Decades of military rule in Myanmar has led to the country being closed to most people in the world today, and meant that knowledge of her rich and complex history, her cultural and economic interconnections with the wider region remain largely unknown. Curator Alexandra Green provides a snapshot of Burma/Myanmar’s history, part of an ongoing exhibition at The British Museum to mark the 75th anniversary of her independence.
In the late A.D. 1000s, a Mon pilgrim from what is today lower Myanmar travelled to Bodh Gaya, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment, over 1,000 miles away. We know this because the pilgrim participated in a common merit-making activity of the time: stamping clay with religious imagery, but additionally incised a Mon-language inscription on the side. The tablet exemplifies many of the themes represented in the British Museum’s new exhibition Burma to Myanmar (and accompanying book) this post briefly summarises these in relationship to some objects with links to South Asia.
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On the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from British colonial control, the British Museum is exploring the long histories of the country through her cross-cultural interactions and the impact they had upon her material culture and art. Although Burma was important for Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these histories are little known in the United Kingdom today — with the media focusing on Myanmar’s contemporary events.
Burma to Myanmar reveals the complexity of Myanmar’s history and experiment with ways to represent diversity without emphasising the majority. Myanmar is historically diverse, home to different kingdoms, empires, principalities, chiefdoms and complex kinship networks which, until 1948, had never been a single political entity; these various parts are discussed separately to demonstrate their individuality. However, diversity is normalised by also combining the works of different ethnic groups thematically, rather than showing them separate from the majority. Further, by borrowing objects almost exclusively from collections from within the United Kingdom, the project also elucidates British–Burmese colonial relationships, including the role of objects in the creation of such connections. (These scenes are set in both the exhibition and the book by a discussion of Myanmar’s natural resources and geographical position.) This is followed by chronological sections that cover approximately the past 1,500 years through cross-cultural encounters, focussing on the 15th to 19th centuries and ending with the military coup of 2021.
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Despite it being a developing country today, Myanmar is rich in resources, and its location on the Bay of Bengal and between South Asia, India and China, has enabled extensive participation in land and sea trade routes. It was a trans-shipment point for trade in cowrie shells which were, for instance, transported across the region into southwestern China. The many peoples en route also found uses for them, as can be seen on a Chin belt, collected by a colonel in the British army between 1886–91 during the ‘pacification’ of Burma. The belt is covered with cowrie shells, indicating the wearer’s wealth and status locally. Similarly, the region’s role in trade is evident in the production of ceramic jars called ‘Martaban’ after the town where famous kilns were once located (Martaban/Mottama), which were used on ships. Twante, near Yangon, also fashioned globular trade jars. The travel writings of Ibn Battuta from 1350 describe their popularity on trade vessels, where they were used to store food, water and goods.
Trade was a major source of income historically for many areas of Myanmar. The wide distribution of Pyu coinage across parts of mainland Southeast Asia from the 5th to 9th centuries suggests extensive political and economic connections. The coins’ shape and patterning — circular with central motifs and dotting — are similar to those found in India and Persia though arranged in a Southeast Asian fashion, and the imagery includes emblems associated with Hinduism, Buddhism and kingship, including the auspicious srivatsa symbol, also found in India. Numerous later trade links also exist. For instance, King Dhammaraja Hussain (a regnal appellation combining a Buddhist title with a Muslim name) of the kingdom of Mrauk U in Arakan issued coinage in three languages — Arakanese, Bengali, and Persian — between 1612–22 to express his power across wide trade networks (Image 1). Similarly, a trading permit issued on palm leaf in Burmese and on paper in Persian to an Armenian merchant living in Chennai (Madras) by Mrauk U’s King Sanda Wizaya in 1728 further demonstrates the kingdom’s interconnectedness with global trends.
Image 1: Coin (tanka) issued by King Dhammaraja Hussain, 1612–22. Arakan. Silver. Weight 10.1 g, Diam. 2.95 cms © British Museum, London, 1882,0508.4. Donated in 1882 by Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Phayre, first Commissioner of British Burma (1862–67). This image is copyrighted; please see information below.
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Religion is another theme that underpins cross-cultural interactions. During the ‘golden age’ of the kingdom of Bago (Pegu) in present-day lower Myanmar (1450s–1530s), the kingdom became an important religious centre with connections to Sri Lanka. This appears in a 15th-century gold stupa reliquary with a square harmika superstructure typical of Sri Lankan stupas that was excavated near the Shwedagon stupa in Yangon in 1855. And, from an early date until 1885, Brahmins from various sites in India, arriving voluntarily or forcibly, played important roles in advising and legitimising the king’s authority, determining auspicious times, and performing rituals at the Buddhist courts of Arakan, Bago and other places in lower and central Myanmar.
When King Alaungpaya (r. 1752–60), and later his sons, marched their armies into Manipur (eastern India) between 1758 and 1826, large numbers of people were relocated from there to the Konbaung court in central Myanmar, including many Brahmins. Their presence at court appears in numerous 19th-century manuscripts depicting court activities, with Brahmins occupying various ranks from fan-bearers to royal advisors.
The movement of people due to warfare had varied cultural results. When the Manipuri cavalry was captured and incorporated into the Konbaung army, they brought their famous equestrian skills with them. Settled in the capital cities of Ava (and later Amarapura), given élite status, yet tattooed to prevent their escape, the Manipuri cavalry prompted the popularisation of the game of polo at the Burmese court from the 1820s, as seen in illustrated court manuscripts (Image 2). Similarly, when Thai theatrical troupes were taken during the sack of the kingdom of Ayutthaya in central Thailand in 1767 by the armies of Konbaung king Hsinbyushin (r. 1763–76), they were resettled in the capital city of Ava where they popularised performances of the (Thai/Burmese) Ramayana epic. Itinerant local troupes in Myanmar adopted this, transmitting it around the region with their own performances, where it was incorporated into other art forms including on shwe-chi-doe (kalaga) textile hangings made of black velvet with colourful pieces of cloth appliquéd to it.
Image 2: Manuscript illustrating courtiers playing polo, about 1830s–90s. Mandalay. Gouache, paper. H. 41.6 cm, W. 18.8 cm (per page) © Wellcome Collection, 727619i/47114i. Purchased from Steven’s Auction House, London, 22 October 1918 (Lot 72a); a tag identified a previous owner as C.B. Jarvis Edwards, Mandalay, 1 May 1893. This image is copyrighted; please see information below.
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Colonialism arrived in 1826 with the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War when Arakan and Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) were annexed to British India. The remainder of lower Myanmar was taken after the second war in 1852, and the third war of 1885 saw the end of the Konbaung dynasty. The central region, lower Myanmar and Arakan were governed directly with the abolition of the monarchy and élites, while the highland areas were controlled indirectly through local rulers.
As a province of British India, Burma was transformed culturally, socially, religiously, and economically. Numerous Indian and Chinese people arrived, providing cheap labour and entrepreneurial and administrative skills, so that by the 1930s, there was anxiety about the preservation of Burmese culture. Yet, the Burmese produced goods for these new communities, such as a lacquer plate in the Burmese shwezawa gold leaf technique showing Gandhi (Image 3), who visited British Burma on three occasions while campaigning for Indian independence. The imposition of the Census transformed ethnic categorisation from something flexible that was adapted to suit different contexts into a rigid system associated with specific territories, setting the stage for the later ethnic strifes of the 20th century.
Image 3: Plate depicting M.K. ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, 1930s. British Burma. Bamboo, lacquer, gold. H. 1.5 cm, D. 15.2 cms © British Museum, London, 2001,0612.1. Purchased from Joss Graham Oriental Textiles, 2001. This image is copyrighted; please see information below.
The Second World War devastated Myanmar physically and economically, but also hastened independence from the British. In 1942, the recently formed Burma Independence Army (BIA) under General Aung San joined the Japanese as a way to escape British control, but when Japanese colonial intentions became clear, the BIA switched allegiance to the Allies on condition that independence negotiations were to begin immediately after the war. The ferocity and difficulty of battles in the Burma arena were acknowledged by the development of the Burma Star medal given to Allied troops who served in Burma between 11 December 1941 and 2 September 1945. The exhibit in Burma to Myanmar was awarded to a Nepalese Gurkha, Ramchandrabahadur Ghale of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Gurkha Rifles; the Gurkhas were élite soldiers recruited into the British Army beginning in 1816, and Gurkha regiments were vital in the Allied struggle to regain Burma in 1944–45.
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With independence in January 1948, the new government of the Union of Burma faced the monumental task of unifying a country that had never been a single nation at any time in its history. Various regions were promised internal self-rule in discussions in 1947, but this was not fulfilled after independence, resulting in civil wars. In 1962, General U Ne Win led a military coup, and set the country on the ‘Burmese way to socialism’, which entailed isolation from the world and the expulsion of people who were considered foreigners, including hundreds of thousands of Indians. The emphases on the Burman majority population and Buddhism further contributed to the ethnic and religious strife that has bedevilled the country, culminating in the genocide of the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State (Arakan) from 2017 onward. Photographic competitions in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh have developed a body of images that reveal life in the camps, either overtly or more subtly. For example, Ro Mehrooz’s Lost in Reflection: A Rohingya’s Gaze into Hope’s Abyss displayed at the exhibition shows the beautiful textures of a muddy water hole that also testify to issues with quality of drinking water, and washing, endured by residents in the camps.
After a tantalisingly short period of semi-civilian in the 2010s during which time many Burmese artists were able to engage widely with the world around them, another military coup in February 2021 put an end to her openness again. Art has returned to being a form of resistance to dictatorship, yet now sometimes with new global imagery. Images of dissent projected onto the sides of buildings after the coup show people adopting the three-fingered salute from The Hunger Games used by pro-democracy protestors across Asia as a symbol of defiance. What the future will bring, however, remains uncertain.
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Banner image © Manuscript illustrating courtiers playing polo, about 1830s–90s. Mandalay. Gouache, paper. H. 41.6 cm, W. 18.8 cm (per page) © Wellcome Collection, 727619i/47114i. Purchased from Steven’s Auction House, London, 22 October 1918 (Lot 72a); a tag identified a previous owner as C.B. Jarvis Edwards, Mandalay, 1 May 1893.
The ‘Myanmar @ 75’ logo is copyrighted by the LSE South Asia Centre, and may not be used by anyone for any purpose. It shows the national flower of Myanmar, Padauk (Pterocarpus macrocarpus), framed in a design adapted from Burmese ikat textile weaves. The logo has been designed by Oroon Das.
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