King Mae Ku: From Lan Na Monarch to Burmese Nat

Part of Ancient Chiang Mai

Between 1558 and 1775, for a period of 217 years, the Lan Na Kingdom and its capital of Chiang Mai were ruled by a succession of Burmese-appointed suzerains owing allegiance to the Kings of Pegu in Lower Burma. During this period of lost independence, Chiang Mai and its people were inevitably influenced by Burmese culture and traditions- but the traffic wasn't all one way. One of the most fascinating and enduring associations between Burma and North Thailand is the continuing widespread veneration in Burma of a Chiang Mai king in the pantheon of Nats that plays so great a role in the spiritual tradition of the Burman people.

Nats are a collection of deities, including spirits of trees, rivers, ancestors, snakes, and especially the spirits of people who have met a violent or tragic death. They like a peaceful life, and they can wreak destructive vengeance on those who annoy them. Originally it seems they were numberless. But Anawratha (1044-1077), the great founder of the Burmese Kingdom of Pagan (1044-1298), having failed to stamp out Nat worship in favour of Buddhism, decided instead to limit their influence by co-opting them. He decreed that Nats were not numberless, but numbered 36, to which a 37^th, borrowed from the Indian Brahmanic tradition, was added. This was Thagyamin, the guardian Nat of Buddhism, who was declared head of the Nat pantheon. On Anawratha's orders, images of the 37 Nat were set up in the Shwezigon Pagoda at Pagan, showing their devotion and subservience to the Buddha.

David Henley / CPA

Mount Popa, Home of the Nats.

Thagyamin aside, the oldest and most powerful Nats are the Mahagiri Nats, spirits of a brother and sister who suffered untimely deaths at the hand of King Thinlikyaung (344-387 AD). According to The Glass Palace Chronicle of Mandalay their spirits entered into a saga tree which floated down the Irrawaddy to Pagan where local craftsmen made images of the brother and sister-'Lord of the Great Mountain' and 'Lady Golden Face'-and installed them on Mount Popa, an extinct volcano southeast of Pagan, which became the spiritual home of the Nats. The reign of King Thinlikyaung is purely legendary, but it seems that the Mahagiri Nats were firmly established on Mount Popa, at least in the minds of ordinary Burmans, at least two centuries before the Kingdom of Pagan was founded.

The Mahagiri Nats seem to have set a pattern for later Nats. According to Sir Richard Carnac Temple, who wrote a definitive English language study on The Thirty-Seven Nats in 1906, Burmese Nats-with the exception of Thagya Nat-are the heroic spirits either of former royalty, or of persons connected with royalty. Most lived between the 13^th and 17^th centuries, and each is associated with a special cult-that is a specific ceremony or festival, together with an appropriate place and time for performing it.

David Henley / CPA

Burmse Nats.

Sir Richard Temple describes in considerable detail the full order of thirty-seven Nats of which one in particular stands out where Chiang Mai-known in the Burmese annals as Zinme or Zimme-is concerned. This is the 22^nd, or Yun Bayin Nat, a member of Temple's 5^th Group of Nat belonging to the Bayinnaung Cycle. These are defined as a group of four spirits 'whose direct reference is not clear, but are... of a very late date and are connected with the great conqueror Bayinnaung... and his dynasty in the 17th century'. Of these four spirits, Yun Bayin Nat is the only non-Burmese spirit hero associated with the Nat cult, and as such occupies a special place in the pantheon, emphasising Chiang Mai's once close association with the courts of Pegu, Toungoo and Ava.

Relatively little is known of the earthly incarnation of the Yun Bayin Nat. According to Temple, he was the 'Yun Shan'-that is, Northern Thai-ruler of Chiang Mai, who was taken prisoner by King Syinbyumyashin of Hanthawadi (Pegu), the 'Lord of Many White Elephants', and taken to Yangon. He is known as Yun Bayin, or 'King of the Yun', with reference to the old Burmese name for the Tai Yuan or Northern Thai. He is reported to have died of dysentery in 1558, and thereafter to have become a Nat. The Yun Bayin Nat, who is still widely revered throughout Burma, is generally represented as seated on a lotus throne in high court dress, holding a sheathed sword.

David Henley / CPA

Yun Bayin Nat.

There is no direct reference to the Yun Bayin Nat, or indeed to any ruler of the Lan Na Kingdom dying in captivity in Yangon, either in the Northern Thai Chiang Mai Chronicle or in its Burmese equivalent, the Zinme Yawazin. Both chronicles do, however, record the invasion of Lan Na and the seizure of Chiang Mai by King Bayinnaung in 1558. The Chiang Mai ruler at that time was Mae Ku, who was obliged to pay tribute to Bayinnaung for the last six years of his reign.

Bayinnaung was the second monarch of the Taungoo Dynasty (1531-1752), founded by King Tabinshweti of Taungoo (1531-1550), who conquered the rival Kingdom of Pegu (Temple's Hanthawadi) and crowned himself King of all Burma. He was succeeded by Bayinnaung (1551-1581), who proved to be a remarkable military commander, subduing Upper Burma, the Shan States, Manipur, North Thailand and parts of Laos.

Mae Ku was the 17^th monarch of the Mangrai Dynasty(1263-1578), who ruled North Thailand from 1551 to 1564, the last six years of his reign as a vassal of King Bayinnaung of Taungoo. Mae Ku, whose full name was Phra Maekutawisutthiwong, was a direct descendant of King Mangrai through the latter's son, Khun Khrua, who Mangrai had sent, in 1312, to rule over Mong Nai in Shan State.

In 1545 King Ket Chettharat of Chiang Mai was assassinated, ushering in-according to the Chiang Mai Chronicle-a 'Kali Era' of decline for the Lan Na Kingdom. He was briefly succeeded by his daughter, Queen Maha Thewi Chiraprapha, who ruled as regent (1545-1546), and then by King Setthathirat of Luang Prabang who remained in Chiang Mai for just one year (1546-1547) before returning to Laos, taking with him the fabled Emerald Buddha which had been installed in Chedi Luang and leaving Lan Na without a king for the next four years. In 1551 the influential court officials at Chiang Mai, seeking to end this chaotic interregnum, invited Mae Ku, then reigning in Mong Nai, to come to Chiang Mai and rule over the Kingdom of Lan Na.

Mae Ku, legitimised by his status as a direct descendant of King Mangrai, accepted the invitation. According to the Chiang Mai Chronicle: 'On the fourth waxing of the 9th month 913 (9 May 1551), King Mae Ku entered the city of Chiang Mai and was enthroned in the royal palace on the bejewelled throne'. For the next seven years King Mae Ku ruled Lan Na without serious challenge, though in October 1556, while making merit at Wat Lampang Luang, he saw 'a cloud shaped like a naga serpent... more than seven fathoms long'. At the same time 'the planet Jupiter appeared like a comet with its tail to the north, which could be seen for a month before disappearing'. The Chronicle interprets these events (with the ease of hindsight) as bad omens, and sure enough one year later, in 1557/58, King Bayinnaung of Taungoo crossed the Salween into North Thailand at the head of his army. On 31 March 1558 he besieged Chiang Mai 'for three days and three nights', before taking the city, apparently with little opposition, early in the morning of April 2 1558.

Between 1558 and 1564 Mae Ku continued to govern Chiang Mai, but as a vassal ruler of Bayinnaung. In 1559 he led a military expedition, well documented in the Chiang Mai Chronicle, to subdue provincial lords in Chiang Rai, Phayao and Phrae who remained loyal to Luang Prabang. In 1563, however, Mae Ku ignored Bayinnaung's orders to assist in an expedition against Ayutthaya, effectively repudiating Burmese sovereignty. This was seen as an act of rebellion by Bayinnaung, who-according to the Chiang Mai Chronicle-brought up an army and took Chiang Mai, capturing Lord Mae Ku and taking him back to Pegu, while leaving Lady Wisuttha Thewi to rule in his place'. Queen Wisuttha Thewi ruled over Chiang Mai as a vassal of the Burmese from 1564 to 1578. On her death Bayinnaung's son, Nawrahtaminsaw, better known in the Chiang Mai annals as 'Tharawaddy Prince', succeeded her, ruling over Lan Na from 1578 to 1607.

We know little of Mae Ku's life as an exile, but The Glass Palace Chronicle tells us he was treated generously by Bayinnaung, being accorded the same royal status as the defeated Kings of Ava also captured by Bayinnaung and taken to his capital at Pegu. The chronicle also relates that on completion of Bayinnaung's new royal palace called Kambawzathadi, Mae Ku was given the privilege of residing in a royal residence with a double-tiered roof.

Apart from these small but fascinating details, following his exile Mae Ku disappears from the pages of history but enters the realm of the supernatural. Temple tells us that he reportedly died of dysentery while in captivity, but without revealing his source. Yet somehow, despite his defeat and capture by King Bayinnaung and subsequent mundane and rather inglorious end, Mae Ku became venerated as a Nat. How was this possible? By Temple's definition, the 37 Nats are overwhelmingly heroic spirits 'either of former royalty, or of persons connected with royalty'. Nats are also, generally, the spirits of people 'who have met a violent or tragic death'. As a descendant of King Mangrai and King of Chiang Mai himself, Mae Ku was clearly closely associated with royalty, just as his death in exile in Burma was certainly tragic. But what of his status as hero? Perhaps his expedition against the Lao in 1559, or even his spirited rebellion against Bayinnaung in 1564, made him heroic in Burman eyes. Or perhaps he acquitted himself bravely while in exile in Pegu. It seems unlikely that we shall ever know.

Text by Andrew Forbes, images by David Henley. © CPA Media, 2005