Shin Sawbu - Mon Folk Traditions

Mon Folk Traditions

At the end of the nineteenth century, some Mons are said to have regarded the British Queen Victoria as the reincarnation of Shin Sawbu.

The story of how the queen chose a successor runs as follows. After ruling for only seven years, she decided to abdicate. She devised a method to choose which one of the two monks had accompanied her during her residence in Ava should succeed her as ruler:

"One morning when they came to receive the royal rice, she secreted in one of their bowls a pahso (layman’s dress) together with little models of the five regalia; then having prayed that the lot might fall on the worthier, she returned the bowls. Dhammazedi. To whom the fateful bowl fell, left the sacred order, received her daughter in marriage, and assumed the government. The other monk in his disappointment aroused suspicion and was executed in Paunglin, north of Dagon. The lords also resented the choice at first but became reconciled owing to Dhammazedi’s high character; when some of them continued murmuring that he was not of royal race, Shinsawbu had a beam taken out of the and carved into a Buddha image, and showed it to them saying 'Ye say he is of common blood, he cannot be your King. See here this common wood – yesterday it was trodden in the dust of your feet, but to-day, is it not the Lord and do we not bow before it?'."

Singer provides an alternative story with the governor of Pathein, Binnya Ein, married to Shin Sawbu's elder daughter Mipakahtau, rebelling because he was not appointed king ahead of Dhammazedi. This rebellion ends when he is poisoned.

Baña Thau means "Old Queen" in the Mon language. Harvey relates the story of how this name originated taken from the "Thatonhnwemun Yazawin" chronicle:

"Once while being carried around the city in her gorgeous palanquin, sword in hand and crown on head, she heard an old man exclaim, as her retinue pushed him aside "I must get out of the way, must I? I am an old fool, am I? I am not so old that I could not get a child, which is more than your old queen could do!" Thunderstruck at such irreverence, she meekly accepted it as a sign from heaven, and thereafter styled herself 'The Old Queen'."

The Mon history Nidana Ramadhipati Katha provides an alternative story of how Baña Thau ended up living in Ava claiming that she was already ruling at Pegu as queen when she was abducted and brought to Ava and made chief queen.