Manuha ( my, မနူဟာ; mnw, မကုတရာဇာ; Old Mon ), or Makuta, was the last king of Thaton Kingdom. Manuha ruled Thaton from 1030s until 1057 when he was defeated by King

Anawrahta Anawrahta Minsaw ( my, အနော်ရထာ မင်းစော, ; 11 May 1014 – 11 April 1077) was the founder of the Pagan Empire. Considered the father of the Burmese nation, Anawrahta turned a small principality in the dry zone ...

Pagan Kingdom The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...

. According to the Mon tradition, Manuha was the 59th in the line of kings who supposedly founded Thaton during the time of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in ...

in the 6th century BCE. Traditional Burmese and Mon reconstructions also hold that Anawrahta, a recent convert to

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

, asked for the Theravada Buddhist canon from Manuha. The Mon king reputedly rejected Anawrahta's request, saying that the uncultured Burmans of the north were not worthy of the religion. This refusal was used by Anawrahta as pretense to invade and conquer the Mon kingdom.Htin Aung 1967: 32–33 Despite this account, it is more likely Anawrahta conquered Thaton in order to check the westward advance of Khmer Empire in the Tenasserim coast. Still according to traditional belief, Manuha and his family along with some 30,000 monks and artisans, were brought back to Pagan (Bagan). Between 1050 and about 1085, Mon craftsmen and artisans helped to build some two thousand monuments at Pagan, the remains of which today rival the splendors of

Angkor Wat Angkor Wat (; km, អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring . Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the g ...

.South 2003: 67 However, recent research—still a minority view—argues that Mon influence on the interior after Anawrahta's conquest is a greatly exaggerated post-Pagan legend, and that Lower Burma in fact lacked a substantial independent polity prior to Pagan's expansion.Lieberman 2003: 91 Historian

Michael Aung-Thwin Michael Aung-Thwin (1946 – August 14, 2021) was a Burmese American historian and emeritus professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specializing in early Southeast Asian and Burmese history. Early life and education Aung-Thwin wa ...

(Aung-Thwin 2005) argues that the existence of Thaton is not supported by contemporary evidence.Aung-Thwin 2005 Manuha asked and was allowed to build the

Manuha Temple Manuha Temple ( my, မနူဟာဘုရား) is a Buddhist temple built in Myinkaba (located near Bagan), by captive Mon Mon, MON or Mon. may refer to: Places * Mon State, a subdivision of Myanmar * Mon, India, a town in Nagaland * Mon ...

in Pagan in 1059. Inside the temple three giant Buddha statues—two sitting, and one reclining—seem too large for their enclosures, and their cramped, uncomfortable positions are said to represent the stress and lack of comfort the 'captive king' had to endure.

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* * * * * {{Burmese monarchs Burmese monarchs Thaton dynasty Burmese people of Mon descent