The Sad Afterlife of King Saw Lu

• In Event: The Saw Lu Inscription and Myanmar's Early History

Abstract

The inscription's association with king Saw Lu ( reigned 1077-1084) provides an opportunity to reassess the significance of a king usually given short shrift in Burmese chronicles, also used by modern scholars padding meager historical evidence. The Chronicles cast Saw Lu as a wastrel whose ignominious death opportunely spared Pagan further debacles.
A fresh look at the evidence indicates that Saw Lu was not a disaster waiting to happen, but an innovator who bequeathed the kingdom ideational practices that shadowed Pagan's subsequent development. Saw Lu's long Indic title was unprecedented, as was his chief wife's. The appellation of his kingdom as Arimaddana, a hitherto unattested label hinting at grandiose aspirations if not reality, also suggests ideational churning. Pagan endowments dateable to his reign marked departures in how the kingdom's hegemonic ideology appeared in the public domain. The newly found Myittha stone inscriptions evidence a Buddhist path on the move and a Dharma servicing contemporary needs. Saw Lu's pursuit of his father's imperial vision encountered resistance from indigenous rulers with their own ambitions, The problem has bedeviled the entity later called Myanmar ever since.

Author

• Lilian Handlin, Independent Scholar