The Sittan of Monè (Mäng Nai): Shan Principality and Nyaungyan Burma, 1633-1763

Abstract

Conventional historiography of Burma (Myanmar) has it that Bayinnaung’s laissez-faire policy towards the Shan States based on a tributary relationship continued to be maintained by succeeding Nyaungyan kings, and attempts at political integration of the Shan areas into the Burmese empire began in the early years of the subsequent Konbaung dynasty. However, an official Burmese document called sittan, submitted to the Konbaung court by the Shan principality of Monè (Mäng Nai) in 1763, reveals that it was actually early Nyaungyan monarchs who, while instituting broad and definitive changes in the provincial organization of the Burmese lowlands in the first half of the 17th century, introduced some administrative innovations to the Shan uplands, thereby transforming the Prince of Monè, locally known as the “Lord of Heaven,” into a mere subject of the Avan monarch.