The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Mrohaung in Arakan

Abstract

Arakan stretches for some 350 miles along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal to the south of the Chittagong division of East Bengal. It is separated from Burma by a long, deep range of mountains, the Arakan Yoma, through which there are only two serviceable passes, the An connecting with Minbu on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, and the Taungup connecting with Prome. The Arakanese call themselves Rakhaing and their country Rakhaingpyi. According to Sir Arthur Phayre,¹ the word is a corruption of the Pali rakkhaso (Skt. rakshasa) meaning ‘ogre’ (Burmese bilu) or guardian of the mansion of Indra on Mount Meru. Sir Henry Yule² identifies the Argyre or Silverland of Ptolemy with Arakan. But Arakan produced no silver and the previously accepted views of Ptolemy’s data concerning the Indo-Chinese peninsula are now open to question.³