Strange parallels volume 1 integration of the mainland southeast asia in global context, c 800–1830

Tai Lieu Chat Luong


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Strange Parallels
Volume 1: Integration of the Mainland
Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830

This is the first volume in an ambitious two-volume study of a thousand years of Southeast Asian political, cultural, and economic history. The study has two goals: to overcome the fragmentation of
early Southeast Asian historiography and for the first time to connect
Southeast Asian to world history in serious and sustained fashion.
A blend of detailed archival work and secondary research, of local
inquiry and large-scale theorization, Volume 1 argues that each of
mainland Southeast Asia’s three great lowland corridors experienced
a pattern of accelerating integration punctuated by recurrent collapse.
These trajectories were broadly synchronized not only between corridors, but, most curiously, between the mainland and other sectors
of Eurasia. This volume describes the nature of consolidation – which
was simultaneously territorial, religious, and ethnic – and dissects the
fluid interplay of endogenous and external pressures encouraging that
trend. Volume 2 will explore parallels with Russia, France, and Japan
c. 800–1830 and will explain why in yet other areas of Eurasia fragmentation, not integration, became the norm. Here is a fundamentally
original analysis of both Southeast Asia and the premodern world.
Victor Lieberman is Professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Michigan. His publications include Burmese Administrative
Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580–1760, which won the Harry J.
Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, and an edited collection, Beyond Binary Histories: Re-imagining Eurasia to c. 1830. Papers
in that collection originally appeared as a special edition of Modern
Asian Studies devoted to an examination of Lieberman’s scholarship.

studies in comparative world history
Editors
Michael Adas, Rutgers University
Philip D. Curtin, The Johns Hopkins University
Other Books in the Series
Michael Adas, Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements Against
the European Colonial Order (1979)
Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (1984)
Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil,
and West Africa, 1780–1945 (1989)
Philip D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in
Atlantic History (1990)
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World,
1400–1680 (1992)
Marshall G. S. Hodgson and Edmund Burke III (ed.), Rethinking World
History (1993)
David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (1995)
Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History,
1400–1900 (2002)



Strange Parallels
Volume 1
Integration of the Mainland
Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830

victor lieberman
University of Michigan

  
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Victor Lieberman 2003
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without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2003
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To Sharon, and to the memory of my mother and father



Contents

page xi

List of Figures
Principal Political Eras on the Mainland

xiii

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

xv

Preface

xix

1

Introduction: The Ends of the Earth
Part A: Rethinking Southeast Asia
Part B: Implications for Eurasia

1

6
66

2

One Basin, Two Poles: The Western Mainland and the
Formation of Burma

85

3
4

A Stable, Maritime Consolidation: The Central
Mainland

212

“The Least Coherent Territory in the World”: Vietnam
and the Eastern Mainland

338

Conclusion and Prologue

457
461

Index

ix



List of Figures

1.1 Territorial Consolidation in Central Mainland Southeast
Asia and in the Russian Plains and Siberia
1.2 Territorial Consolidation in Western Mainland
Southeast Asia and in France

page 3
4

1.3 Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 1220

24

1.4 Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 1340

26

1.5 Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 1540

29

1.6 Mainland Southeast Asia in 1824

32

1.7 Administrative Patterns on the Mainland

35

1.8 Some Elements in the Integration of Mainland Realms
to 1830 and Their Potential Interactions

65

2.1 Western Mainland Southeast Asia

86

2.2 Religious Donations at Pagan

109

˜
2.3 Composite Time Series for Recurrence of El Nino
Events since 622 c.e.

110

2.4 Long-term Fluctuations in Vegetation and
Temperature

111

3.1. Central Mainland Southeast Asia

213

xi


List of Figures

3.2 Distribution of Rice Husk Types by Period in Thailand
and Cambodia

250

4.1 Eastern Mainland Southeast Asia

339

4.2 Estimated Population of Vietnam

420

xii


Principal Political Eras on the Mainland

western mainland
Pyu Era, c. 200–840
Pagan, c. 950–1300
Ava Period, 1365–1555
Independent Ra-manya Polity, c. 1300–1539

First Toungoo Dynasty, c. 1486–1599
Restored Toungoo Dynasty, 1597–1752
Kon-baung Dynasty, 1752–1885

central mainland
Funan, c. 200–600
Dvaravati Period, c. 550–900
Pre-Angkorian Cambodia, c. 600–800
Angkor, 802/889–c. 1440
Early Ayudhya Period, 1351–1569
Late Ayudhya Period, 1569–1767
Taksin, 1767–1782
Chakri Dynasty, 1782–present

eastern mainland
Chinese Imperial Period, 43–938
Ly Dynasty, 1009–1225
Tran Dynasty, 1225–1400
xiii


Principal Political Eras on the Mainland

Ming Occupation, 1407–1427
Le Dynasty, 1428–1788
Mac Period at Thang Long, 1527–1592
Trinh Period, 1592–1786
Southern Nguyen Period, c. 1600–1802
Tayson Era, 1771–1802
Nguyen Dynasty, 1802–1945

xiv


Abbreviations Used in the Notes

A

AA-L

AAS
AA-T

AHR
B I, B II

BEFEO
BL OR 3464

BSOAS
BTLV
CC
CEHI

Original Inscriptions Collected by King Bodawpaya in
Upper Burma and Now Placed Near the Patodawgyi
Pagoda, Amarapura (Rangoon, 1913).
Let-we-naw-yahta, “Alaung-min-taya-gyi ayei-dawbon,” in U Hla Tin, ed., Alaung-hpaya ayei-daw-bon
hnasaung-dwe (Rangoon, 1961), 1–152.
Association for Asian Studies

Twin-thin-taik-wun, “Alaung-min-taya-gyi ayei-dawbon,” in U Hla Tin, ed., Alaung-hpaya ayei-daw-bon
hnasaung-dwe (Rangoon, 1961), 153–233.
American Historical Review
Inscriptions Copied from the Stones Collected by King
Bodawpaya and Placed Near the Arakan Pagoda, Mandalay,
2 vols. (Rangoon, 1897).
Bulletin de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient
British Library, London. MS Orient. 3464. Burmese
translation of Mon history of Pegu by Monk of Athwa.
Composed late 1760s (?), transcribed 1847.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Climatic Change
The Cambridge Economic History of India. Vol. 1: c. 1200–
c. 1750, Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, eds.
(Cambridge, 1982).
xv


Abbreviations Used in the Notes

CHSEA

CSSH
Dal
EHR
GRL
GUBSS

HNY
I 1089, etc.

JAH
JAOS
JAS
JBRS
JEH
JEMH
JESHO
JIH
JRAS
JSEAH
JSEAS
JSS
JWH
KBZ
LBHK
LFSG

List
MAS

The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Vol. 1:
From Earliest Times to c. 1800, Nicholas Tarling, ed.
(Cambridge, 1992).
Comparative Studies in Society and History
Reprint from Dalrymple’s Oriental Repertory, 1791–97 of
Portions Relating to Burma (Rangoon, 1926).
Economic History Review

Geophysical Research Letters
Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, J. George
Scott and J. P. Hardiman, comps. Part I, 2 vols., Part II,
3 vols. (Rangoon, 1900–1901).
Hman-nan-daw-u-dwin pyu-zi-yin-ya-thaw maha-yazawin-daw-gyi, vol. 3 (Mandalay, 1908).
Inscriptions numbered according to Chas. Duroiselle,
comp. and ed., A List of Inscriptions Found in Burma.
Part I (Rangoon, 1921).
Journal of Asian History
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Journal of Asian Studies
Journal of the Burma Research Society
Journal of Economic History
Journal of Early Modern History
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and
Ireland
Journal of Southeast Asian History
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Journal of the Siam Society
Journal of World History
Kon-baung-zet maha-ya-zawin-daw-gyi, U Tin (Mandalay), comp., 3 vols. (rpt., London, 1967–68).
Thi-ri-u-zana, Law-ka-byu-ha kyan (In-yon sa-dan),
U Hpo Lat, ed. (Rangoon, 1968).
India Office Records, London. Records of Fort St. George.
Letters to Fort St. George, 1681/82–1744/45. 29 vols.
(Madras, 1916–33).
List of Microfilms Deposited in the Centre for East Asian
Cultural Studies, Part 8, Burma (Tokyo, 1976).

Modern Asian Studies
xvi


Abbreviations Used in the Notes

MMOS
NL 1950, etc.
PP
PPA
REO
ROB
RUL 45235

SEAR
SHDMA
SMK

TL
UB
UK

ZOK

U Tin (Pagan Wun-dauk), Myan-ma-min ok-chok-pon sadan, 5 vols. (Rangoon, 1931–33).
National Library, Rangoon, MS 1950, etc.
Past and Present
Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Ava (Rangoon, 1892).
Revue de l’Extreme-Orient
The Royal Orders of Burma, A.D. 1598–1885, Than Tun,

ed., 10 vols. (Kyoto, 1983–1990).
Rangoon University Library MS 45235, “Nyaung-yan
mintaya let-htet-daw-ga-thi Anauk-hpet-lun Tha-lunmin-taya-taing min-thon-zet amein-daw . . .” no transcription date.
South East Asian Research
Maung Thu-ta, Sa-hso-daw-mya at-htok-pat-ti (rpt., Rangoon, 1971).
Burma, Department of Archaeology, Shei-haung myanma kyauk-sa-mya, t. 474–1150, 6 vols. (Rangoon, 1972–
1991).
Maha-dama-thin-gyan, Tha-thana-lin-ga-ya sa-dan
(Rangoon, 1897).
Inscriptions Collected in Upper Burma, 2 vols. (Rangoon,
1900, 1903).
U Kala, Maha-ya-zawin-gyi. Vols. 1, 2, Saya Pwa,
ed. (Rangoon, 1926, 1932); Vol. 3, Hsaya U Kin So
(Rangoon, 1961).
Zam-bu-di-pa ok-hsaung kyan, J. S. Furnivall and Pe
Maung Tin, eds. (Rangoon, 1960).

To facilitate identification, the first time each nonabbreviated source
appears in the notes of a new chapter, that source receives a full citation
with author, title, place, and date of publication.

xvii



Preface

My strongest academic memory from graduate school – a feeling, I am
certain, not unique to me – was a sense that precolonial Southeast Asian
historiography was desperately chaotic and difficult to penetrate. Texts

available in the 1970s and 1980s offered an endless array of names,
battles, and dates with few, if any, long-term patterns discernible for
individual realms, much less the region as a whole or major subregions.
I also remember thinking – a more idiosyncratic reverie, no doubt –
how very curious it was that the 16th-century unification of Burma
coincided with the dramatic annexations of Ivan IV in Russia, and that
in both Russia and Burma these conquests yielded to periods of utter
chaos at the turn of the 17th century. Preoccupied with Burmese research,
I relegated such coincidences to the “useless trivia” section of my mind.
But years later, when completion of some Burma projects allowed me
to revisit the issue of correlations, it gradually dawned on me that far
from being a 16th-century peculiarity, parallel chronologies extended
throughout much of Burmese and Russian history. What is more, I began
to realize, substantially similar chronologies were shared by other farflung sectors of Eurasia with no obvious connection to either Burma or
Russia.
The present two-volume study Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in
Global Context, c. 800–1830 addresses these abiding, ultimately interrelated, concerns: What were the principal long-term trends in precolonial
Southeast Asian political, cultural, and economic history? How did that
history relate to the rest of the world? Volume One: Integration of the
Mainland, focuses on sustained political and cultural integration in each
of the three chief sectors of continental Southeast Asia. Of course, this is
xix


Preface

hardly the only possible narrative – one could as easily consider trends
in gender relations, literature, or Chinese trade, with rather different
implications for compartmentalizing Southeast Asia – but it is a critical
story that touches on diverse spheres and facilitates novel comparisons

between mainland Southeast Asia and other parts of Eurasia. Volume
Two: Mainland Mirrors: Russia, France, Japan, and the Islands attempts precisely such comparisons. It argues that in terms of linear-cum-cyclic
trajectories, chronology, and dynamics, the mainland resembled much
of Europe and Japan, but diverged significantly from South Asia and
island Southeast Asia.
My own expertise in non-European primary sources is in Burmese.
As soon as I decided on this comparative project, I therefore had
to decide: should I attempt to write about regions outside Burma, or
should I collaborate with other specialists? A concern for expertise instinctively inclined me to the latter approach, which in fact inspired an
earlier collection of essays I edited, Beyond Binary Histories: Re-imagining
Eurasia to c. 1830, in which nine specialists commented on the applicability to their areas, ranging from France to Java, of more general theories
of Eurasian development.1 Yet, despite their authority and despite a
preliminary effort to get each contributor to address a common set of
themes, in the end these essays, I think, remained rather disparate. One
simply cannot expect several scholars, with unique training and temperament, to focus on precisely the same questions, especially if those
are questions of Eurasian coordination alien to traditional disciplinary
concerns. If a theory of Southeast Asian, much less Eurasian, history
is to have any claim to coherence or originality, it cannot be done by
committee.
At the same time, any historian attempting this task must accept that
her/his work is provisional, designed to stimulate new perspectives
but certain to attract specialist criticism. Such a scholar also must do
everything to overcome the limits of her/his background by reading
widely, thinking deeply – and seeking expert advice wherever possible.
Accordingly, in writing this first volume I have accumulated a large
number of debts that I am eager to acknowledge.
If Chapter 2, on the western mainland, embodies the fruits of some
25 years of research in Burmese-language primary sources, even here
I have benefited from the generosity of other scholars. I spent a year
1

Victor Lieberman, ed., Beyond Binary Histories: Re-imagining Eurasia to c. 1830 (Ann Arbor,
1999).

xx


Preface

interrogating 530 14th- to 16-century inscriptions with Burma’s leading
historian and epigrapher, U Than Tun, whose erudition is exceeded only
by his patience. On many occasions his kind wife Ma Khin Yi assisted
us. Michael Aung-Thwin readily made available his recent, exciting research on the Mon kingdom of Lower Burma and answered sundry
other questions. U Saw Tun helped me with Pagan cultural history,
while U Toe Hla introduced me to the world of Kon-baung commercial contracts (thet-kayits) and provided three volumes of unpublished
thet-kayit manuscripts. Besides drawing my attention to little-known
primary sources, Michael Charney offered insights into Arakanese cultural and Burmese military history. Sun Laichen did the same with
Ming-Burmese overland trade and Chinese military technology, and
Wil O. Dijk provided a cornucopia of information on Burmese-Dutch
ă Schendel widened my uneconomic relations in the 17th century. Jorg
derstanding of 19th-century Kon-baung trade. Bob Hudson provided
data on pre-Pagan archeology, and Patrick Pranke answered questions
on Kon-baung Buddhism. Several of these scholars also provided specific citations and working papers, which I gratefully acknowledge in the
notes. The late H. L. Shorto furnished translations of two Mon histories
of the 16th–18th centuries, the Uppanna Sudhammavati Rajavamsa-katha
and the Nidana Ramadhipati-katha, while Ken Breazeale made available
translations from the early 19th-century Mon annals, Phongsawadan Mon
Phama. My Michigan colleague Valerie Kivelson, although an historian
of Russia, offered critical readings of Chapters 1 and 2, and over the
years has helped me think through a variety of problems in early modern historiography.

In Chapter 3, the sections on Angkor and Cambodia benefited
from comments and/or unpublished research provided by Ashley
Thompson, Charles Higham, Dan Penny, and most especially David
Chandler, Roland Fletcher, and Christophe Pottier. On Thai history
Yoneo Ishii, David Wyatt, Richard O’Connor, and Dhiravat na Pombejra
answered specialized inquiries and in some cases supplied unpublished
materials. In addition, Thongchai Winichakul, Yoneo Ishii, Dhiravat na
Pombejra, David Chandler, Junko Koizumi, and Constance Wilson provided painstaking written comments on various drafts of Chapter 3,
ensuring a level of expertise I would not have been able to attain on
my own.
For Chapter 4, covering Vietnam and the eastern mainland, I am indebted to John Whitmore, my friend and colleague for 35 years, who
has guided me in things Vietnamese and has helped shape my ideas on
xxi


Preface

Southeast Asia in general. Alexander Woodside also provided penetrating written commentary on this chapter, answered questions, and drew
my attention to research in Vietnamese and Japanese that I eventually
had translated. When I visited Cornell, Keith Taylor, in a display of collegiality and generosity I shall not forget, went over the penultimate
draft of Chapter 4 with me page by page and line by line. Likewise,
Li Tana, Nola Cooke, and Brian Zottoli supplied highly detailed written
comments on this chapter and shared with me their latest scholarship.
George Dutton and Charles Wheeler were no less supportive, providing
copies of their dissertations and research papers.
My foray into the initially unfamiliar world of paleoclimatology depended on assistance from James C. G. Walker, Philip Meyers, Michael
E. Mann, David Godley, Dan Penny, Thomas Crowley, and Pao K. Wang.
Kathleen Morrison supplied material on climate and famine in medieval
India, while Jack Goldstone’s unpublished papers alerted me to his new
research on global economic history. I hasten to add that neither these

scholars nor any of the Southeast Asian historians who aided me are
responsible for shortcomings in the text.
For translations of primary and secondary sources in Japanese I am
grateful to Atsuko Naono, Mariko Foulk, and Matthew Stavros. For
translations of early Chinese documents I depended on Sun Laichen’s
expertise. D. N. Dang-vu and John Whitmore translated Vietnamese
materials. Fe Susan Go, Michigan’s Southeast Asia librarian, has been
unfailingly helpful in tracking down obscure sources over the years,
while the staff of the 7-FAST service at the library cheerfully supplied
me with more than 1,500 special orders.
I am grateful as well for the following grants and fellowships: a
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, a Social
Science Research Council/American Council of Learned Societies Research Grant, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for
University Teachers, a NEH Summer Stipend, an Arthur H. Cole Grantin-Aid from the Economic History Association; and from the University of Michigan, the Richard Hudson Research Professorship, a Horace
H. Rackham Faculty Fellowship, plus translation, travel, and research
grants from the Office of the Vice-President for Research, the Center
for Japanese Studies, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and the
History Department. In addition, the History Department and the Office of the Vice-President for Research furnished a subvention for maps
and charts, which were skillfully and cheerfully executed by Asligul
Gocmen.
xxii


Preface

The readers of my manuscript, Merle Ricklefs, Ian Brown, and a third
anonymous referee, provided much welcome encouragement. Frank
Smith, Publishing Director for Social Sciences at Cambridge University
Press, agreed to convert what was originally a one-book project into two
volumes. For this decision as well as for his editorial support and that

of Michael Adas, I am deeply grateful.
Finally, for her intellectual comradeship, tolerance of receding deadlines, and sustained optimism, I thank Sharon, my wife and best friend.
V. L.
January 2002

xxiii