History of Mrauk-oo

Mythology

A popular myth amongst the Arakanese and the Burmese people is that the name Mrauk U was derived from a legend of a monkey offering Gautama Buddha an egg as a sign of devotion. From this legend, it is purported that the name Monkey Egg (Myauk U) stuck with the region, and from it, the current Mrauk U was derived.

Another dismissed myth was that in the region where Mrauk U was to be constructed, lived a lonely female monkey. She met a peacock and the two later cohabited. The female monkey conceived with the peacock, and it laid an egg. A human son was born from the egg and he grew up to become a mighty prince. The prince later built a city near the jungle, and in respect of his birth story, the city was called Myauk-U meaning ‘Monkey’s Egg’.

History

Mrauk-U, or Arrakan (city of Arrakan), in the first plan the Portuguese settlement of Daingri-pet. In Wouter Schouten : Oost-Indische Voyagie, t.o. p. 148. 1676

In 1433, King Min Saw Mon established Mrauk U as the capital of the last unified Arakanese Kingdom. The city eventually reached a size of 160,000 in the early seventeenth century. Mrauk U served as the capital of the Mrauk U kingdom and its 49 kings till the conquest of the kingdom by the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty in 1784.

Trading City

Due to its proximity to the Bay of Bengal, Mrauk U developed into an important regional trade hub, acting as both a back door to the Burmese hinterland and also as an important port along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. It became a transit point for goods such as rice, ivory, elephants, tree sap and deer hide from Ava