, and even in the early period it is probable that in syllables preceding the final one the inherent sound was really as short neutral vowel (something like the a in abide). The symbol å stands for a inherent a modified by the addition of the anusvâra symbol in a syllable closed by a velar. This begins to occur in the medieval records and the sound denoted is probably an open o, much like our English aw. The diphthongs ai and au also do not occur in the early stage of the language, though they are of course part of the Indian alphabet and are used in medieval and later Mon. In early Mon their place is taken (in the words where they subsequently occur) by various diphthongs formed with final y and w, respectively. The combination ui, not entered in the above scheme because symbolically merely made up of i and u, probably represented a neutral vowel (something like the one in our words bird, cur) and is very rare in early Mon, the vowel in question being therein usually represented by some other, almost at random and quite interchangeably (eg.,a,i,u,e,ei).
The cerebrals (except d¸ and occasionally n¸) and the letters s´ and l¸ are confined to words of Indian origin (s´ to Sanskrit, l¸ to Pâli words). The letter s¸ when subscript in Mon words merely represents s¸ a usage to be paralleled in Javanese, where conjunct s has a form derived from s¸. Modern Mon has dropped s and s¸ from its alphabet. The peculiar labial b¸ has been explained in § 12. The apostrophe (`) represent the symbol for initial a with the virâma over it and stands for the glottal check or abrupt ending of a vowel. This use is peculiar and un-Indian, but in early Burmese the same device was adopted to indicate the abrupt tone in words ending in a vowel. The letters m· and h¸ represent symbols (anusvâra and visarga, respectively) which the Mons put after the diphthongs, not among the consonants. They are properly speaking final sounds and of course involve no inherent vowel; but they are really consonants. In early Mon m· is merely shorthand for m (final of a word or syllable) and interchanges freely with it. In medieval Mon m· is sometimes superfluously followed by a final m, and has no force at all, apparently, in such cases. Later usage has adopted it as an abbreviation for (´) an even h, as well as for m. Its use as a vowel symbol has already been mentioned. In early Mon h¸ interchanges with h in certain words, and the latter is sometimes superfluously added to the former, as m to m· in the medieval stage. There seems to be no difference in their sounds as consonants, but in the later stages of the language they become definitely separated and affect the preceding vowel differently. It will be understood that these explanations are merely intended to make the system of transcription adopted intelligible, and that other phonetic details will be considered separately.
A hyphen is used, (1) at the end of a line if a word is not completed there, (2) to separate letters which would otherwise form one or other of the abovementioned digraphs (ai, au, ui, and the aspirated consonants), (3) between a consonant and a vowel to indicate that the consonant (with an unexpressed a or short neutral vowel)forms a syllable and the written vowel (which in the original is in its initial form or attached to an initial a as a fulcrum) begins the next syllable. This device is necessitated by the common habit of writing the second of such letters under the first as if there were no intervening short vowel. When the two letters do not fall into one of the above categories, the hyphen has not been inserted, but it will be understood that, e.g., in such a combibation as td¸- (initial) a short neutral vowel must be read after the t. Nor has the hyphen been used after m·, for by definition the m· must close the syllable that precedes and cannot commence the one that follows. The double hyphen is used to separate words which in the original are written in one. This is of decidedly rare occurrence in Mon inscriptions. Square brackets enclose letters or symbols which are more or less broken or illegible but capable of certain restoration. When there is any reasonable room for doubt, round brackets are used. The stops of the original have been reproduced. Dots indicate that something is missing which I have been unable to restore. As far as possible the number of missing or quite unidentifiable letters has been indicated by allotting one dot to each with another dot if there is believed to have been a vowel attached to it; or in the absence of any other indications, two dots for the space supposed to be occupied by each missing letter-group (akshara).
Beginnings of Mon Epigraphical Study The first attempt to decipher and interpret the early Mon inscriptions was made in 1909; when by the help of the Pâli and Burmese texts the Mon text of the quadrilingual inscription of the Myazedi pagoda of Pagan was published (T.R.A.S., 1909, PP. 1017-52). The reading was tentative in many respects and a comparison with some of the other early records caused it to be much amended subsequently (ibid., 1910, PP. 797-812, 1912, PP. 486, 487). It was, therefore, the Myazedi inscription, the only considerable early Mon record hitherto published, that laid the foundation of this course of research, by giving the clue to many of the phonetic and morphological factors that characterize the early stage of the language. This line of study has been continued since then in the intervals of other work, and the results here published represent the fruit of several years of intermittent labour on the materials put at my disposal, and supersede what I have already published on the subject.
The difficulties were manifold. The ink-impressions supplied to me were often imperfect representations of much weathered and battered originals, which of course I have never had an opportunity of seeing. I deduce the imperfections of the copies from their frequent diversities. The early stage of the language was quite unknown to everybody: even an intimate acquaintance with modern Mon, had I possessed it, would not have made it at once intelligible. The changes wrought by upwards of eight hundred years are often so radical that it is very difficult to recognize quite common words: e.g., one may be excused for not seeing at a glance that jiñjun· is the same as the modern dayuin· or that kandar is the old form of kalaw. When detected, such cases of correspondence had to be further confirmed and definitely established by discovering the laws of phonetic change which they exemplify. Unfortunately some of the old words do not recur in the medieval records and seem to have disappeared altogether from the modern language. A great many of them are not to found in the only existing vocabulary and have not been met with in such texts as I have been able to read. It will therefore be understood that in such cases, unless the meaning or reading was sufficiently determined by the context, or by a comparison of several contexts, a considerable element of uncertainty remains. It is only too probable that such cases are fairly numerous, but in a first attempt imperfections of that kind are inevitable. To do full justice to these records would require in the editor a number of qualifications that are seldom found united; amongst others, a thorough knowledge of Mon, Sanskrit and Pâli, much experience in Indian epigraphy, great familiarity with Buddhist thought and legend, an intimate acquaintance with the local conditions of various parts of Burma, much leisure and a good deal of patience. To these, except the last two, I can lay no claim. But in view of the growing interest taken tin the Mon language by scholars in Burma, I venture to hope that the defects of he present work will eventually be amended by their corrections, based on wider sources of information than have been available to myself.
Acknowledgments of Assistance In the meantime it would not be right to omit here the thanks which are due to the numerous friends, critics, and corresponds who have contributed to the production of the work. To Mrs. Bode, and Messrs. F. W. Thomas, L. Finot, and A. Cabaton, I am indebted for some assistance on individual points of reading or interpretation. Mr. Taw Sein Ko and Professor C. Duroiselle, both in their official capacity ad officers of the Archaeological Survey Department and individually, have been of priceless help. Without their aid and support, and that of the department which they represent in Burma, this work could not have been produced. To Mr. R. Sewell, Sir Alfred Irwin, and the late M. Auguste Barth I am much indebted for assistance towards the understanding of the chronological details contained in some of the records. In this connexion also the late Dr. J. F. Fleet’s criticisms even when I found myself unable to agree with them, have served to draw my attention to points that required further investigation or more precise treatment. But most of all, I am bound to single out for special mention the assistance of my friend Mr. Robert Halliday, whose unique mastery of the Mon language in its modern form, both written and spoken, has been of invaluable help at every stage of my work. To all these fellow-workers I tender my hearty thanks.







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