Sunday, April 19, 2015

RECONSTRUCTION OF BURMA, THE GOLDEN LAND





        RECONSTRUCTION OF BURMA, THE GOLDEN LAND
                 
                            BY KALARMINTHAR SARAKA
 B.Eng. (Electrical Power), RIT University, SMIES, M-ASHRAE.


Chapter I
Sunday, December 22, 2013
MY NATIVE, BURMA THE GOLDEN LAND
Why do we need to know history and our ancestors? There will be many answers but I would like to borrow from D. R. Bhandarkar from his lecture on “Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture” as below:-
            But a great historian from one of these continents has truly said that “the greater part of the social and intellectual structure of a nation is bequeathed to it by former generations, that unconscious tradition is perhaps the most potent agent in historical life, that the margin of change is surprisingly small and progressive nations quite exceptional.”
D. R. Bhandarkar
The Map of the Golden Land (Burma or Bramah-desh or Bramah-desa or Bramah De-tha)
(Map: Courtesy of Wikipedia)

 


The Ancient Tribes of Burma
The ancient tribes of Burma according to the Mrasayti (Mya-say-tee);the Rosetta Stone at Pagan ;inscriptions of the Indian prince Raj Kumara (Raja Kumar), the son of King Kyansittha (Sri Buvanaditya Dhamma-Raja) and  the Queen Thanbula (Tri-lawka-Vusundaradevi), the niece of the Indian monk Mahtee.
1)                  Pyu or Pru or Tircul or Tritsu
2)                  Mon
3)                  Myanmar or Maramma
4)                  Sak (Thet) or Sakyan or Indo-Scythians
The Pyu
The so called Pyu or Pru are believe to be Tircul or Tarvasu, a tribe who participated in the Battle of Ten Kings (Dasrajana) on the bank of river Iravati or river Ravi or Purushni in the region of Sindhu (Indus) Punjab, modern Pakistan.
Macdonell and Keith write that “the name [Parushni] is certainly that of the river later called Ravi (Iravati)”
In fact the Pyu or Pru or Puru or Tircul (Tritsu) are one of the tribes of the Sindu valley or Hindu Civilization..
If we dig deeper ,then King Yayati divided up his kingdom into five quarters (VP IV.10.1708). To Turvasha he gave the southeast (Bay of Bengal); to Druhya the west Gandhara; to Yadu the south (By Arabian sea); to Anu the north Punjab; and to Puru the center (Sarswati region) as the supreme king of Earth.(ref…)
They are the first wave of the people came in to the place which is called modern Burma, later.
They named the rivers in the country as Iravati (Irrawaddy or Ayerwadi it is presently known) and Sarsvati (Thalawadi or Chindwin as it is called now). These the old names of the rivers which flowed in northern,Punjab, Sindhu and modern Pakistan. As these people came from the place where they had these rivers, again they gave these names to the new rivers they found in their new habitats, modern Burma. These settlers may include the Tritsu or Tircul and Puru or Pru or Pyu and among others.

Dougald J. W. O’Reilly mentioned, ‘”pagan, with the hundreds of crumbling bricks stupasscatter over the landscape, among the most famous cultural sites of Southeast Asia. Less well known are the Great Cities of Pyu, or Tircul as they likely called themselves. (Reference: “Early Civilizations of Southeast Asia By Dougald  J. W. O'Reilly”). The cities mentioned here are certainly Vishnu and Sri keshtra of ancient  Pyu or Pru  Kingdoms of modern Burma.
The name of Irrawaddy certainly came from the ancient Indian people called Tritsu of the Sindu Valley (Modern Puanjab) and the original name was Iravati or Purushani or Parushani.
{Author’s special note to Maung Sein Win –Pa-dee-gone, Joo and Or-pee-kyel, please explore more in Burma for educational and national purposes.}
 It is also verified by Donald Alexander Mackenzie in his famous Book “Indian Myth and Legend” as below.
The Bharatas, and their priestly aristocracy of Tritsus,(probably Taw Seng Ko referred  them as  Tirtcul) the Vasisthas, appear to have joined the Kuru-Panchala confederacy about the time that the Brahmanas were being composed, and these were probably influenced by the ritualistic practices of the Vaisishthas.  There are references of Agni of the Bharatas, and a goddess Bharati is mentioned in connection with the Saraswati river.
It is probable that as the Turavasha or Tritsus or Tircul joined Kuru-Panchala alliance and fought the Puru and lost the battle they retired away from the Punjab, Sindhu. Then they found the place habitable for their living as there are clean water (the new rivers Iravati and Sarsvati) around Bamo, Mong-ywar and Shwebo in modern Burma.
Mackenzie also mentioned as “It appears highly probable that the Bharatas and the Kuru-Panchalas represent late invasions of peoples who displaced the earlier Aryan settlers in Hindustan. Among the enemies of the invaders were the Kasis, a tribe which became associated with Benares.”
The Kasis are the people living in Assam and Manipur (Benares) in north-western part of modern Burma and in times in the past the two provinces are vassel of Burman Emparer such as Anurudder, Kyansittha, Baringnaung and Alongpaya U Aung Jaya (Zay-ya).
Also refer DR Bhandarkar as follow
Suda, he was of course the hero of the dasa-rajna or ‘battle of Ten Kings’ fought on the Parushni, where there were Arya and Dasa allies on both the sides. But he was also the grandson of Divodasa Atithigva.  And Hillebrandt seems to be right in interpreting the name as the ‘heavenly Dasa’ and conjecturing that he was himself a Dasa.  In Rig-Veda VI. 61.1 & ff., Divodasa is said to have fought against the Panis, Paravatas and Brishaya, and we have already pointed out with what tribes of Arachosia Hillebrandt identifies them.   Nay, the Sarasvati where the battle was fought is also identified by him with the Haraqaiti of Arachosia.   But in the time of his grandson Sudas, we have also seen, the Dasa-rajna battle came off on the Parushni or Ravi (or Iravati)  in the Panjab.  It appears that the kingdom  of the Tritsu family of the Bharata tribe to which these kings pertained extended from Arachosia to the Panjab  as was the case in later times with the Achaemenian family to which Darius the Great belonged. 
Refer the following map; Courtesy of A. V. Sankaran.
 
{Author’s note: After the scienctific  analysis of the dried up of river Sarsvati (or Saraswati) the cause of it was found as geotechnical activities rather than human influences such as the battle of Ten kings. But it is not the scope of this work.}
Probably they, Puru, Pru or Pyu or Tavasha or Tircul are Kushans or Kushanas who are new comer to the region modern Pakistan later  establish the city Purusha of Kushan kingdom or Kushan Dynastry.
Refer Dougald O’reilli, “According to Tsin dynasty (265 – 420 CE) Chinese text Tircul were akready establish at Pyay (Prome) modern day lower Burma”