Maha Dewi of Hanthawaddy
Maha Dewi (Burmese: မဟာဒေဝီ, pronounced [məhà dèwì]; c. 1322 – c. 1392) was princess-regent of Hanthawaddy for about ten weeks at the end of her brother King Binnya U's reign.
Prior to her brief reign as regent, she had been a close adviser of her brother since 1369, and the de facto ruler of the kingdom since the early 1380s.
Powerful factions of the court used her alleged long-term affair with her much younger nephew-in-law Smin Maru to undermine her influence.
After Binnya U's death two months later, the court chose Nwe, who ascended the throne with the title of Razadarit.
The new king reappointed his adoptive mother to her old post at Dagon but purely in a ceremonial role.
She was born Mwei Na (Mon: မောံန,[1] Burmese: မွေ့န) to Princess Sanda Min Hla, and Prince Saw Zein.
[2] At birth, she received the title Wihara Dewi because she was born during the construction of a monastery donated by her father.
[3] Na had two full siblings: an elder sister Mwei Ne, and a younger brother Binnya U.
[6] The young royals remained important as their powerful mother placed two successive kings and made herself their chief queen until 1348.
In 1348, Binnya U ascended the Martaban throne, and made his sister marry Bon La, son of the powerful minister Than-Daw in a marriage alliance.
The new king also made Bon La governor of Dagon (modern central Yangon) with the title of Bya Hta-Baik.
In 1363, while the king and his retinue were away from the capital Martaban (Mottama), a rival faction led by Prince Byattaba seized the throne.
But the commander was killed by poison by Byattaba's wife and Maha Dewi's younger half-sister Tala Mi Ma-Hsan during truce negotiations.
Her brother quickly married her off to Zeya Thura, governor of Hmawbi, whom he had appointed as the next commander-in-chief.
The king, after the death of his trusted chief minister Pun-So in 1369, came to rely on his sister for advice.
The opposition became stronger about three years later when the princess, now in her 50s, allegedly became involved with a much younger Maru, who was the husband of Binnya U's daughter (and her niece) Tala Mi Thiri.
The chronicle Razadarit Ayedawbon reports two supposedly contemporary verses which in vivid language strongly disparage the princess for having a scandalous "home-wrecking" affair at an old age with a younger married man.
[19] The Maha Dewi–Maru faction was firmly in power by the early 1380s when the king's health rapidly declined.
[20] The main opposition to her rule would come from her nephew and adopted son Binnya Nwe in 1383.
Maha Dewi had to repeatedly plead with her brother to free Nwe, and allow the young couple to be married.
By then, Nwe as well as Ngan-Mohn had come to consider Maha Dewi as the enemy, believing that she would put her lover on the throne instead.
[20][17] Zeik-Bye had been instigating; he had warned Nwe that Maha Dewi and Maru were plotting to arrest him.
In October, he officially handed power to his sister, giving her the right to raise the white umbrella, a symbol of Burmese sovereigns.
Meanwhile, Nwe sent envoys to Myaungmya and Martaban camps that the fight was strictly between him and Maha Dewi.
In the next seven years, she saw her adopted son not only reunite the three Mon-speaking regions by force but also successfully withstand three invasions by the northern Ava Kingdom.
