The Mon are a peaceful people who live in Southeast Asia. They live in the southern part of Myanmar (Burma) and some parts of Thailand. The Mon practice Theravada Buddhism, which is also practiced by the majority of people in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. They were the first in Southeast Asia to become Buddhist.
About one and a half millenia ago, the Mon were introduced to Buddhism by India and Sri Lanka. It started with Dvaravati, in modern day Thailand, which extended from the Khmer borders to near India. They took much from Indian culture, including Theravada Buddhism. Some say that they were allied with the trading town of Suwannabhumi (Sudhammawati, Saton, Thaton in Burmese), which was in modern day Southern Burma. Also, it is said that a princess from Dvaravati established the country of Hariphunchai in modern day Lamphun in Northern Thailand. The three kingdoms were allied and happy. That is, until Dvaravati collapsed and the Khmer and Thai moved. Now all that was left was Hariphunchai and Suwannabhumi.
Suwannabhumi was a very peaceful kingdom for about five hundred years, and Buddhism flourished. Obviously, trade with India and Sri Lanka continued and Mon culture was enhanced all the time. There were many artists, artisans, smiths, and of course there were many monks and nuns who practiced Buddhism without interruption. People were happy and Suwannabhumi was full of very happy and moral people.
But at about 1000 AD, the Burmese, who made their capital at Bagan, conquered the Mon kingdom and took the royal family away to Bagan. The culprit was King Anawratha (Anawrahta), a converted Buddhist who wanted the knowledge of Buddhism from the Mon people. With the royal family the Burmese took educated people and artisans to Bagan to teach the Burmese the Mon arts. The Mon did in fact teach the Burmese much of what the Burmese know today, which includes the Burmese alphabet. They also took the Mon shape of a stupa (pagoda) and other parts of Mon architecture. The Burmese owe a lot to the Mon.
The Burmese had control of the Mon lands only for about two hundred years, for the Mongols who had conquered China now wanted Burma. Soon the Burmese were conquered. A man named Warero (also known as Chao Fa Rua in Thai) took the old Mon kingdom and started a new dynasty. They call this period the Hangsawatoi Dynasty.
The Hangsawatoi Dynasty had many kings, who were stationed at the city of Hangsawatoi (Bago or Pegu in Burmese), but it again ended by being conquered by the Burmese, starting the Taungoo Dynasty.
The Taungoo Dynasty's first king was mean and brutal to the Mon people only during the conquering, but then adopted Mon ways. The second king was a good Buddhist and built many pagodas. But the end of the Taungoo Dynasty was the conquering of all of Burma by the Mon.
When the Mon king Binnya Dala took all of Burma, a man named Alaungpaya started a resistance and in 1757, the resistance pillaged and sacked the city of Hangsawatoi. This was probably the most brutal thing the Burmese did to the Mon, for they killed monks, men, women, children, and the helpless. Palm leaves which contained Mon literature were burned, and Burmese monks replaced the Mon monks who were either killed or had escaped.
The Mon would never be a kingdom after that, but when the English took the Burmese kingdom. And as time went by, the English were driven out 1948. The government became a dictatorship, and under Ne Win, the country went from an okay country to one of the poorest countries in Asia. In 1988, during a student protest in Yangon, the military reacted in a horrible way by killing all of the students and those who were rooting for them. It seemed that Ne Win had handed the government over to the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). After, a woman named Aung San Suu Kyi made the National League for Democracy (NLD) to oppose this new government.
Through these years, the Mon have been suffering because of forced labor that SLORC had made them go through, and the illegality of speaking Mon. The last I have heard about the Mon's situation has been that they now have a ceasefire with the Burmese and Mon Language is now alowed to be taught in Mon schools and spoken in public. Suu Kyi has been in house arrest twice, and she last got out of it May 2002.
This concludes my presentation on Mon History.
