The Indian Origin of the Talaing or Mon in Burma

The Indian Origin of the Mon people of Burma, Cambodia, etc.

(1) http://www.indology.net/article28.html The Origin of the Mon People Submitted by E. Mazard The Mon people of South East Asia are believed to have originated in India, having been pressed eastward by invaders. This theory originated with the missionary Francis Mason, D.D., whose account of the discovery we reproduce here from his autobiography of 1870. Please note that he uses the term "Talaing" throughout, a Burmese term which Mons do not use to refer to themselves, and consider insulting. "Mixed up with the Burmans, I found there was another tribe, the Talaings, who in their dress, habits, and general appearance, could not be distinguished from the Burmans. On close examination, however, they are found, as a people, to be a shade darker, and to have less of the Tartar in their countenances, and to have a widely different language." "...[A]s no white man had at that time every studied the Talaing language, or could tell the least thing about it, I determined to study it myself, enough to understand its grammatical principles, and be able to compare its vocabulary with other languages; so I hired an intelligent Talaing scholar, who understood Burmese, at one of those villages, and bringing him to town, I studied Talaing with him till I obtained a good general idea of the language, and took down from him a small vocabulary of the most common words in use. "Subsequently, as my knowledge of the [other] languages [of the region] increased, I compared the Talaing with the languages of all the nations around, and found that it differed widely from them all. In the end, the investigation was most thorough, and it became manifest that Talaing stands isolated among all the languages east of the Ganges. The roots of its words are radically different. I compared them with the vocabularies of the Burmese, the various dialects of the Karen, the Kemee, the Singpu, and the Chinese, and they were indisputably different from them all. I next pushed my inquiries westward, and found that Tailang was not cognate with the languages of Northern India derived from Sanskrit and Hindee, nor with the cultivated tongues of Southern India and Ceylon, [such as] the Teluga, Tamil, Canarese, Malayalam, and Singalese. "There are, however, in Hindustan many wild tribes, like the Karens, who have no written language. They are supposed to be the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. These wild tribes go by several names, like the Karens, but like different Karen tribes, too, they are all of common origin, apparently the fragments of a single nation. The principal tribe among them is the Koles, a people among whom the German missionaries have had as much success as the American missionaries have had among the Karens. "I finally turned to the published vocabularies of these wild tribes, and was surprised to find that the Talaing language appeared to be of common origin with the languages of these wild mountaineers. This was a very interesting discovery, and I wrote an article on the sibject, which was printed in the fourth volume of the American Oriental Society. Nothing has occurred since to invalidate the results there reached, nor has any one proposed any other theory of their origins." "... When the aboriginal inhabitants of Hindustan were driven eastward by their conqerors, while many took to the mountains, it seems quite probable that others would take to the sea, and flee to the other side of the Bay of Bengal, where the Talaings are now found. The Hindu origin of the tribe is confirmed by the darker skin, for they are the blackest people of Burmah, and by their more Indo-European cast of countenance." Mason then theorizes that the place-name "Maulmain" is derived from the legend of Vishnu, as it means (in Mon) "One eye destroyed". A few other place-names are similarly discussed. We resume our quotation: "The connection of the Talaings with the Hindus is further seen from the ancient Pali or Sanskrit inscriptions that have been found in Malacca, not two hundred miles south of the Tenesserim provinces. I have shown that the character in which these inscriptions are written is the parent of the present Talaing alphabet on the one hand, and that it is derived from an old Hindu alphabet on the other, and had nothing to do with Ceylon, as has been ususally supposed. This is made clear by four lithographed plates accompanying my paper in the Journal of the American Oriental Society." On the next page of the same Chapter, after praising the Mon traditions of architecture and the decorative arts, Mason blandly comments that: "There was a small pagoda temple built in [the Talaing] style at Toungoo, when we first arrived, at at one end of the nave, where the altar would stand in a Christian church, there was a large alabaster or white marble image of Gaudama, with one of its hands broken off by some Goth of an English solider. This image we took with us to America, and left it at Hartford, Connecticut." Interesting that this American missionary would reproach the solider who damaged the statue as "a Goth", but sees no fault in himself for plundering it outright!

(2) http://www.kholun.net/2008/05/story-of-don-yang-kweh-ka-baw.html

he Pwo and the Sgaw tribes made their exodus from China and came down along the route of the Ghoh Loh river (Salween) valley and in sequence of stages moved upon and settled down on the eastern banks of the Ghoh Loh river, the place that is known today as Don Yang Kweh Ka Baw. This domain had once been a rallying center for various Karen tribes and clans. It was a big Karen city that was surrounded by five twons. Those surrounding towns were, 1. Kweh town, 2. Tah Kwee Town, 3. Leh Bweh town, 4. Ker Seh town and 5. the Thaw Koh Bwa Po town. (This town no longer exists today.) Many Karen kings ruled their line of dynasties that made these cities flourishing and famous.

There was once a time when the Indians and their half-caste offspring that called themselves as the Talaings had a king called Tee Tha of Thaton city who advised them to rebel against the Karen king. Consequently, the Talaings rose against the Karen king. The Karen king was caught unawares. This event resulted to a conquest by the Talaings, which caused Karens to flee and to disperse into the Shan state and Siam. Those Karen refugees were thus scattered far and wide in other lands such as the land of the Shan people and the kingdom of Siam. In their profound grief, they composed the following hta verses to express their deep yearning for their native city and land: -

http://web.soas.ac.uk/burma/SBBR4.2/4.2miscdocuments.pdf

Miscellaneous Notes on the Word “Talaing”

The following three notes relating to the origin of the Burmese word “Talaing” were published shortly before

World War I. It is hoped that they may be of some use to ongoing debates on “Mon” history.

M.W.C.

_________________

Origin of the Word “Talaing” (1912)79

M. O.

Phayre, in his History of Burma, page 28, says that the name “Talaing” is obviously connected with the word Telingana,

and accepts the theory that the Mun (or Mon) were originally settlers from southern India. There is a great

deal to be said in favour of this view, but many have been inclined to place faith in the story that the epithet “Talaing”

(said to mean “downtrodden”) was applied to the Peguans by Alompra after his conquest in 1757. That the

latter suggestion is utterly incorrect may easily be proved; we have only to turn to several well-known Burmese

works of much earlier date to see that the term as designating the people of the delta was known and used long

before Alompra.

The Yakhaing Minthami Egyin, written about 820 B. E. (1458), the Thakin Twe Egyin, composed in honour of a

princess born in 830 (1468), and the Mindaya Shwehti Nadaw-thwin, an ode submitted to Tabin Shwehti, who reigned

from 1530 to 1550,—all give the name “Talaing,” rhyming with other words having the same vowel-ending.

Among other works there are also Maung Kala’s histories, the Yazawingyi, the Yazawin-lat, and the

Yazawin-gyok, all written about 30 years before Alompra appeared, and in all of which the same name is found.

The Alaung-mindaya-gyi Ayedawbon, a detailed account of the great King’s exploits, does not mention the

alleged re-naming of the Mons.

JBRS 2 (1912)

Note on the Word “Talaing” (1912)80

Charles Duroiselle

The etymology on the word “Talaing” has given rise to much controversy.81 The derivation offered by Forchhammer,

82 followed later on by J. Gray, is absolutely inadmissable, not only because it is fundamentally wrong, not to

say absurd, but principally because it makes the word “Talaing” originate with Alompra in the 18th century. Now,

as M. O. rightly points out, the name was known to the Burmese before Alompra, and this alone would be sufficient

to refute Forchhammer’s view; but this word was also known to the Chinese early in the 17th century.83 Kou

Tsou-Yu, in his Tou che fang yu ki yao, speaks of the great Kou-la84 called also Pai-kou, that is Pegu, to the north of

which are the people of Tong-wou (Taungu) and to the south-east the people known as Tö-leng; these latter, we are

told, are a division of the Kou-las (that is Peguans=Talaings) and in 1610 A.D. they sided with the Siamese in an

attack on the Burmese. It remains to see whether Tö-leng was the indigenous tribal name, pronounced by the Bur-

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79 Original source: Journal of the Burma Research Society. M.W.C.

80 Original source: Journal of the Burma Research Society. M.W.C.

81 Cf. Hobson-Jobson, 889-90.

82 Notes on the Early History and Geography of British Burma, Part ii, p. 11-12, Government Press, Rangoon, 1884.

83 See Bulletin de l’École Français d’Extrême-Orient, Vol. IV, 1904, 292 and note 5.

84 On Kou-la cf. also Parker’s Burma, its Relations with China, 65f. He writes: Kulah and Kulat.

mese Talaing, or whether it was a Chinese pronunciation of “Talaing” itself; I incline to the latter assumption, and

in this case the word Talaing was known to the Burmese at least before the beginning of the 17th century. The derivation

of Phayre,85 which makes it come from Telinga=Kalinga, is no doubt the right one.

A Further Note on the Word Talaing (1913)86

Maung Mya

At page 246, Vol. II, Part II, of the Journal of this Society [Journal of the Burma Research Society], Mr. Charles Duroiselle

in his note on the word Talaing, referring to an inscription dated B. E. 469 = A. D. 1107, says that that word has

been in use long before it was thought to be, and thinks that it was probably in use among the Burmese in the time

of King Anawrata in the llth century A. D. In support of the above I am glad to be able to give below another inscription,

87 dated B. E. 444=A, D. 1082, wherein the same word “Talaing” occurs, thus taking us back a few decades

further and bringing us within a few years from the end of the reign of King Anawrata (A .D, 1044-1077).88

Translation

(1) (The year) in which the King Saw Lu built (this pagoda) is Sakkaraj 444,89 and the land which the King dedicated

to the pagoda

(2) is comprised of 70 (plots of) land at Sagyet, 30, at Chet, within the district of ....................

(3) totalling 100, and of one large plot, and one small plot, of paddy land in Tanlaing-in

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85 History of Pegu in J. R. A. Society of Bengal Vol. XLII, Part I.

86 Original source: Journal of the Burma Research Society. M.W.C.

87 The inscription was found among those collected by King Bodawpaya, and placed originally near the Sin-gyo Shwe-ku Pagoda, but now

removed to the Patodawgyi Pagoda, Amarapura. The whole collection has now been transcribed into modern Burmese characters and

printed. It is expected that the volume will issue from the Press in a few month’s time.

88 This date was taken from the “Jātā-bôn Yazawin” which is considered to be more trustworthy than the Hman-nan (see para 44 at page 16 of

Mr. Taw Sein Ko’s report [i]n the Archaeological Survey of Burma for the year ending 31st March, 1911.

89 This date falls outside of that assigned by the Hmannan to the reign of King Saw Lu. According to it King Saw Lu reigned from B. E. 421-

426 (A. D. 1059-1064). But if we accept the date given in the “Jātā-bon-Yāzawin”, B. E. 439-446 (A. D. 1077-1084), the date in the inscription

fits in very well, and the construction of the pagoda took place two years before the death of King Saw Lu.

(4) of Mayingwè paddy land at Anauk-in-ngè, of one pè at Nyaung-she-gwè, at Tanlaing-in

(5) of 2 pès of land that has to be watered, and of one and a half pès of Mayin at Min-dè-in, (The land) dedicated by

Sithu Min Hla (to this pagoda) is, below Lôn Wun Kan (lake) of Mingyi Yon,

(6) 10 (plots of) paddy land. The land dedicated by Sithu Min Hla to the great monastery is 55 (plots of land) for

cultivating betel, totalling

(7) 510 Above..............is Khādibauk, and below are Kyauksauk and Myinmu. (The land) dedicated by (the monk)

Thingahti is

(8) below and above Tahnaung Kan (lake), 10, On the South................

_______

The word Talaing, occurs in lines 3 and 4 and is spelt Tanlaing, in the same way as in Mr. C. Duroiselle’s. inscription.

It is used here as an appellation or name of a certain lake, perhaps in commemoration of a certain event connected

with the Talaings. This fact. would probably take us right into the reign of King Anawrata, if perhaps not

earlier, for the event after which a certain place is called will occur some years before the name becomes popular.

The inscription records the dedication of land to a pagoda and a monastery by Kings Saw Lu and Sithu

Minhla90 and a Monk; therefore it is not contemporaneous with King Saw Lu. But there is no reason to doubt that

the name Tanlaing In has been kept intact without any attempt to obliterate the original that existed in the time of

King Saw Lu.

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90 There were two Kings with their names ending in Sithu: Alaungsithu, B. E. 473-529 (A. D, 1111-1167) and Narapatisithu, B. E. 535-572 (A. D.

1173-1210). It is not certain to which of them the name in the inscription refers, most probably Alaungsithu is meant.

The inscription was put up probably in the time of Alaungsithu, i.e., about 50 years after the reign of Saw Lu. This is borne out by

the archaic character of some of the words; for example, n\oZ (line 1) for `soZ (a pagoda), ImdpiX (line 2) for Imdp^X (District), oiXgdp^X (lines 3 and

4) for ogdp^X (Talaing), kÑ (lines 4 and 5) for ksX (pè=about 2 acres).