In 1832, the hitherto semi-legendary state was officially proclaimed the first kingdom of Burmese monarchy by Hmannan Yazawin, the Royal Chronicle of the Konbaung dynasty.

The narrative superseded then prevailing pre-Buddhist origin story in which the monarchy was founded by a descendant of a solar spirit and a dragon princess.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures existed at Tagaung, and a city-state founded by the Pyu emerged in the early centuries CE.

The chronicles, which likely represent the social memory of the times, repeatedly mention multiple competing groups and migrations that Tagaung and the entire Pyu realm experienced in the first millennium CE.

They settled and founded a kingdom at Tagaung in present-day northern Burma at the upper banks of the Irrawaddy river in 850 BCE.

The queen then met Dazayaza (Dhajaraja), of royal Sakya lineage who had recently settled in Mauriya (somewhere in Upper Burma).

[8] Some time after 483 BCE, invaders from the east sacked the kingdom during the reign of Thado Maha Yaza, the 17th and last king.

In 483 BCE, the brothers founded another kingdom much farther down the Irrawaddy at Sri Ksetra, near modern Pyay (Prome).

[5] Around 107 CE, Thamoddarit (သမုဒ္ဒရာဇ်), nephew of the last king of Sri Ksetra, founded the city of Pagan (Bagan) (formally, Arimaddana-pura (အရိမဒ္ဒနာပူရ), lit.

[12] The site reportedly was visited by the Buddha himself during his lifetime, and it was where he allegedly pronounced that a great kingdom would arise at this very location 651 years after his death.

Instead, the pre-Hmannan origin story of the Burmese monarchy speaks of one Pyusawhti, son a solar spirit and a dragon princess, who later founded the Pagan dynasty.

Historians trace the rise of Abhiyaza/Dazayaza stories to the 1770s, part of the early Konbaung kings' efforts to promote a more orthodox version of Theravada Buddhism.

The late inclusion of Abhiyaza/Dazayaza stories did much damage to the credibility of the chronicles to the European historians of the British colonial era.

They outright dismissed much of the chronicle tradition of early Burmese history as "copies of Indian legends taken from Sanskrit or Pali originals", highly doubted the antiquity of the chronicle tradition, and dismissed the possibility that any sort of civilisation in Burma could be much older than 500 CE.

[5][19][18] The Abhiyaza myth notwithstanding, evidence does indicate that many of the places mentioned in the royal records have indeed been inhabited continuously for at least 3500 years.

Moreover, the states of Tagaung, Sri Ksetra and Pagan all existed in the order, though not in the discrete fashion reported in the chronicles.