Burmese chronicles
The royal chronicles of Myanmar are detailed and continuous chronicles of the monarchy of Myanmar. The chronicles were written on different media such as parabaik paper, palm leaf, and stone; they were composed in different literary styles such as prose, verse, and chronograms. Palm-leaf manuscripts written in prose are those that are commonly referred to as the chronicles. Other royal records include administrative treatises and precedents, legal treatises and precedents, and censuses.
The chronicle tradition was maintained in the country's four historical polities: Upper Burma, Lower Burma, Arakan and the Shan states. The majority of the chronicles did not survive the country's numerous wars as well as the test of time. The most complete extant chronicles are those of Upper Burma-based dynasties, with the earliest extant chronicle dating from the 1280s and the first standard national chronicle from the 1720s.
The subject matter of the chronicles is mainly about the monarchs, and the chronicles provide little information about the general situation of the kingdom. Nor were they written solely from a secular history perspective but rather at times to provide "legitimation according to religious criteria" of the monarchy. Nevertheless, the chronicles' "great record of substantially accurate dates" goes back at least to the 11th century. Latest research shows that even the pre-11th century narratives, dominated by legends, do provide a substantially accurate record of "social memory", going back over three millennia.
Myanmar possesses the most extensive historical source material in Southeast Asia, and the Burmese chronicles are the most detailed historical records in the region. Yet much of the extant Burmese records have not been properly maintained, and many of the less well-known chronicles are yet to be studied systematically.
Overview
The Burmese royal chronicles are "detailed and continuous registers of events in chronological order", revolving "chiefly around the Burmese kings". The chronicles by themselves offer little or no commentary on the situation of the kingdom of the regular people inside or outside the capital unless the king happened to be involved in the event. Other royal records such as legal treatises and precedents and censuses and the chronicles of regional courts as well as temple histories need to be consulted to get a glimpse of the life outside the palace.The royal records were written on different media and in different literary styles. They can be inscriptions on stone and bells, or more commonly, they were written on palm-leaf manuscripts and on special thick sheets of paper called parabaiks. They also came in different literary styles: in prose ; in verse and mawguns ); and as chronograms.
The prose versions are those most commonly referred to as the chronicles. In general, Yazawins are a record of events in chronological order of kings organised by dynasties whereas ayedawbons are more detailed records of more celebrated kings. These definitions are loose generalisations: some ayedawbons are full-fledged chronicles of several kings or even dynasties while some yazawins such as Zatadawbon Yazawin and Yazawin Kyaw have narrower scopes.
Inscriptions
Inscriptions, most of which were set up by the kings, the royal families and their court officials as well as wealthy families, are the earliest surviving royal records. Most surviving inscriptions are from religious dedications, and contain valuable historical material; indeed, they represent the primary extant historical record down to the 16th century.Inscriptions are considered most accurate of all Burmese historiographic material because they are less susceptible to copying errors due to their longevity. A typical stone inscription lasts many centuries while the average life of a palm leaf record is only 100 to 150 years. Though some stone inscriptions too were recast, and some copying errors have been identified, they do not show the same degree of copying errors of palm-leaf records, many of which were recopied many times over. The oldest extant inscriptions in Burma are dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE in Pyu city-states. Inscriptions were still "rare in the 5th to the 10th centuries but from the 11th, there is literally a deluge of them". The earliest original inscription in Burmese is dated 1035 CE; an 18th-century recast stone inscription points to 984 CE.
Inscriptions have been invaluable in verifying the events described in the chronicles written centuries later. The Myazedi inscription, for example, confirmed the reign dates of kings Anawrahta to Kyansittha given in Zatadawbon Yazawin while disproving Hmannan's dates for those. Likewise, King Bayinnaung's Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription provides the exact dates of 17 key events of his first six years in power, enabling modern historians to check the chronicles. However, not all inscriptions are reliable records of secular events. The famous Kalyani Inscriptions, for example, make claims of legitimacy of the Hanthawaddy monarchy on religious grounds.
Myanmar possesses the largest number of historical stone inscriptions as well as most complete historical records in all of Southeast Asia. The first systematic effort to preserve the inscriptions was launched by King Bodawpaya per the royal order dated 23 July 1783 to check then existing chronicles with inscriptional evidence. By 1793, over 600 inscriptions from throughout the country were copied, and kept at the capital Amarapura. European scholars in the British colonial period greatly expanded the collection effort, with a 1921 edition of Epigraphia Birmanica by Charles Duroiselle listing some 1500 inscriptions in original spelling and a large photograph of each text. The most complete set of inscriptions, called She-haung Myanma Kyauksa Mya was only recently published by Yangon University's Department of Archaeology in five volumes from 1972 to 1987. Aside from over 500 Pagan period inscriptions, most of the other stone inscriptions have not been studied systematically.
Early chronicles
Early chronicles on palm-leaf manuscripts are those written prior to the 18th century when national chronicles first emerged. Of the earliest chronicles, those of Pagan and early Ava, whose names have been mentioned in inscriptions and later chronicles, only two supplementary chronicles from the late 13th and early 15th centuries survived. The rest of early chronicles date only from the 16th century.Many of the early chronicles did not survive for a number of reasons. First, the earliest manuscripts prior to the 15th century were rare and extremely costly. The cost of producing manuscripts did come down in the Ava period as literacy rates improved, and the Burmese literature "grew more voluminous and diverse". Even then, most did not survive warfare, the main factor in destruction of historical records in Burmese history. Burmese history is littered with instances of conquering forces destroying the conquered's records: Pagan records in 1287 during the Mongol invasions; Ava records in 1525 and in 1527 by the armies of Confederation of Shan States; Hanthawaddy records in 1565 by a rebellion; Toungoo records in 1600 by Mrauk-U forces; more Toungoo records in 1754 by Restored Hanthawaddy; remaining Hanthawaddy records in 1757 by Konbaung forces; Arakanese records in 1785 by Konbaung; Konbaung records in 1885 by the British. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most complete surviving chronicles are those of Upper Burma-based dynasties, which often were the victors of the wars. Even for those that survived the wars, "there were no record-room methods; mildew, ants, the accident of fire prevented many manuscripts reaching a great age". Those that survived did so only because private individuals outside the capital had painstakingly copied the original palm leaf manuscripts. The survival of the manuscripts was also facilitated by the increasing literacy rates in the Irrawaddy valley. In the 15th century, when the literacy rate was still low, the scribal work was chiefly handled by monks, but by the late 18th century, it was routinely handled by commoners as adult male literacy exceeded 50 percent.
As a result, the earliest surviving "chronicles" were not even the full official chronicles of their own era. The earliest extant chronicle, Zatadawbon Yazawin first written in the late 13th century by court astrologers was primarily a record of regnal dates of Upper Burma's kings. Likewise, the next surviving chronicle, the Yazawin Kyaw, written in 1502, was mainly a religious document; only one-seventh of the treatise concerned the affairs of Burmese kings down to 1496. Indeed, it was not even meant to be an authoritative chronicle as its author stated there was already an existing chronicle of the Ava court.
In general, the early chronicles can be categorised as histories of the rival kingdoms of 14th to 16th centuries, ancient histories of kingdoms of previous eras, and biographies of famous kings.
| Topic | Examples |
| 1. Histories of contemporary kingdoms | Zatadawbon Yazawin Yazawin Kyaw Inwa Yazawin Ketumadi Yazawin Hanthawaddy Yazawin Zinme Yazawin Pawtugi Yazawin |
| 2. Histories of ancient kingdoms | Tagaung Yazawin Pagan Yazawin Haung |
| 3. Biographies of famous kings | Razadarit Ayedawbon Hanthawaddy Hsinbyushin Ayedawbon |
Many of the early chronicles in some form had survived at least to the early 18th century since they were referenced by Maha Yazawin. An analysis of the passages of the chronicles directly quoted in Maha Yazawin shows that the referenced chronicles were most probably 16th century copies of the original chronicles, judging by their use of language, and most likely incomplete and partial copies, judging by their lack of specific dates, prior to the Toungoo period.