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Burma’s Rohingya Origin in the Ancient Kingdom of Arakan and Arakan From Kingdom to a Colony
By Dr. Abid Bahar, Ph.D. Teaches in Canada.
Abstract (Several issues has come to the surface from the present research on DHANNAWADI and VASALI period of ancient Arakan )
(1) That DHANNAWADI and VASALI were Indian dynasties with Hindu and Mohayana Buddhist religious followers.
(2) During the Chandra rule there had been some Arab settlements in Arakan. The language of the Chandras was proto-Chittagonian: Sanskrit, Pali, and Arabic mixed similar to what Buchanon Hamilton found in 1799 with Rohingyas in Burma, also that a similar language was spoken by the Chakmas and Thanchangras of Arakan and Bangladesh, its written form similar to Bengali found in the Ananda Chandra script.
(3) Beginning from 957 A.D. there had been a huge migration of Tibeto-Burman Theraveda Buddhist population into the plains of Arakan, by defeating the Chandras they took possession of Arakan and the Indian look alike people retreated either toward the Northern part of Arakan or went back to Bengal, making the event its first Indian exodus of Arakaniese people to Bengal.
(4) In our contemporary period there has been a conscious effort among Arakan’s Rakhine crudader like historians to deny and cleanse from history, not only the traces of Indian Hindu or Mohayana civilization but also the traces of Muslim population and their Arab-Chandra synthesis of the Chandras predating the Tibeto-Burman Theraveda Buddhist existence.
The Rohingyas people of Arakan are mostly Muslims with a small Hindu population among them. They are racially Indo- Semitic. They are not an ethnic group developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock. Tides of people like the the Brahmins from India, Arabs, Moghuls, Bengalis, Turks and people from Central Asia, came mostly as traders, worriors and prechers overland or through the sea route to Arakan. Many settled in Arakan, during the Indian Chandra period, mixing with the local people formed the first neclus of the Rohingya people in Arakan. Historically speaking, in their common suffering in Burma, they found an identity now known to the world as the Rohingyas of Arakan. Part one of this series of articles on Rohingya history is about the first Arab Chandra synthesis; covering from 3rd century CE. to 1406 A.D in chronological order.
3rd Century (CE): “By the 3rd century (CE), the coastal region of Kala Mukh (Arakan) had been settled with the colonists dominating and coexisting warily with the indigenous people. In the sites of major habitation Sanskrit became the written language of the ruling class, and the religious beliefs were those prevalent at that time in south-Asia (or Indian sub-continent).”
4th to 10th century. DHANNAWADI and VASALI (Brahminical and Mohayana Buddhist civilizations) “ As a port city, Vaishali was in contact with Samatat (the planes of lower Bangladesh) and other parts of India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Historically, these early rulers came to be known as the Chandras and controlled the territories as far north as Chittagong.”
“The Anand Chandra Inscription, which contains 65 verses (71 and a half lines) and now sited at the Shitthaung pagoda, provides some information about these early rulers. Interestingly, neither the name of the kingdom or the two premier cities – Dhanyavati and Vaishali – is mentioned. This 11-foot high monolith, unique in entire Burma, has three of its four faces inscribed in a Nagari script, which is closely allied to those of Bengali and north-eastern India. As noted rightly by Noel Singer had it not been for Professor E.H. Johnston of Balliol College, Oxford, who translated the Sanskrit script and the Indian epigraphists before him, the contents of the Inscription which remained inaccessible for well over a thousand years would never have been known.
Arakan From Kingdom to a Colony — On December 31st 2011, Arakanese Diaspora marked its 227th anniversary of the fall of the famous Arakanese medieval kingdom. Arakan’s powerful kingdom was established by King Naromikhla. Arakanese nationals didn’t forget that in 1784 Burmese king Budapaya sent a large army led by his son who mercilessly razed the city to ground and took away the Arakanes symbol of pride – the Mohamini to the Burmese heartland. It was a genocide pure and simple; it was also the end of a kingdom which was known far across the land upto Europe. It was a kingdom that was built by artisans that Noromikhla brought from Gour of Bengal. It was a liberal, civilized kingdom and its citizens prided themselves to be called as the citizens of the great Mrohaung city. The ruling people were known as the Moghs now Rakhine Mogh and others were called as the Kula (Hindus and Muslims) now Rohingya.
In our time, the splandor of Arakan, its people, glorious architects and foreign visitors were all gone, what is left is only its ruines and memories. Arakan continued to have its kingdom for centuries but the end was sudden. It first lost its colonies to the Moghuls then its heartland to the Burmese. The end came as if like a landslide. Till today Rakhine Moghs and Muslims ponder and eager to know why? What went wrong? Some blame that it was it’s lack of unity.
The beginning of the end came when Arakanese king assured the Governor of Bengal Shah Suja to come to take asylum in Arakan but on his arrival seeing his immense wealth, and his young daughters he wanted to possess them. When Suja refused, the entire family and the associates were mercilessly killed using axe. The Arakanese queen mother previously warned the king that this act might invite disaster on the kingdom. The king didn’t comply. The queen mother was a devout Buddhist and a historian who also knew that when the founder of the kingdom (Naromikhla) needed a shelter, it was Bengal where he was given a safe heaven. Not only that Bengali king helped Naromikhla to recover his kingdom twice, first by sending General Wali Khan then by General Sindhi Khan. She thought killing Shah Suja was a bad example set by the king.
The king also earned his fame for collecting revenue by piracy on lower Bengal with help from the Portuguage pirates. Moghul Emperor Aurangozev wanted to bring an end to these illegal activities by the king. His forces driven the Mogh pirates out from lower Bengal.
The pirates came back home with their marauding hooligan culture. Instead of a Buddhist faith in nonviolence, anarchy and lawlessness and killing were brought into its core cultural belief system. They found their scapegoat in the Muslim population. The Arakanes Moghs finding the end of piracy now engaged themselves in harming its non-Buddhist citizens. Thus, began the Rohingya Muslim tragedy in Arakan. Alaol, the Arakanese Muslim poet had to escape Arakan to settle in Chittagong during this period.
