Ava
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts.Many units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Ava
(Burmese, Inwa). — The old capital of Burma, in the Tada-u town- ship of Sagaing District, Upper Burma, situated in 21 51' N. and 96 E. The remains of the old city lie at the junction of the Myitnge (Dokta- waddy) with the Irrawaddy, the city having been built on a triangular island artificially formed by a channel called the Myittha chaung, which was dug from the Myitnge to the Irrawaddy. The few houses left are now scattered about in more than two dozen hamlets, inhabited by colonies of lacquerers, weavers, and other artisans, some without, some within, the old walls. The city stood at the north-east corner of the island.
The outer wall is surrounded by a moat, open towards the Myitnge on the east but closed on the north towards the Irrawaddy. The inner or palace wall has a second similar moat round it. Of the old palace nothing is left but one shaky brick tower, very much out of the perpen- dicular, and not likely long to remain standing. The walls, both outer and inner, are still very solid and substantial, and give some idea of the aspect that Ava in its palmy days must have presented ; but they have now been nearly swamped by a sea of undergrowth. The area between the inner and outer wall is filled with stretches of cultivated land, scattered hamlets, kyaungs, and enormous jungle-clad masses of bricks that were once pagodas. Much of this area and all the space within the inner walls are extremely picturesque. The numberless fine old tamarind-trees of huge size, the level green swards, the profuse vegetation, half hiding the thatched hamlets, the massive old walls and ruined shrines, the cleared vistas, make up a scene which suggests a park rather than the site of an old capital. The view across the river to Sagaing, up stream to Mandalay, and eastwards over the Amarapura plains to the Shan Hills is unequalled on the Irrawaddy.
The principal pagodas are the Lawkamanaung, the Yatanamanaung, the Zinamanaung, the Tuthamanaung, and the Ngamanaung, built by king Sanemintayagyi in the year 306 b. e. (a. d. 944) ; and the Shwezigon, built by king Mingyizwa Sawke in the year 529 e. e. (1167).
Founded by king Thadominpaya in the middle of the fourteenth century, after the final collapse of the Pagan dynasty, Ava was for many years the capital of one of the kingdoms that struggled during the middle ages for the mastery in Burma. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the king of Ava was constantly either invading the territory of the Talaings or resisting Peguan attacks on his own kingdom ; and more than once during that period Ava saw Shan kings reigning within her gates, and Chinese armies encamped before her walls. In the sixteenth century the Toungoo dynasty rose to power, and in 1554 Bayin Naung, king of Toungoo, laid siege to and took the Burmese capital. The fortunes of the town were at a low ebb during the last half of the sixteenth and the early years of the Seven- teenth century, but in 1636 it became the capital of an empire which then included Pegu and the greater part of what is now Burma. The Peguans, however, revolted about the middle of the eighteenth century and shook off the Burmese yoke, and in 1752 Ava was captured by a Talaing army and burnt to the ground. It was not long before Alaungpaya had turned the tables on the Talaing conquerors ; but that monareh made his own capital at Shwebo, and Ava did not be- come the head-quarters of government again till 1766, when Sinbyushin, one of Alaungpaya's sons, rebuilt the palace and moved his court there. The town did not long remain the capital, however. A few years later Bodawpaya built a new city at Amarapura, and the court and its follow- ing migrated there in 1783. Bagyidaw, Bodawpaya's grandson, moved the seat of government back to Ava in 1822 ; and the town was the capital of Burma during the first Burmese War, and was the objective of the British troops in their advance up the Irrawaddy in 1826. It was Bagyidaw's successor, Tharrawaddy, who finally abandoned the city as the capital, and established himself at Amarapura, and since 1837 no Burmese monareh has resided in Ava.
Preparations were made at Ava to arrest the advance of the British up the Irrawaddy at the time of the annexation of Upper Burma in 1S85 ; steps were taken by the Burmans to block the channel of the river opposite the town and troops were collected, but the resistance collapsed. Ava was for some time after the annexation the head- quarters of a separate District, which was, however, before long absorbed into Sagaing District.
