ARAKAN

IT IS A HISTORY THAT HAD BEEN THE PAST BUT WE MUST CARRY ON WHAT ARE NEW ERA OF RESPONSIBILITIES BY LEADING OF OUR GENERATIONS HAND IN HAND.
(သမိုင္းေစာ္ အတိတ္မွာျဖစ္ျပီးခေရအရာတခုရာျဖစ္သည္ ေယေကလည္း သမိုင္းပီးတာဝန္ကိုေတာ႔ မ်ိဳးဆက္သစ္အားနန္႔ငါ႔ရို႕ထမ္းေဆာင္ရမည္ ျဖစ္ပါေရ)
Ashon(အသ်ွင္)

ARAKAN

The land that is known as Arakan by the foreigners is called ‘Rakhaing-pray’ by its own peoples, Rakhaing-thar (Arakanese). The Arakanese history records the early Arakanese to migrate in Arakan and settled down in their true land since time immemorial.

According to the Arakanese chronicles, the name Rakhaing (Rakhine) was originated from Pali word Rakkha-pura meaning the land of the people of Rakhasa (Rakhasa > Rakkha > Rakkhaing > Rakhaing) who were titled this name in honour of preservation on their national heritage and ethics or morality (Sila).
The independent and sovereign Buddhist Kingdom of Arakan had been splendidly flourishing from 3325 B.C. till the Burman invaders occupied it in 1784.

Area

Arakan is situated among India in the North, Burma in the East and People's Republic of Bangladesh in the West. To the south, it extends up to Haigri Islands and is bounded on the southwest by the Bay of Bengal.

The area of Arakan was more than 20,000 sq. ml. till the British period. But, Burmese ruler, without the consent of Arakanese people, split up a north western Arakan Hill Tracts area bordering India and a southern most part of Arakan (from Kyauk Chaung River to Cape Negaris) from the Arakan mainland. Due to these partitions, the present day total area of Arakan was reduced to 18, 500 sq. ml and it comprise less than half of historic Arakan territory.
In the ancient time when Arakan was independent, there were four provinces and twelve district cities included in Arakan. They are:

1. Dhanyawady (Mrauk-U)
2. Maegawady (Man Aung)
3. Dwarawady (Sandway),
4. Rammawady (Rann Bray) and
5. 12 Bengal cities including Chittagong and Decca (present capital of Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka).

The Rakhine state, consisting 17 townships was created by the then Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government led by General Ne Win after granting Arakan region the state status. But it was done by the Burmese for administrative purposes.

Today area of Arakan is located between Lat. 16' 00" N- Lat. 21' 20" N and Long. 92' 20" E- Long. 95' 20" E. Arakan is known as one of the poorest states under so called Union of Burma ruled by military junta called SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) with its official name, Rakhine State.

Arakanese, however, use the term "Arakan" to mean the area which was historically and traditionally known as Arakan before the 1784 Burmese invasion. Despite over 200 years of Burmese occupation of Arakan, the Arakanese peoples refuse to be conquered and subjugated by the Burmese. Arakan independent movement started just after it lost independent and is carrying on until now.

History

According to the legend, the first independent Arakan kingdom was established in 3325 B.C by the legendary hero-ancestor of the Arakanese, King Marayu after defeating the bilus, demon-like creatures who arrived earlier in the area.

The traditional histories of the country claim the origins of the Arakanese people in a remote past when the legendary hero-ancestor of the Arakanese, Marayu, founder of the first city, Dhanyawadi, is said to have married the daughter of a Mro chief and to have cleared the country of Bilus, demon-like creatures who may have been Chills.

Buddhism was introduced into Arakan during the lifetime of Buddha himself. According to Arakanese chronicles, Lord Buddha, accompanied by his five hundred disciples, visited the city of Dhannyawadi (Grain blessed) in 554 B.C. King Chandrasuriya (Sun and Moon) and all the people converted to Buddhism and became Buddhists since then. The king requested Lord Buddha to leave the image of Himself to commemorate the event before he left Arakan and Lord Buddha consented it. This was the famous Mahamuni (Great Sage) image, known throughout the Buddhist world and desired by kings who sought to conquer the country in order to carry away this powerful prize. The history of this image is entwined with that of Arakan. After casting the Great Image Mahamuni, Lord Buddha breathed upon it which resembled the exact likeness of the Blessed One.

The tradition of the origin of the Mahamuni image can be interpreted as an allegorical account of the introduction of Buddhism to Arakan. The first evidence we have of Buddhism is in the early sculpture of the Mahamuni shrine at Dhanyawadi.
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