History of Rakhine
Rakhine State occupies the northern coastline of Myanmar up to the border with Bangladesh and corresponds to the historical Kingdom of Arakan.
From the first millennium AD, Arakan was a frontier region between India and Southeast Asia that could be accessed both by land and sea.
Its city walls were made of brick, and form an irregular circle with a perimeter of about 9.6 kilometres (6.0 miles), enclosing an area of about 4.42 km2 (1,090 acres).
At times of insecurity, when the city was subject to raids from the hill tribes or attempted invasions from neighbouring powers, there would have been an assured food supply enabling the population to withstand a siege.
The city would have controlled the valley and the lower ridges, supporting a mixed wet-rice and taungya (slash and burn) economy, with local chiefs paying allegiance to the king.
From aerial photographs we can discern Dhannyawadi's irrigation channels and storage tanks, centred at the palace site.
Throughout the history of Rakhine, and indeed the rest of early Southeast Asia, the king's power stemmed from his control of irrigation and water storage systems to conserve the monsoon rains and therefore to maintain the fertility and prosperity of the land.
In ceremonies conducted by Indian Brahmins the king was given the magic power to regulate the celestial and terrestrial forces to control the coming of the rains which would ensure the continuing prosperity of the kingdom.
On the reverse of the coins, the Srivatsa (Rakhine: Thiriwutsa), while the obverse bears a bull, the emblem of the Chandra dynasty, under which the name of the King is inscribed in Sanskrit.
[7] Some important and badly damaged life-size Buddha images were recovered from Letkhat-Taung, a hill east of the old palace compound.
Mrauk U may seem to be a sleepy village today but not so long ago it was the capital of the Arakan empire where Portuguese, Dutch and French traders rubbed shoulders with the literati of Bengal and Mughal princes on the run.
At its peak, Mrauk U controlled half of modern day Rakhine State (Arakan) and the western part of Lower Burma.
From the 15th to 18th centuries, Mrauk U was the capital of a mighty Arakan kingdom, frequently visited by foreign traders (including Portuguese and Dutch), and this is reflected in the grandeur and scope of the structures dotted around its vicinity.
Father Manrique's vivid account of the coronation of King Thiri Thudhamma in 1635 and about the Rakhine Court and intrigues of the Portuguese adventurers fire the imagination of later authors.
The English author Maurice Collis who made Mrauk U and Rakhine famous after his book, The Land of the Great Image based on Friar Manrique' travels in Arakan.
It became a transit point for goods such as rice, ivory, elephants, tree sap and deer hide from Ava in Burma, and of cotton, slaves, horses, cowrie, spices and textiles from Bengal, India, Persia and Arabia.
Fighting with the Rakhine resistance, initially led by Nga Than Dè and finally by Chin Byan in border areas, created problems between British India and Burma.
[citation needed] In 1974, the Ne Win government's new constitution granted Rakhine (Arakan) Division the status of a Union state.
The oldest artefact, stone image of Fat Monk inscribed "Saccakaparibajaka Jina" in Brahmi script inscription comes to the date of first century AD.
[citation needed] Somewhere from eastern part of this hill, a stone image in Dhamma-cakra-mudra now kept in Mrauk-U museum, was found earlier in 1923.
These sculptures provide earliest evident about the advent of Buddhism into Rakhine; during the lifetime of the Buddha and these discoveries were therefore assumed as the figures of King Chandra Suriya of Dyanawadi, who dedicated the Great Maha Muni Image.
These archaeological findings have been studied by eminent scholars and conclusion is that the Maha Muni was made during the king Sanda Suriya era.
Of these dhammas which arise from causes / The Tathagata has declared causes / Lord Buddha preached about the causes / And the effects gained by the causes / And that which is the ceasing of them, Nirawda Thitesa / This the great ascetic declares.The verse, which is considered as the essence of Theravada spirit, bears testimony to the fact that Buddhism flourished to an utmost degree in Vesali.
Anandachandra Inscriptions date back to 729 originally from Vesali, now preserved at Shitethaung, indicates adequate evidence for the earliest foundation of Buddhism.
Archaeology has shown that the establishment of so many stone pagodas and inscriptions which have been totally neglected for centuries in different part of Rakhine speak of popular favoured by Buddhism.
A stone slab with the alleged figure of the Hindu Bengali King Chandra Suriya bore testimony to the Salagiri tradition, depicting of the advent of the Teacher to Dyanyawaddy.
