Arakanese Studies: challenges and contested issues mapping a

field of historical and cultural research

By Jacques P. Leider'

Head of the Centre of the Eoole fraganisen d' Extreme-Orient in Yangon,Myanmar

Abstract
It is a common place to state that Arakan's history and culture cannot be studied without
referring to the history of both Bengal (India/Bangladesh) and Burma (Myanmar), its
South Asian and Southeast Asian background. But this is easier to say than to do and
Arakanese studies have not only remained a fractured and little studied but also a
divided field of studies. Superficially, these divisions run along ethnic-religious lines :
over the last century, an exclusively Buddhist-centred reconstruction of the past has
rivalled with accounts focusing on the Islamic identity of the country' s Muslim minority.
For historians things are a bit more complex but these utterly simplistic divisions
unhappily format the discourse on contemporary issues such as the Rohingya
movement, the difficult cohabitation of communities in Arakan itself and the relations
between the succeding Bunnese governmentsand the people living in Arakan in the
post-colonial era. It is well known that anything said on Arakan's history and culture is or
fast becomes a hotly contested issue with an immediate political relevance.
My paper will be an attempt to map the field of Arakanese studies from an academic
point of view. I will also argue that it is time to move beyond out-dated accounts and
particularly the”engaged”, culturally exclusive writing of history towards a more mature,
academic-minded approach. The aims of such an approach are clear: construct a
common ground among those who share an interest in Arakan's past and culture,
setting apart political agendas from the level field of academic discussion, collecting and
editing sources, sharing information, defining an agenda of cultural and historical
research issues.
==================================================================
After twenty years of academic work on Arakan's history, it is a pleasure to address an
audience that embraces more than a curiosity for the region. First of all we should be
grateful to the organisers of this event and thank them for giving the floor to a rmmber of
scholars whose individual efforts have made sure that Arakan has not been completely
forgotten. True, due to its isolation after the Secbnd World War, Arakan had remained
until recently an area of marginal interest. Free access to the historical capital of Mrauk
U was officially given in 1994. A growing number of publications over the last years and
the opening up of the region to tourists and travellers have fortunately turned Arakan or
Rakhaing into a less forgotten spot than it used to be.
From the point of view of academic research, we still do stand only at the beginning.
What studies there are, appear as pioneering studies essentially laying the ground-work
for future research. While each scholar has in his mind a number of important questions
that pertain to his domain of specialty, taking stock, providing some general reflections
on the field and outlining some of the challenges of Arakanese research at a forum like
this one may prove to be useful.
When travelling you need a map, when building a house you need a master-plan, when
doing research, you need a methodology and a clear idea of what you want to
investigate. There is no general consensus now on what priorities there are in
Arakanese studies. There has been no discussion on any kind of research agenda as
there has been no established network yet. Indeed, Arakanese cultural studies have
never been defined as an autonomous field of research. Having been involved in
research on Arakan's history for a rather long time, I feel that this lack of focus hampers
our approach of Arakan as a society on the fiontier between South Asia and Southeast
Asia with its particularities and an identity of its own. Bat as long as we keep on looking
at Arakan merely as a marginal land, we will interpret its history - as it has mostly been
done – only as an extension of Burmese or Bengal history.

I will try in this paper to treat Arakanese studies as a field of cultural and historical
research in its own right. Nobody will hold the naive view that you can narrowly define a
field of research in purely geographic terms, using the term "Arakan" in its contemporary
administrative borders only or referring to a single ethnic group. Itwould also be naive,
say even useless, to define Arakanese studies merely as a kind of local or regional
studies. The interest of focusing on Arakan's distant past is to discbver and understand
the region's connectedness with its neighbours, not to isolate historical and cultural
phenomena per se.
I will argue that if Arakanese studies have to teach us anything, it is how real fontiers
are, but also how fIuid they are.
My second aim in this paper is to suggest the possibility of Arakanese studies as a field
where people with diverse backgrounds and from various corners of academic
scholarship could actively contribute towards the increase of our knowledge on an area
that despite its modest role in history, gives proof of a cultural complexity that is
suspected rather than well known. I say this because I am strongly aware of the fact
that scholars who are very familiar with Bengal have until now not really 'tried to get an
intimate knowledge of Arakan and vice-versa.
This paper is also meant as a call for creating an academic network on Arakanese
studies. We need interdisciplinary approaches. Why we need them and how much we
need these I would like to highlight in the first section of my paper.

1. Arakanese historical and cultural studies: A divided field of academic ilttevest

astd research
I think that we would all agree on characterizing Arakanese historical and cultural
studies as an amazingly divided field. It has been - and it is - geographically divided,
culturally divided, politically divided and academically divided. Moreover it has not only
been a divided field for academic research, but also a field of divided research. The
reasons for some of this are not difficult to enumerate.
For many of us who discovered an interest in Arakan, their starting point was in
Burmese studies, often history, art and archaeology. They discovered an area that had
been left aside by the main stream of Burma historians who were absorbed by their
interest for early Pagan or the rise and decline of Mon and Burmese kingdoms. Given
the numerous connections and relations between Arakan and Burma proper, we have
naturally perceived Arakan as a part, a sub-field, a variant of Burmese culture and
civilization. One should note that this was never the way that people in Arakan have
read their own past. For scholars, Arakan's connection with India was to be viewed
through the fiamework of "Indianization", a process of cultural interaction that saw Hindu
concepts, Buddhist practice and Indian art adapted, reformulated and transformed in
Southeast Asia's cultural contacts.
But since the colonial period already, a tiny tlumber of Muslim writers had emphasised
the strong cultural connection of Arakan with Bengal during the early modern period. It
is true that they emphasised this connection sometimes to the point of portraying the
whole of Arakan as an Islamicized polity, treating the advent of Islam before Buddhism.
This approach stretched the evidence beyond recognition, but it brought a useful
corrective to the perspective of the Araikanese chronicles on which the British colonial
historians such as Phayre and Harvey had built their own narrow-minded paraphrase of
indigenous historiography. Today we fully acknowledge that since the fifteenth century,
Arakan copied the coins used in Bengal, in the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
Persian was used as a medium of diplomatic exchange in Arakan and poets writing in
sophisticated Bengali lived at the court of Arakan in the middle of the seventeenth
century. In a well-known paper published for the first time in the Journal of the Burma
Research Society in 1925, Maurice Collis, the British colonial judge and prolific writer,
left a strongly value-added interpretation of Arakan's history when he stated that as long
as Arakan was looking west towards India and came under Indian influence, it was
developing, progressive and modern. Once it came under Eastern Burmese influence, it
was bound to decline. I will not start to further examine this colonialist iriterpretation that
I disapprove. Collis made nonetheless an important point: Arakan had not been in
former times an isolated, marginal spot. It had always been included in the transitional
space of intra-Asian East-West as well as North-South cultural exchanges.
More recently, the most important contribution to our knowledge of Arakan has come
from scholars working on the Mughal Empire and on the Portuguese and Dutch
presence in the Bay of Bengal and belonging to a field conveniently called Indo-
Portuguese studies or Bay of Bengal studies. This was the case for people like Michael
W. Cbarney, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Stephan van Galen, Ana Marques Guedes1 who
have all made important contributions during the last fifteen years. Their studies have
thrown much light on the economic life of the Mrauk U kingdom, the importance of the
slave and rice trade, and the importance of Muslim and Portuguese mercenaries in
Arakan. They have shown in particular that when we talk about the presence of Muslims
in Arakan and the existence of an early Muslim community, we should not only recall a
few poets and ministers at the court of Rakhine, but as well the massive deportations
and settlements of Bengalis in Arakan before 1785. Muslim mercenaries, poets, traders
and officials were few in number when compared to the thousands of slaves established
along the Kaladan and Lemro rivers.
On the other hand, it is a fact that Arakan cannot be studied and cannot be understood
without reference to the history of the Pyu, Mon and Burmsse kingdoms. Whatever
genetic studies still will have to tell us, for the time being, we think of the Arakanese
themselves as Tibeto-Burmans closely linked culturally and ethnically to the Burmese.
Marma and Myanmar, to give but one illustration, are the same words.
In a word, this means that Arakan, though it may appear as a tiny strip of coastal plains
shut off by mountain ranges to the east and by the seas of the Bay of Bengal to the
west, for the purpose of research, has to be viewed in a much broader geographical
framework than its own limited space. A good ejrample to illustrate this complexity are
the writing systems that you find in Arakan: brahmiaerived gupta and Devanagari scripts
in the early period, Burmese-Arakanese script in the later period, with Bengali and
Persian script being occasionally found in inscriptions and on coins.
Studying Arakan needs a broad geographical approach. But the obvious need for being
aware of both Bengal and Burmese history to study Arakan has not and still does not
match with the generally professed academic categories of South Asia and Southeast
Asia. As a part of Burma, Arakan is considered a part of Southeast Asia. Bengal is a
part of India and as such a part of South Asia. True, few people could see themselves
as having an expertise for both cultural zones. But thinking of the best way to look at
Arakan, this division is very unfortunate if one holds that these categories have an
intrinsic and final meaning. Actually such divisions are relatively recent, but they
aredeeply entrenched in our academic mind-sets in the post-colonial period thanks to a
particular geopolitical representation of the world.
By and large, during two thousand years of history, Arakan has always been open to a
flow of exchange and communication with Bengal. This flow of exchange has been
strongest during the times that city-states and polities were flourishing on the Arakanese
soil, the Vesali period (5th to 7th c.), the early and middle Mrauk U period (15th to 17th
c.). During the British colonial period, there was no political border at all between
Arakan and Bengal and Arakan and Burma and this situation enabled a migration that
brought tens of thousands of Burmese into Arakan, and an even much greater number
of Chittagonians to Northern Arakan.
It is because of this demographic revolution in Arakan that I consider the British colonial
period as a major break in Arakan's history. Many Arakanese consider the Burmese
conquest of 1785 as the crucial break in their history, sometimes as the end of their own
home-grown culture, and the focus of their nostalgia is on this date. No doubt, it is an
important date in the historical narrative and in the collective memory. But too much
fixation on the date when the kingdom came to an end has distracted attention from the
impact of the difficult and disturbing period of British colonization, a period that the
Arakanese remember less harshly.
Arakan was under British control for 120 years and Upper Burma was so for only a bit
more than 60 years. During these 120 years of colonization, there was barely any kind
of economic development in Arakan beyond rice cultivation. The expansive
development of rice production was directly linked to the settlement of Chittagonian
agricultural labour in Arakan. This demographic revolution created a situation where
since the early twentieth century, one third of the population in Arakan were Muslims of
Bengal origin. How can we assess its impact? The history of the MusIim population in
Arakan during the imperial age, from 3870 to 1930, is statistically documented, but as
far as I have access to sources, its social and economic history goes unstudied.
One important consequence of this demographic revolution was that with few
exceptions, at the end of the 19th century, the old community of properly Arakanese
Muslims going back to the independent kingdom was drowned among the newly arriving
part-time workers and settlers.

The unrestricted growth of the Muslim community in Arakan (one may recall that from
the 1920s on, immigration of labour from India to Burma was regulated in Lower Burma,
but not in Arakan) was already seen as problematic by contemporary observers since
the 1920s. It lay at the origins of communal tensions that evolved into the tragic history
of hostility and confiontation, cover-up, violence and state failure in the post-colonial
period.
The point made here is that this demographic change is the main legacy of British
colonialism in Arakan and it is obviously at the origin of social division and communal
strive in Arakan today. It is also partly responsible for the way that discussions on
Arakan's history have been hijacked by debates on the legitimacy of Muslim settlers in
Arakan. Since the 1950s, Muslims and Buddhists in Arakan alike have been struggling
to adapt pieces and bits ·of history into politically and ideologically convenient
reconstructions of Arakan's past. So many publications start by invoking objectivity just
to deliver selective readings of a history that has never been thoroughly explored. There
is no need to specially emphasise the lack of objectivity, the core issue is a lack of
research. I am afraid to say that more research was not always perceived as desirable
as more knowledge makes people more modest on their historical claims and
pretensions. Buddhists and Muslims alike have struggled to claim a kind of right of the
first-born or first arrived in Arakan. So few things are actually lanown of Arakan's
prehistory, protohistory, population history and early political history and claims made in
the nationalist historiography cannot be related to any commonly established historical
research.
Oddly enough, the settlement history of Arakan became a battlefield of arguments while
the considerable economic and social change in Arakan in the 19th and 20th centuries
has nowhere been treated as a subject of scholarly investigation.
In a paper I was asked to write eight years ago, I had a close look at what had been
earlier written on Arakanese history and I detailed in some way how certain
representations of Arakan had been constructed. Seen from Bengal, Arakan appears as
a robber state, a nest of barbarians, a nuisance on the flesh of the Mughui Empire. This
mostly negative bias was due to two reasons: first, the historic experience of the
Arakanese slave-raids against the coasts of southeast Bengal in the 17th and 18th
centuries and second, the imperial language of Persian chronicle sources where the
political and military endeavours of a minor kingdom are not interpreted as signs of
territorial expansion, but as signs of insubordination to the Emperor.
Seen from Burma, Arakan appears as a tiny but stubbornly self-conscious Buddhist
kingdom, home of the Mahamuni statue. For sure, the Arakanese kings did not see
themselves as uncivilised barbarians; they did not consider themselves as culturally
inferior.
The Burmese and Mon kings may have looked at Arakan as a place that should come
under their sway, but the country mostly succeeded at safeguarding its independence.
After the conquest, there was a sincere interest at the court of Amarapura for Arakan
and its court tradition. The Burmese kings saw themselves as inheriting the territorial
claims on Bengal that the Arakanese kings had had in their better days. The lost, but
warmly remembered greatness of the Arakanese monarchy was revived by Arakanese
enthusiasts such as San Shwe Bu and British colonial writers such as Maurice Collis.
But in the way that they do not pay any attention to the secular relations of Arakan with
Bengal, they do provide us with another one-sided look at Arakanese history.
To conclude this point: No serious researcher can deal with the history of Arakan inside
the contemporary political borders alone. Geographically and culturally, he has to look
beyond the "State of Rakhaing" and involve himself with the past of Bengal, India,
Burma and the Bay of Bengal waters. But politically defined borders and academically
drawn borders of geopolitical and cultural zones have been obstacles to such a
generous approach. To my knowledge, at no University history department in
Bangladesh, India or Burma, such a transnational or intercultural approach is pursued
with regard to the eastern Bay of Bengal.
The colonial history of Arakan has created a confrontational situation of two
communities claiming each a dominant share in Arakan's past. In the course of identity
building and cultural self-defense, academic and public discussions on exploring the
sources of the past have been handicapped and the complexities of historical
developments have been sacrificed for the sake of - what I see as - many one-sided,
self-centred and confrontational statements.
2. A frontier culture
Having made these statements on the geographical, political, communal and academic
divisions that block a broader and more generons approach to Arakan's culture and
history, I would like to outline what I see as a better conceptual approach. Discussions
on categories, terms and meanings may occasionally seem vain and superfluous. But
one cannot simply move beyond if we want build up a network on Arakanese studies
where scholars need to share an understanding of key terms, will try to improve our
categories and chronologies because they ultimately want to strengthen our
understanding of Arakan's past.
What terms, what concepts are appropriate to frame the subject of Arakanese studies?
How can we characterize our object of study in a flexible and adaptable way without
loosing the focus of a specific cultural expression and a historically original process?
1. Let me first say that I have kept on calling "Arakan" Arakan or Rakhine. I do not see
what we have to win in cultural studies by using other less conventional geographic
labels. But I always stress that this term does not and cannot have in terms of
geographic or cultural extent the same meaning in the tenth, seventeenth and twentieth
century. In history and in anthropology, we are talking about human communities and
political entities. We are talking about the spaces wlrere societies evolve. These spaces
have always been varying, which means that their borders have been moving. In a way,
making this point is to state a topos of historians as there are plenty of examples where
accepted geographical names are applied to territories of varying extension in history
(e.g. France, Germany, the Low Countries to name but a few in Europe).
To state even more of the obvious: Historians will talk about the valleys more often than
the mountains, so do archaeologists, as rice-growing cultures developed urban sites in
valleys and remains of these sites may still be seen or may be studied by doing
excavations. Our interest for human settlements in the Kaladan valley and our
understanding of culture one thousand or two thousand years ago has rarely something
in common with space defined by political borders of this day.
Michael W. Charney seems to have abandoned the term "Arakan" altogether, and has
persistently been using the term "Western Burma" when he refers to Arakan. Earlier, he
had coined the term "Banga-Arakan continuum". Both terms are plausible attempts to
define a larger geographic space than "Arakan", but as they are not terms whose
specific meaning is understood by convention, they are begging for definitions that are
linked to particular contexts. But the strongest argument against the use of "Western
Burma" meaning Arakan (plus something else) is that in Burma itself, the term "anauk-
paing" refers to the land on the western side of the Irrawaddy (at least up to Pakokku).
Unless definitions are generally agreed upon, newly coined terms are only more or less
useful labels.
Seen from Mughal India, Arakan was merely a barbarian extension of eastern Bengal,
seen from Burma it was a disobedient marginal principality on the western fringe of the
kingdom. Let us not put into question Arakan's identity by denying it its own name and
let's keep on calling it "Arakan". Marginality is one aspect of Arakan's history that we
cannot deny, - in this sense Richard Eaten had a point calling it a "niche kingdom", but I
do not think that it is useful to define the field of Arakanese studies by focusing on this
position of eccentric marginality.
2. In Southeast Asian history, kingdoms have been categorized as land- or sea- based,
depending on the bulk of their resources and their political and commercial networks.
The distinction has not been easy to the point that you can put all continental Southeast
Asian polities into the category of land-based state formations. Chris Baker recently
asked the question of Ayutthaya being of sea rather than land. For Arakan, the same
question holds true and Sanjay Subrahmanyam who wanted to assign Arakan a place in
the Bay of Bengal has been struggling with an answer regarding Arakan's hybridity.
Arakan's military superiority in the seventeenth century, its emergence in the fifteenth
and sixteenth and its survival in the 18th can only be explained by its domination on the
waterways and along the coast. But Arakan was never a maritime power. These are not
the categories that we are looking for to catch the essence of Arakanese cultural
studies. Similar problems that I will not address here, appear with regard to
chronological divisions and periodization.
My own suggestion to give a sufficiently flexible framework to Arakanese studies is to
define Arakan's culture as a frontier culture. Seeing Arakan primarily as a fiontier culture
has theoretical and practical advantages. It means that we escape a narrow definition of
a predominantly Buddhist state while keeping the focus on Arakan's connectedness to
its neighbouring regions.

The term "frontier" is a key term for historians and has been the object of extensive
reflection2. When we were working on the edition of the papers of the Coastal Burma
conference in Amsterdam 1998, we opted for a title of the book that was radically
different from the title of the conference by choosing "maritime frontier". As Burma's
history had always been exclusively told from the view-point of the capitals of its land-
based kingdoms, one aim of that conference was to look at Burma from outside, from
the sea. It was not to look at what was going on along the coasts, but to look at frontiers
and to explore how cultural, commercial and political interaction gave a profile to the
maritime frontier. The conference did unfortunately not deliver on the expectation of
arriving at a common vision of the whole coastline of Burma running fiom the Naf River
down to Kawthaung covering Arakan, Lower Burma and.Tenasserim. But as half of the
papers were devoted to Arakan, it was very inspiring to see how religion, culture, politics
and economy of Arakan could be embedded in various geographic contexts that
emphasized the notion of the "frontier". If there was no common vision appearing, it was
due to the reason that Arakan and Tenasserim really represent two different social and
political realities.
The kind of~frontiers that are central to our investigations of Arakanese history and
culture are first of all less than rigid ethnic-linguistic frontiers that allow us to distinguish
a predominantly Tibeto-Burman zone and an Indo-Aryan zone. South-eastern Bengal
and Manipur are two examples to show how intertwined these distinctive zones often
are.The study of the ethnic-linguistic fiontier is not only relevant in the context of purely
linguistic and anthropological studies. If we recall G.H. Luce's investigations into the
early population of Burma, we may appreciate its importance for the early history of
Burma as well.
Religious and cultural frontiers divide as much as they connect adepts of textually
based religions such as Buddhism and Islam and of native non-literate religious
practices. These frontiers have formatted much of our approach to the area, as I have
explained earlier, focusing our attention on the question of the historical character of a
Muslitn community in the Buddhist kingdom of Arakan. It should be clear that the term
"frontier" as I understand it here, is not a refortnulation of the illusory concept of a
perennial Muslim-Buddhist divide. It would also be abusive to understand the term of
"cultural frontier" as belonging to a terminology of exclusiveness that applies superiority-
inferiority standards.
The cultural frontier I am referring to is about complexity not about exclusiveness.The
notion of a cultural fiontier implies diversity and exchange. Where there is cultural
diversity, there is also an awareness of differences and we can generally hypothesize a
situation where people develop an acute sense of their identity because they are
positively challenged to maintain their cultural profile. On the other hand, groups that
are in a marginal position need to adapt to ensure their continuing existence.
Muslim trading communities have flourished in Buddhist monarchies all over continental
Southeast Asia and in Buddhist China. Muslim communities have adapted in various
political and cultural contexts and they have positively cultivated their identities. The
challenge to assess the nature of the religious-cultural frontier in Arakan lies in a
comparative approach that takes into account the large array of cross-cultural exchange
in other parts of Asia where Muslim communities took root in a predominantly Buddhist
environment.
Acknowledging the cultural-religious frontier as a defining characteristic of Arakan's past
and present, I also see it as a convenient frame-work for roads of investigations that
have hitherto not been taken. To name but two of them, I would refer to the Hiridu-
Buddhist frontier that implies research in art history and religion on the extent at which
either Mahayana Buddhism or Hinduism were prominent or to what point Hindu
elements were integrated in the religious practice. Another field of enquiry is the
integration of daily religious practices and of non-Buddhist behefs into a Buddhist
framework.
Define
Turning to a core domain of historical investigation, politics and the exercise of power,
we face the intricate question of political frontiers. Delineating political frontiers looks
more like a factual, even technical matter if we compare it with the description of ethnic
and cultural fiontiers. In the case of Arakan, the situation is far fiom clear and rather
difficult to assess. Historians have glossed over the issue, occasionally statements
found in the sources have been taken at their face-value or they have been fully
rejected.
In the broader historical and geopolitical context, northern Arakan marks in a way the
farthest extent of Bengal, and where the Arakanese were challenged by the
Mughals,i.e. in the Chittagong area, the Chittagong province indicates the limits of the
most eastern extension of the Mughal empire. Bengal's south-east on the other hand
was in a sense the farthest western extent of Arakanese power, and at least, in its
claims of sovereignty in the early 19th century, the farthest extension of Burmese
political power towards the west. But where can we exactly locate the political frontiers?
Take the case of King Minba's attacks against south-eastern Bengal around 1540 and
the mystifying description that the Arakanese sources give. How far did his troops
actually go? How far did his ships sail and his boatmen row? What battles did they
fight?
The chronicle account suggests an invasion encompassing a vast area that merely
excludes parts of North and Western Bengal. It looks highly improbable. "Dhaka" was
important in the 17th c. and Murshedabad in the 18th c. None of them was important in
the 16th c. The account also tells us about Minba's elephant. But did Arakanese troops
ever use elephants to invade Bengal? Unfortunately Chittagong is barely alluded to in
the account, but it has been claimed as an Arakanese conquest of these times and it is
even likely that the Arakanese could at that time get a hold over the port city for some
years. How can we deal with this gap between ambitiously stated territorial claims and
effectively controlled land and people? There seems to be a fair share of anachronisms
in our sources. So among various reasons, the question of political frontiers is important
because it reflects on the way that we come to think of Arakanese historiographic
sources in general.
Defining borders politically involves geography, political power and varying concepts of
what a border is. Suffice to think of the problems of border definition among British and
Burmese during the years when the Burmese soldiers pursued the Aralanese rebels
over the Naf River. There is not much evidence either about the southern borders of
Arakan over the centuries.
To clarify the issue, we have to differentiate between areas where the kings had an
effective territorial control on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the range of lands
where political influence and hegemonic claims could be enforced. In a way, this means
that one has to study Arakan's territorial expansion in some detail and assess what
areas were core lands and where the Arakanese navy could enforce the claims of its
kings.

We can discuss for example about the control that the Arakanese had over places south
of Chittagong before they had an effective control over the port of Chittagong in the
fifteenth century. Effective control means that you appoint a governor, you levy taxes
and you may have a garrison onthe spot. Little is still known on the garrisons besides
the one in Chittagong. Arakan's territorial expansion in the late 16th century came at the
price of a large buffer zone that was waste-land: the region north of Chittagong up to the
Feni River in the Noakhali province, that land was depopulated. Towards the west, the
Arakan Yoma created a natural frontier between the Upper and Lower Burma kingdoms.
Did the Arakanese merely control the ports, did they build fortresses to have a control
over the hinterland? What we can derive from our sources would suggest that the
Arakanese expansion resembles the Portuguese presence in the north-eastern Bay of
Bengal: integration and control of a commercial network with a minimum of
territorialism. Such a type of expansion is better represented with arrows than with
coloured patches on a map.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the power of the Arakanese kings reached
well beyond their core zone of royal lands. The Arakanese fleets could reach Southeast
Bengal and raid the countryside. The psychological impact of these raids was
considerable and became part of the Arakanese military strategy. One can thus define a
zone of political influence because of the latent impact that Arakanese coastal power
could have. When the power of the kings was shrinking, the people in Lower Burma or
Bengal could sleep more quietly as they were exposed to Arakanese attacks. The
Surviving Arakanese communities in Bengal notably in Tripura and Patuakhali are
remnants of this wider expansion of Arakanese in the area.
From the point of view of the Mughals, the sheer existence and survival of Arakan as an
independent Buddhist kingdom on the margins of the Empire pointed to the limits of its
power. From the point of view of the Burmese and Mon kings, the resurgence of an
independent Arakanese kingdom also pointed to the limits of their military capacity and
of their ability to exert influence on this resilient polity at their western margins.
Ethnic-linguistic frontiers or cultural fiontiers should not be seen as barriers or
obstacIes. Even the difficulty to clearly identify some of Arakan's political frontiers during
history points both to changing political realities and to a concept that was less
determined than in the Western tradition. Frontiers are thresholds where researchers
can pursue the fascinating study of the flow of ideas, influences, impacts and
innovations that run in parallel with the flow of trade goods. Thinking of Arakan's culture
mainly as a frontier culture means to keep a look on both sides of the frontier. The
awareness of these frontiers and the discussion of their permeability help us to create
meaningful contexts in which we can set our questions and analyse the body of our
sources.
The "cultural frontier" as a concept is metbodologically useful. But it is not only a key
starting-point for our investigations. It is first of all a descriptive term for a social reality
of diverging cultural communities. It has also an explanatory value as it largely explains
the sharp awareness that people do have of their own contrasting identities. Less than
two hundred years ago, Isan (North-eastern Slam) was subjected to the rule of the
Central Thai kings, Arakan was a bit earlier conquered by the Burmese. Both Lao and
Arakanese are culturally akin to their conquerors. But why do the Arakanese remember
so well and still resent so deeply the Burmese conquest and the Lao of Isan now see
themselves essentially as Thai? I wondered many times about this process of
integration and I would suggest that the Arakanese have had for centuries a keener
sense of their difference and their own identity that was ultimately formatted by the
particular frontier context in which they lived.
The flow of ideas can produce different types of reactions: acceptance, rgection or the
integration of compromises. Both Islam and Buddhism are missionary religions. A
population submitting to a Buddhist king, for example, could either accept Buddhism, or
it could reject effiorts at conversion, or it could adopt certain features of Buddhist
practice and creeds by integrating them into an existing systetn of belief and practice.
What can int this regards be said on Arakan during the early modem period about which
I feel myself competent to talk.
As my time is limited, it would be a vain attempt to wind my way with arguments and
descriptions through 350 years of Arakan's history to illustrate in detail why defining
Arakanese studies as the study of a frontier culture makes good sense. I want to focus
on a single key moment in Arakan's early Mrauk U history, the time of its foundation and
the figure of Min Saw Mwan, the alleged founder of Mrauk U.
First of all we have to deplore the simple, say even simplistic and uncritical way that the
story of Min Saw Mwan has been told and retold until nowadays. In the early fifteenth
century, it is said, troops of the Burmese kings invaded Arakan and the Arakanese king
ran away to Bengal. The Burmese, it seems, would have been kicked out by the Mons
some time later, but nothing, strictly nothing is known on what happened exactly in
Arakan during the next years until the moment when the exiled king is said to have
come back. He came back, runs the story, with the help of the sultan of Bengal.
The story in its most elaborate form is found in Nga Me's still unpublished chronicle
written at the request of Arthur P· Phayre, the governor of Arakan in the early 1840s.
Though there are no precise names, no reliable dates and no independent Bengali
sources on this story, though there is no historical proof that can be made to any claim
made in this story, it has been accepted as a matter of fact that the Arakanese king
went indeed to Bengal to obtain military help. No Buddhist and no Muslim author no
more than any British colonial historian has had any doubt about some factual truth
contained in the story.
Why? First of all, the story was told in a summary way by Arthur Phayre himself first in
an article published in 1842 and then again in his History of Buma. Most people believe
it because it has always been told like that and because it was written by an author
people have trusted. Second, as the Story was based on a native tradition, it had the
credentials of an original source. Third, the story has been successful, because a gives
a very simple explanation for a truly complex process. Fourth, until now, there has been
no critical examination of the facts described in that story because there has been no
systematic and critical analysis of Arakanese historical sources and how the chronicles
emerged
I am very critical of this story for many reasons. First of all, there are few things that we
can really rely on. We only have Arakanese accounts. There are no Burmese, no Mon
and no Bengali sources. There are no inscriptions and there are no independent
alternative accounts. The king who mounted on the throne in 1401, 1404 or 1410 is
called Naramithlha, but when he comes back to Arakan, he is said to be Min Saw
Mwan, though there is no explanation for this change of name. How long was he away
from Arakan, four, ten or twenty years? Why did he go to Bengal? What did he do in
Bengal if he went there? Why would a sultan of Bengal have helped him?
For decades, most authors have paid little or no attention to the identity of the sultan of
Bengal at the time though scholarship on Bengal's fifteenth century offered revised
accounts and offered considerable progress in historical research. It is clear that the
sultan at that precise time was Jalaluddin and it would be extremely difficult to
understand what could have been the involvement of this Hindu convert and zealous
Muslim with a strictly minor Arakanese lord on the very hinges of the sultanate. Just to
discuss the issue, some key questions on the status of Chittagong at that time would
also need to be clarified first.
Phayre himself gave some credibility to his source, the chronicle of Nga Me, because
he dropped in his English rendering two fabulous accounts on Min Saw Mwan during his
stay in Bengal. Nga Me tells us that the Arakanese king taught the Bengalis how to
catch elephants and he is also credited with some fanciful tricks that helped the Bengal
sultan to conquer Delhi. This is a nice example of the methodology of colonial writers
when they deal with Asian sources. They strip from the sources what they consider as
fantastic and arrange what they deem to be credible facts in a newly conceived linear
account. In a way, one can say that Phayre suppressed core evidence that would
obviously make us suspicious of the source itself.
For a historian of the twenty-first century, the essential question need not be if this story
is right or wrong. The story is simply there and we have to deal with it as it is. But if we
cannot safely answer the question if that king went to Bengal or not, if he received any
military support or not, because there is no source, we can still ask other questions.
One such question would be what the function of this story is in the historiographic
tradition. Why do the chroniclers tell us this story? Clearly, the story underscores the
fact that Bengal was a powerful state in the 15th century, a place somebody may have
turned to for military support. What does the author (or what did they) want to explain to
their readers regarding Arakan?
At least one answer comes out relatively clear. When the Arakanese chronicle account
talks about King Minba's invasions of Southeast Bengal a hundred years later, around
1540, it tells us that Minba's wars were legitimate, because before Min Saw Mwan's
return to Arakan, he had left a Iarge part of Bengal to the sultan as a token of gratitude
for the military support. Legitimacy has always been an important aspect in warfare. A
righteous ruler does not want to be portrayed as a blood-thirsty barbarian. The story
involving Min Saw Mwan makes thus a lot of sense if we see it in the context of
legitimizing Minba's later warfare in southeast Bengal.
What has this problematic analysis of Min Saw Mwan's career to do with the concept of
the "frontier culture"? This example involves the issue of political and ethnic frontiers, of
political realities on the ground, of material contacts between these areas in the fifteenth
century. What is primarily an issue of Burman and Mon expansion into Arakan can only
be understood against the background of Bengal's place in the region. This is what the
story as the chroniclers tell it suggests. This is also the point where the concept of a
cultural frontier appears as an important reminder to look for contextual meaning rather
than focus on hard-core facts alone. We have no accounts on regular embassies
between the courts of Bengal and Arakan, there is no track record of political relations
between these two neighbours, there is but this single mention of a significant favour
that the sultan would have given his exiled colleague. Why was it important to report,
and I would rather say, why was it important to invent this story of a request to the
Bengal sultan?
We have to bear in mind that the historical poems, the literary and religious works, the
chronicles were not written for us today, they were neither written for the mass of the
people of these days, but they were written for an educated elite by members of that
same elite. Kings who had to build up their legitimacy and strengthen their claim on
power had to cater for the needs of many publics though. You do not speak the same
language to culturally different communities.
One example are the multilingual coins, a classic example of the cultural frontier that
crosses the region. Arakanese kings copied at first the coins of Bengal because the
nicest and best made coins of the region were the coins of the Bengal sultans. But the
coins of Arakan gained their own profile. Coins were supposed to talk to more people
than to a mere elite and the fact that the warrior kings of the late 16th and early
17th century minted trilingual coins shows us that they wanted to communicate their
claim on power to their subjects, be they Muslim or Buddhist, be they literate in Bengali,
Persian or Rakhaing. Generally I tend to hypothesize that the discourse of kings is
necessarily an inclusive discourse.
With these few illustrations, I would like to bring this section to an end.I stated earlier
that Arakanese studies have suffered from division and from a certain narrow-
mindedness of purpose. I have argued now that we need a conceptual approach that
helps us to broaden our scope and that constantly reminds us that the past we are
talking about has been a shared past.
3. Major challenges and issues of Auakanese Studies
In the last section of my paper, I would like to give a brief presentation of what I see as
some major challenges and issues of Arakanese studies. What these are altogether
cannot be decided or defined by a single scholar and this is necessarily a personal point
of view. I would like to limit myself to matters of history and religion and subjects that I
see as closely related to them, as this is I what some of my current work at the EFEO
centre in Yangon is concerned with.
Sources - Archaeology and Edited texts When people in Burma have repeatedly asked
me if I would be ready to write a short history of Arakan, in my reply I have consistently
referred to our lack of knowledge on early Arakanese history. I would say any question
regarding early human settlements, early polities, early Indic traits of civilisation, early
Baddhism, early Islam etc. are big questions, as we are craving for a lot more facts.
First of all, we need more archaeological research so as to know more about Arakan's
early history. Archaeology is, I believe, the single most important and the most
promising field of research in Arakan (as it is Bruma generally by the way).It is
comforting to see that promising work is now on its way with some motivated and better
trained people and to see that Bob Hudson takes an active interest in mapping some of
the old sites.
For many of us, archaeology in Arakan means above all excavations in Vesali and
Dhannawati. But there are more urban sites to be investigated to obtain the data that
will allow us to critically assess (or to discard) the meagre chronicle accounts of
succeeding dynasties and so called capitals. While the contours of the first millenniutn
do not entirely lie in the dark, Arakan still lacks a prefiistory though nobody will
hypothesize that Arakan did not have prehistoric human settlements. Simply no
systematic investigations have been done until now. I would like to mention in this
context Professor Dilip K. Chakrabarti's suggestion in his Ancient Bangladesh regarding
a connection between the “Lalmai-Tripua Prehistoric Fossilwood Industry" and the
fossilwood industry in Burma. This hypothesis points to connections that transgress the
divide between South Asian and SEA archaeology.
Next to the critical importance of archaeology comes the availability of first-hand textual
sources. In fact, we are still in a phase of merely getting our materials prepared for
serious research. "Preparing" means copying texts from palm-leaf manuscripts, editing
them for our own use, computerizing them, investigating meanings, above all trying to
unravel the genealogy of textual traditions, and hopefully translating some of them.
Until quite recently, a lot of my own research work relied on the printed versions of
Arakanese historiography such as Candamalalankara's chronicle and various editions of
the Dhannavati Ayedawpan. This is simply not good enough. I am glad to notice that
among leading Myanmar historians, there is now a growing awareness that
historiographic texts that have been edited in the colonial period have been willfully
“corrected" by their editors and do not respond to the criteria of scientific edition
regarding the original spellings of the manuscripts. For Arakanese studies, we need to
produce methodical text editions that provide the indispensable material conditions to
study the genetics of text traditions and form the basis of critical historical studies.
At the EFEO centre, since 2002, we have started to systematically list Arakanese
manuscripts traced in public and private collections and computerize them. Our focus
has been on historiography and on Buddhist texts. But Arakanese literature also
comprises texts on medicine, law and poetry that have hitherto not been duly
catalogued and investigated. The overall contribution of this Arakanese literature to
Burmese literature is one issue that I would like to stress. Hopefully similar work could
be undertaken among those outside Arakan who identify themselves with an Arakanese
homeland regarding the archival record, the cultural monuments and the living tradition
of cultural practice. As many texts exist only in single or few copies, this work of
conservation and computerization of information is really an important task.
Another desideratum of Arakanese historical studies have been for a long time the
inscriptions. Close to none of them are available in a published form. At a conference
earlier this year, an Arakanese scholar was asked how many such inscriptions existed.
He replied "about a hundred". His estimation is far from the mark, as we have listed now
more than two hundred. Systematically collecting these inscriptions, transcribing them
and getting them edited in a way that makes them accessible to the scholarly world is
one of our projects. I am even hopell that I can publish them in Myanmar. Pali, Sanskrit
and Arakanese mscriptions form the biggest lot of inscriptions, but I would like to
mention that French scholars are making a catalogue of all Arabic and Persian
inscriptions in Southeast Asia and would welcome information on such inscriptions in
our area. Such work of recording, collecting and editing can be started by a few, but it
cannot be successfully fulfilled by just a few. It is a long term invesrment requesting the
support of many people.
My own research on early modern Arakan has taught me that a better knowledge of
Arakan during the period of the Burmese administration and the early British cdlonial
period could help me in my critical understanding of Arakanese histoty and
historiography. But our study of colonial Arakan and of subjects during that period is
problematic. Due to storms, insects and neglect, many British colonial archives in
Arakan have disappeared a long time ago. Until now, we have no thorough study of
Arakan's colonial history written as a distinct story from British colonial history in Burma.
For 19th century Arakan, we know things by bits and pieces only unless you are
satisfied by the dearth of information found in the gazetteers. I do not think though that
there is nothing at all found in the archives and libraries to deal with the issue of the
British period in Arakan.
To give Arakanese studies a fuller range of means to develop, we also need more
research in the field of linguistics, of anthropology, of physical and human geography, of
human ecology and of material culture in general. Some of this could best be done by
people of the country. I see some encouraging beginnings in the relatively numerous
MA theses submitted by Arakanese students to the University of Yangon in the 1990s
and hopefully we will see more of this on the level of PhD theses in the future.
As I have gone to some length to state that a better access to sources is a major issue,
I should mention as well that other textual sources that we need to digest do exist in
Burmese, in Persian, in Bengali, in Dutch, in Portuguese, in English and maybe in
languages of quarters unknown to me. To surf the cultural frontier, we have to give
ourselves the means to cross the linguistic barriers.
History of religion in Arakan - We know what Buddhism and Islam are and that there is
an overwhelming number of Buddhists and Muslims in Arakan, but we know few things
about the history of these religions. Due to a lack of anthropological field work on the
Daing-nak, Khami, Sak and Mro, we lack also information on their religious beliefs and
practices3. From a scholarly point of view, we cannot be satisfied with the strongly
idealized, simplified and embellished accounts of the pious followers of the book
religions. Academic scholars are not supposed to accept the acknowledged record of
the believers, but to critically review andhave conversations on the evidence they
extract from sources.
As I would be much less competent on Islam than on Buddhism, I will talk more about
the latter one. I stress the importance of actively studying the history of Buddhist
monasticism in Burma, Arakan and the neighbouring areas of East Bengal and
Northeast India. The perennial character of Buddhist monastic insftations has too often
been taken for granted as the Theravada establishment claims a faultless line coming
down from the Buddha himself. Major issues are, to name but a few, how Mahayana
Buddhism progressively disappeared in East Bengal after the 13th century and how
Matlayana and Theravada Buddhism fared in early Arakan since the 5th century AD.
When did the Theravada that we know as the institutional reiigion of a majority of
Arakanese during the Mrauk U period triumph over alternative forms of Buddhism? How
can we assess the claim that since a very early period, there would have been regular
contacts with Sri Lanka initiated by Arakanese kings? What about monastic education?
What about the practical canon and the transmission of texts? The impact of King
Bodawphaya's religious reform missions on the sangha is a major issue of Konbaung
period religious history and it has some relevance for Arakan as we would likk to
understand the interaction between the Arakanese and the Burmese sangha on the one
hand, and on the other hand, the impact on Arakan of the wider movement of monastic
reform that spread in the Theravada Buddhist world from Sri Lanka to Siam since the
18th century.
In the context of the cultural frontier, the sub-field of Arakanese Buddhist studies looks
also particularly interesting because we need to consider issues of religious syncretism,
religious practice, communal co-existence and change involved by Arakan's exposure to
political and religious influences from the Burma kingdoms or the Bengal Muslim world.
The notion of the "frontier" is a key element in my approach towards Arakanese
Buddhism, because I am interested both in its particular, original traits and in what it
shares with the history of institutional and practical Buddhism in Southeast Asia in
general.
Documenting change in Buddhist history is one major challenge and it is exceptionally
difficult. It is difficult for reasons that relate to our iconographic and textual sources, but
it is also particaiarly difficult because for a long time institutional continuity as a defining
mark of Theravada has been taken for granted by both practitioners and scholars.
Historical scholarship does not make substantial progress when change is categorized
simply in terms that stress a foreign impact. Terms such as Tslamicization,
Bengalization or Burmanization are strongly suggestive of cultural hegemonies, but they
are also highly ambiguous. The extension of the political or social space does not
suppress ethnic or cultural boundaries, but rather reinforces both majority and marginal
identities. There is sufficient evidence for this in Arakan. While the social and cultural
frontier is questioned and challenged, it is also positively confirmed. A particular process
of assimilation is not predictable. I think that the tens of thousands of Burmese who
migrated to Arakan during the colonial period tend of the 19" century) did not burmanize
Arakan, but were rather well integrated into the Arakanese Buddhist society. It is not
outrageous to assume that there was a fairly high degree of integration of culturally
divergent non-Arakanese in the pre-colonial period of Arakan's independence. One may
quote the case of the Kaman of Ramree in this context. Islamicization, Bengalization or
Burmanization are broad categories that have no heuristic value unless it is made clear
to what degree they are applicable.
A last very brief point brings me back to our textual sources: the need for self-criticism.
We shouId embrace current efforts in Burmese and Indian history to deconstruct and
demythologize existing writing on Arakan's history. It is very important to re-read and re-
examine sources, colonial and post-colonial historio~graphy and ingrained standard
interpretations and put a set of questions that undergraduate students are required to
exercise, but that seasoned historians occasionally fail to address. Superficially we may
think that it is paradoxical that Alaol does not tell us much about the Buddhists in the
prolegomena to his poetry and that in the Arakanese yazawin and shyauk-thon, there is
close to nothing to be found on the Portuguese and Indian mercenaries in the
Arakanese navy. The reason is that the poet and the chroniclers did not write for the
same audience. They also had to write what their audience wanted to hear. To recover
something of this unknown land of the past, historians have occasionally been tempted
to replace scarcity of information by eulogising paraphrases and to cover uncertainty by
a veil of extrapolations. Not all that has been written during the colonial and post-
colonial period is wrong. But nothing should be excepted from fair criticism.
Conclusion
To conclude my presentation, I would like to come back for a second to the title of my
paper: Arakanese Studies: challenges and contested issues / mapping a fJield of
historical and cultural research. I may have said less than what the title announces. But
I may have said enough to address the core issues and challenges that lie before us.
We should aim to establish Arakanese studies as an autonomous field of research in
the large context of Bay of Bengal studies. "Contested issues", there are many, but
controversy is a normal thing in academic- scholarship. "Mapping the field" is a call for
action, it is the task of all those who are involved in the field and have to position their
work with regard to the work of others. I would hope that this call for action will result in
piactical steps towards the creation of a network of Arakanese studies.
Notes
1. References can be found in the reference section at the end of this paper.
2. Research on the "American frontier" was followed, by pioneering research on the
China frontiers, the Hindu cultural frontier etc. For a discussion that pays attention to
Burma, see for example Jos Gommans paper in Gommans/ Leider 2002.
3. For eanolopical research on the Cak and Marma, see Lucien Bemot's publications
and for research on the Mro, see G. Liifner (bibliographical data not available at the
moment of finishing this paper).
Bibliography
BERNOT, Lucien 1960 'Ethnic Groups of Chittagong Hill Tracts' in Social
Research in East Pakistan (ed. P. Bessaignet), p. 113-140.
BERNOT, Lucien 1967 Les Cak (Contrihution a l’etude ethnographique d’une
population de langue loi) Paris: Editions du CNRS. 267 p.
BERNOT, Lucien 1967 Les paysans arakanais du Pakistan oriental (L’hisroire, le
monde vegetal, et I'organisation sociale des refugies Marma (Mog) Paris /La Haye:
Mouton. 2 vol.
BURMA GAZETTEER AKYAB DISTRICT including Town and Village Census Tables
1912. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent - Govt. Printing. vol. B. 66 p.
BURMA GAZETTEER HILL DISTRICT OF ARAKAN including Town and Village
Census Tables 1912. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent - Govt. Printing. vol.B.21
p.
BURMA GAZETTEER KYAUKPYU DISTRICT including Town and Village Census
Tables 1912. Rangoon: Offrce of the Superintendent -Govt. Printing. vol.B. 47 p.
CHARNEY, Michael Waiter 1994 'The 1598-99 Siege of Pegu and the expansion
of
Arakanese Imperial Power into Lower Burma' Journal ofAsian History 28,1:39-57.
CHARNEY, Michael Waiter 1997. 'Rise of a Mainland Trading State: Rahkaing
under the Early Mrauk Kings c. 1430-1603' Journal of Burma Srudies 3.
CHARNEY, Michael Waiter 1997.'Crisis and Reformation in a Maritime Kingdom of
Southeast Asia: Force of Instability and Political Disintegration in Western Burma
(Arakan) 1603-1701' Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 39, 4:1-
35.
CHARMEY, Michael Waiter "Centralizing Historical Tradition in Precolonial Burma:
The
Abhiraja/Dhajaraja Myth in Early Konbaung Historical Texts". Sousheast Asia Research
10, 2, 185-215.
COMSTOCK, Rev. G.S. 1849. 'Notes on Arakan' Journal of the Americcnl Oriental
Society 1: 219-258.
GOMMANS, J./ LEIDER, J. (ed.) 2002. The Maritime Frontier of Burma – Exploring
Political, Cultural and Clommercial Interaction in the Indian Ocean World, I200-1800.
Amsterdam : Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen/ Leiden :KITLV
Press. 248 p.
GUTMAN, Pameia 1970. Ancient Arakan with special reference to its culturaI
histoiy
between the 5th and the 11th centuries Australian National University. (Ph. D.)
GUTMAN, Pamela 1973. 'Sources for the early History of Arakan (ca 1st -
10th centuries AD)', Journal of the Bangladesh Itihas Samiti 2: 93-101.
GUTMAN, Pamela 1986. 'Symbolism of Kingship in Arakan' in: Marr/ Milner led.)
Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th centuries, p. 279-288.
GUTMAN, Pamela 1999. "Moonlight Reflected in the Emerald: The Adventures of
a
Jungle Queen" Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 31 (Supplement): 83-95.
GUTMAN, Pamela 2001. Burma's Lost Kingdoms Splendours of Arakan. Bangkok:
Orchid Press. 176 p.
HABIBULLAH, Abdul B.M. 1945. 'Arakan in the Pre-Mughal history of Bengal'
Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 11: 33-38.
ISLAM, Sirajul 1979. Permanent Settlement in Bengal 1 790-1819. Dacca. 288 p.
ISLAM, Sirajul 1997. History of' Bangladesh 170;1-1971. Dhaka: Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh. 3 vols. 2nd ed.
JAYATILAKA, Sir D.B. 1940. 'Sinhalese Embassies to Arakan' Journal of the Ceylon
Branch of the RoyalAsiatic Society 35, 93. 1-6.
KHAN, Abdul Mabud 1999. The Maghs A Buddhist Community in Bangladesh.
Dhaka:The University Press Limited. 232 p.
KYAW Win Oo 2002. “Buddhist Iconography of Rakhine in Mrauk-U Period" Journal of
the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Sciences 1, 1: pp. 33-49.
KYAW ZAN THA, 1980.'Buddhism in Arakan before Yedhamma' Rakhaing
Tazaung
Magazine 16. 20-24.
LEIDER, Jacclues P. 1998. "An Account of Arakan written at Islaamabad
(Chittagong) in June 1777 by Major R.E. Roberts" Presentation et commentaire.'
Aseanie 3. 125-149.
LEIDER, Jacques P. 2002."Tilliag the Lord's Vineyard and Defending
Portugese
Interests: Towards a Critical Reading of Father S. Manrique's Account of Arakan"
Journal of the Slam Society 90, 1 +2, pp. 39-58.
LEIDER, Jacques P. 2003. "Arakan around 1830 - Social Distress and
Political Instability in the Early British Period" Arakanese Research Journal
(BanglaJesh) 2, pp. 5-24.
LEIDER, Jacques P. 2004. Le Royaume d'Arakan, Birmanie. Son histoire politigue
entre le debunt du XVe et la fin du XVIIIe siecle. Paris: Publications de 1'Ecole francaise
d'Extreme-Orient. 571 p.
LEIDER, Jacques P. 2004. "The Min Rajagri Satam of Mahazeya-thein: Making a
'history' for the King" in: Traditions of Knowledge in Southeast Asia, part 1,
Yangon:Myanmar Historical Commission Golden Jubilee Publication Committee, p. 100-
120.
LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude 1952. 'Le syncretisme religieux d'un village mog du territoire
de Chittagong' Revue de I'histoire des religions 141: 202-237.
LOMBARD, Denis/ PRAKASH, Om (Cd.) 1999. Commerce and Culture in the
Bay of Bengal1500- 1 800 New Delhi: Manohar/lndian Council of Historical Research.
416 p.
MITCHTNER, Michael 2000. The Land of Water Coinage and History of Bangladesh
and later Arakan circa 300 BC to the presenl day. London: Hawkins Publications. 160 p.
OUNG HLA THEIN 1997. Rakaing suta-abhidhan (A Dictionary of Rakhine).
Yangon: UYe Myint. 110 p.
PATON, Charles 1828. 'Historical and Statistical Sketch of Arakan' Asiatick
Researches16:353-381.
PHAYRE, A. P. 1841. 'Account of Arakan' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
2:679-712.
PHAYRE, A. P. 1844. 'On the History of Arakan' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
1.23-52.
QANUNGO, Suniti Bhushan 1988. Hisfory of Chittagong (to 1761). Chittagong:
Signet Library. 670 p.
SCHOBER, Juliane S. 1997. "In the Presence of the Buddha: Ritual Veneration of the
Burmese Mahamuni Image" in: Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South
and Southeast Asia Honolulu:University of Hawaii Press, p. 259-288.
SUBRAHMANYAM, Sanjay 1997.'Slaves and Tyrants: Dutch Tribulations in
Seventeenth-Century Mrank U' Joumal of Early Morden History 1, 3: 201-253. .
TUN AUNG CHAIN 2004. "The Tradition of Statecraft in 18th Century Myanmar"
in: Secract Writings of Tun Aung Chain. Yangon: Myanmar Historical Commission, p.
VAN GALR\r, Stepllan. 1998. 'The Serpent and the King - The Dutch-Arakanese
Relationship 1608-1683'. (unpubl.)
W~NICHAKUL, Thongchai. 1995. ,Saim Mopped A History of the Geobody of a
Nation.
Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. 228 p.
Some papers and works on Arakan's pre-colonial Muslim community
ASKARI HASAN, Syed. 1960. "The Mughal-Magh Relations down to the titne of
Islam Khan Mashadi" Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 23rd ,Session,
Gauhati 1959, pp.201-213.
BHATTACHARYA, Bisvesuar. 1927. "Bengali Influence in Arakan" Bengal past and
Present 33. 139-144.
FEILLARD, Andre 2001. L'islam en Asie, du Caucase a la to Chine. Paris:
Documentation ~anS~aise. 248 p.
LEIDER, Jacques P. 1998. "These Buddhist Kings with Muslim names - A
Discussion of Muslim Influence in the Mrauk U period" in: Etudes birmanes en
hommage a Denise Bernot. Paris: EFEO, pp. 189-215.
SEIRJUDDIN, Alamgir M. 1986. 'Muslim Influence in Arakan and the Muslim
names of the Arakanese Kings: a Reassessment' Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh
SIDDIQ KHAN, M. 1936/1937. "Muslim Intercourse with Burma. From the earliest
times to the British Conquest" Islamic Czrlture 10, 3: 409-427; 11: 248-266.
YEGAR, Moshe 1982. "The Muslims of Burma" In: The C7rescent in the East -
Islam in Asia Major by Ralph Israeli. London: Curzon Press, pp. 102-139.
Some papers and articles regarding tbe identity of Arakan's contemporary
Muslims and the refugee crisis
ALAM, Mohammad Ashraf 1999. "Historical Background of Arakan" In:
Souvenir on Silver Jubilee Anniversclly (1975-2000) of Arakan Historical Society
(Chittagong), pp.21-52
AYE CHAN 2002. Who are the Rohingyas? Chiba: Kanda University of International
Studies. 10 p. (ms.)
BHATTACHARYA (CKAKRABORTI), Swapna 1995a. "Imperialist Provocation and
Muslims of Arakan/Myanmar (1942-1948)" In. Proceedings of the Indian History
Congress, 55th ,Session, Aligarh, 1994. Delhi, pp. 542-550.
BHATTACHARYA(CKAKRABORTI),Swapna 1995b. "Bangladesh-Myanmar
Relations: A Study of the Problem of Refugees in Bangladesh" In: Integration,
Disintegration and World Order - Some Perspectives on the Process of Change ed, by
Arun Kumar Banerji. Calcutta: Allied Publishers Ltd. With School of International
Relations and Strategic Studies, Jadavapur University, Calcutta., pp. 69-88.
BHAITTACHARYA (CHAKRABORTI), Swapna 2001. "Rohingyas of Myanmar: The
Identity Crisis and Its Implications for Myanmar, Bangladesh and India" In: Ethnicity,
Identity and The State in South Asia ed. by Kousar J. Azam. New Delhi: South Asian
Publishers, pp. 86-123.
DOVERT, Stephane /MADINIIER, Remy 2003. Les musuimans d’ Asie du Sud-Est face
au verlige de la radicalisation. Paris : IRASEC/ Les Indes savantes. 146 p.
JILANI, Ahmed.F.K. 1999. The Rohingyas of Arakan Their Quest of Justica [place?]
468P·
MAUNG BA THEIN 2003. Criticism of the Lies of Rohingva History. Sittway. 86 p.
[in
Bumese] (ms.)
SHWE ZAN 1988. Study of the Muslim infiltration into Rakhine State. Yangon.
[Burmese/English]. 61 p. (ms.)
SMITH, Martin 1996. The Muslim Rohinyas of Burma, Rohingya Reader II.
Amsterdam: Burma Centrum Nederland.
SMITH, Martin 1991. Burma - Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London and
New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd.
THUREIN 2002. "Muslims of Burma. Their Past, Present and Future". Paper
presented at the International Conference a Burma-Myanma(r) research and its Future:
Implications for scholars and policymakers, Gothenburg, 21-25 September 2002.
YUNUS, Mohammad 1994. A History of Arakan Past and Present. Chittagong: Magenta
Colour. 184 p.
ZAW MIN HTUT 2001. The Union of Burma and Ethnic Rohingyas. Tokyo: Maruyama.
116 p. [in Burnese]

This paper was submitted at "Arakan History Conference", Bangkok 23.11 -

25.11.2005, organised by the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok, Thailand.
(Draft only. Please don't quote)