Dala Thuddhamaya Mwei Thin ( my, ဒလ သုဒ္ဓမာယာ မွေ့သင်, ; also spelled Tala Thuddhamaya (တလ သုဒ္ဓမာယာ)) was a junior queen consort of King
Razadarit
Razadarit ( mnw, ရာဇာဓိရာတ်,The spelling "ရာဇာဓိရာတ်" per '' Slapat Rajawan'' (Schmidt 1906: 118) and the 1485 Shwedagon Pagoda inscription (Pan Hla 2005: 368, footnote 1). Nai Pan Hla's ''Razadarit Ayedaw ...
of
Hanthawaddy
Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon.
Etymology
The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon langua ...
. She was also the mother of King
Binnya Ran I
Binnya Ran I ( mnw, ပထမ ဗညာရာံ; my, ပထမ ဗညားရံ, ; 1393–1446) was king of Hanthawaddy Pegu from 1424 to 1446. As crown prince, he ended the Forty Years' War with the rival Ava Kingdom in 1423. He came to the ...
and Queen Regnant
Shin Sawbu
Shin Sawbu ( my, ရှင်စောပု, ; mnw, မိစဴဗု; 1394–1471) was queen regnant of Hanthawaddy from 1454 to 1471. Queen Shin Sawbu is also known as Binnya Thau ( mnw, ဗညားထောဝ်; mnw, ဨကရာဇ် ...
.
Brief
According to the ''
Razadarit Ayedawbon
''Razadarit Ayedawbon'' ( my, ရာဇာဓိရာဇ် အရေးတော်ပုံ) is a Burmese chronicle covering the history of Ramanya from 1287 to 1421. The chronicle consists of accounts of court intrigues, rebellions, diplomati ...
'' chronicle, she was a commoner named
Mwei Thin from the Nagada village near
Dagon
Dagon ( he, דָּגוֹן, ''Dāgōn'') or Dagan ( sux, 2= dda-gan, ; phn, 𐤃𐤂𐤍, Dāgān) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many at ...
(modern Yangon).
[Pan Hla 2005: 158] In 1383, she became a wife of Prince Binnya Nwe, who was raising a rebellion against his ailing father King
Binnya U. On 2 January 1384, King Binnya U died. Two days later, the court accepted the rebel son Nwe as the successor. Nwe took the title of Razadarit. Mwei Thin became a junior queen with the title of Dala Thuddhamaya on 5 January 1384 at Razadarit's first coronation ceremony.
[The chronicle ''Razadarit Ayedawbon'' (Pan Hla 2005: 158) says she became queen on Tuesday, 1st waxing of Tabodwe 745 ME, which translates to ''Thursday,'' 24 December 1383. But 1st waxing is a typographical error. The editor and historian Pan Hla (Pan Hla 2005: 358, footnote 1) of the chronicle states that Razadarit became king on Monday, 12th waxing of Tabodwe 745 ME (Monday, 4 Jan 1384). It means she became queen on Tuesday, 13th waxing of Tabodwe 745 ME (5 Jan 1384).]
She bore him a son,
Binnya Ran I
Binnya Ran I ( mnw, ပထမ ဗညာရာံ; my, ပထမ ဗညားရံ, ; 1393–1446) was king of Hanthawaddy Pegu from 1424 to 1446. As crown prince, he ended the Forty Years' War with the rival Ava Kingdom in 1423. He came to the ...
(r. 1424–46), and a daughter,
Shin Sawbu
Shin Sawbu ( my, ရှင်စောပု, ; mnw, မိစဴဗု; 1394–1471) was queen regnant of Hanthawaddy from 1454 to 1471. Queen Shin Sawbu is also known as Binnya Thau ( mnw, ဗညားထောဝ်; mnw, ဨကရာဇ် ...
(r. 1454–71), both of whom became monarchs of Hanthawaddy.
[Pan Hla 2005: 382]
Lagun Ein episode
The queen reportedly was a dashing beauty. The chronicle ''Razadarit Ayedawbon'' reports that she was the reason why Commander
Lagun Ein
Maha Saw Lagun Ein ( my, မဟာစော လဂွန်းအိန်, ; also spelled Lagunein; d. March 1413) was a key frontline commander of the Hanthawaddy military from the 1380s to 1413. The commander led the military's vanguard land ...
failed to report for duty, right before he was to lead a naval campaign. It was in the dry season of 1389–1390, and Razadarit was in the
Irrawaddy Delta
The Irrawaddy Delta or Ayeyarwady Delta lies in the Irrawaddy Division, the lowest expanse of land in Myanmar that fans out from the limit of tidal influence at Myan Aung to the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, to the south at the mouth of the ...
with his army and navy to defeat the forces of Lord
Laukpya of
Myaungmya
Myaungmya ( my, မြောင်းမြမြို့ ) is a town in Myaungmya Township, Ayeyarwady Region, Myanmar.
The town is home to the Myanmar Union Adventist Seminary, a Seventh-day Adventist seminary and Myaungmya Education College ...
. Thuddhamaya had accompanied the king to the front. The story goes that the day before the planned naval campaign on
Bassein (Pathein), Razadarit sent Thuddhamaya to Lagun Ein's quarters to give his commander a special golden
lacquerware
Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. Lacquerware includes small or large containers, tableware, a variety of small objects carried by people, and larger objects such as furniture and even coffins painted with lacquer. Befor ...
box of
betel nut
The betel (''Piper betle'') is a vine of the family Piperaceae, which includes pepper and kava. The betel plant is native to Southeast Asia. It is an evergreen, dioecious perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins. Betel plant ...
s.
[Pan Hla 2005: 179] The next morning, Lagun Ein failed to show up for duty. When his two superiors,
Byat Za and
Dein Mani-Yut, went over to inquire, the straight-talking commander confessed that he saw a glimpse of the queen's bosoms through her loose garments when she came by his quarters yesterday, and that he had not been able to focus on anything else since.
[Pan Hla 2005: 180] His superiors warned that lusting after the king's wives was grounds for treason, but Lagun Ein was unmoved.
[Pan Hla 2005: 181]
The two ministers reluctantly reported the situation to the king. Razadarit ultimately decided that he needed Lagun Ein, and ordered Thuddhamaya to be sent over in a golden royal
litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups ...
.
[Pan Hla 2005: 183] A weeping Thuddhamaya begged the king to reconsider but he would not. By the time the litter arrived at Lagun Ein's quarters, the commander had sufficiently recovered his senses, and refused to take the queen.
[Pan Hla 2005: 183–184] He went on to lead the dangerous naval mission that required his flotilla to lure numerically superior Bassein war boats back to where Razadarit's forces had set up a trap. The mission was successful.
[Pan Hla 2005: 185][Fernquest Spring 2006: 8]
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thin, Mwei
Queens consort of Hanthawaddy
Hanthawaddy dynasty