Qualla: Hanthawaddy Kingdom https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hanthawaddy Kingdom https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom Hanthawaddy Kingdom: Introduction https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. For a century, the merchants of Bago filled their king's treasury with Indian Ocean gold while monks carried Buddhist scriptures back and forth to Sri Lanka. The Hanthawaddy Kingdom -- known simply as Pegu to European traders who marveled at its gilded spires -- was the dominant power of Lower Burma from the late 1200s through the 1530s. Founded by Mon-speaking peoples in the chaos following the Pagan Empire's collapse, it spent its first decades as a loose, fractious federation. What transformed it into a golden age was not military conquest but something rarer: a succession of gifted rulers who chose commerce and religion over war.

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hanthawaddy Kingdom: Born from Collapse https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the Pagan Kingdom disintegrated in 1287 under Mongol pressure, the Mon people of Lower Burma seized the opportunity. King Wareru founded what he called Ramannadesa, a state nominally bowing to both the Sukhothai Kingdom of present-day Thailand and the Mongol Yuan dynasty. In...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-born-from-collapse.mp3 0:06 2 full Hanthawaddy Kingdom: The King Who Forged a Nation https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. Everything changed with Razadarit. Ascending to power in 1384, this energetic monarch spent his reign welding the three Mon-speaking regions -- Myaungmya, Donwun, and Martaban -- into a single functioning state. His great test came from the north. The Burmese-speaking Ava Kingdom...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-the-king-who-forged-a-nation.mp3 0:06 3 full Hanthawaddy Kingdom: A Golden Age on the Indian Ocean https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the 1420s to the 1530s, Hanthawaddy entered a golden age that its people would remember for centuries. While rival Ava declined, Pegu flourished under a remarkable sequence of monarchs: Binnya Ran I, the warrior-queen Shin Sawbu, the reformer Dhammazedi, and Binnya Ran II. T...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-a-golden-age-on-the-indian-ocean.mp3 0:06 4 full Hanthawaddy Kingdom: A Swift and Bitter End https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. The end came with shocking speed. By the early 1500s, the small Taungoo dynasty in Upper Burma had begun raiding Ava's territory, and its ambitious leaders -- King Tabinshwehti and his brilliant general Bayinnaung -- soon turned their attention south. Hanthawaddy's King Takayutpi...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-a-swift-and-bitter-end.mp3 0:06 5 full Hanthawaddy Kingdom: A Memory That Would Not Die https://qualla.com/hanthawaddy-kingdom/ Photo credit Caphtaain, CC BY-SA 4.0. Though the Taungoo dynasty ruled Lower Burma for another two centuries, the Mon people never forgot Hanthawaddy's golden age. The memory of prosperous markets, gilded pagodas, and independent Mon rule persisted as both cultural pride and political aspiration. In 1740, when the Ta...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/d/hanthawaddy-kingdom-wp/w5hd-hanthawaddy-kingdom-a-memory-that-would-not-die.mp3 0:06 6 full