ABSTRACT

The one million-plus Mon people today living in Burma and neighbouring Thailand constitute an ethnic minority. However, this has not always been the case.

From early in the first millennium, for a period of more than a thousand years, Mon and Khmer kings ruled over much of mainland Southeast Asia. Across northern and central Thailand until six or seven hundred years ago, and in central and lower Burma for another three hundred years, the bulk of the population were ethnic Mons. The classical period of Mon history came to an end in 1757, when the great Burman warrior-king Alaungphaya defeated the last Mon ruler of Pegu. Thousands of his followers were driven into exile in Ayuthaiya (Thailand), where they settled in the border areas adjoining Burma. At times over the two-and-a-half centuries since the fall of Pegu, it has been supposed that Mon was a dying language and the people in the twilight of their history. The Mons' very success has threatened to be their undoing.