History of Inwa

Bayme In

Wunbe In

Other records also include Kyaukmaw In  Ngagyi In  and Inbu In 

The brick fortifications of Inwa do not follow the conventions of the earlier rectilinear city plans. Instead, the zigzagged outer walls are popularly thought to outline the figure of a seated lion. The inner enclosure or citadel was laid out according to traditional cosmological principles and provided the requisite twelve gates. (The inner city was reconstructed on at least three occasions in 1597, 1763, and 1832.)

Ava period (14th to 16th centuries)

The kingdom Thadominbya founded with the capital at Inwa became known as the Ava Kingdom, the main polity of Upper Burma until 1555. During this period, the city was the center of a flourishing literary scene in which Burmese literature "grew more confident, popular, and stylistically diverse, chiefly through the efforts of monks who chose to write in the vernacular rather than, or in addition to, in Pali." The period also saw the second generation of Burmese law codes (dhammathats), which critiqued earlier compilations, new poetic genres, and the perfection of older verse forms as well as the earliest pan-Burma Burmese language chronicles. The city got a new "exquisite golden palace" in February 1511 by which King Shwenankyawshin is posthumously remembered.

During this period, the capital city was the target of the kingdom's rivals. It came under siege in 1404–1405 during the Forty Years' War. Over a century later, on 25 March 1527, the city finally fell to the repeated attacks by the Confederation of Shan States and the Prome Kingdom. It then became the capital of the unruly