CHAPTER XV
BURMESE ORGANIZATION UNDER THE
KINGS
THE Burmese governmental system, as it existed under the
Kongbaungset Dynasty, has been well described in its main
features by European visitors. The central government is fully
described in existing Burmese records such as the Lawka Pynha
or Inyon Saok, which explains the appointment and duties of
ministers and the etiquette of court ceremonies. No such records
exist for the Pagan or Toungoo dynasties, but as everything was
governed by the strictest possible regard for precedent, and there
is reason to believe that the procedure under Alaungpaya and
his successors was modelled on that of Bayinnaung, one may
conclude that the Toungoo kings in their turn framed their court
as closely as possible on the traditions of Pagan. The general lay-
out of the pakce indeed remained substantially the same from
the eleventh century to the nineteenth.
The apex of the whole governmental pyramid, as in all
other monarchies of Indo-China, was the king, whose theoreti-
cally unlimited claims to power were rigidly circumscribed by
custom and etiquette. All royal letters begin with descriptions
of him in much the same terms as the following: "The Burmese
Sovereign of the Rising Sun, who rules over the country of
Thunaparanta and the country of Tambadipa, with all the
great dominions and countries and all the Umbrella-bearing
Chiefs of the East, whose glory is exceeding great and excellent,
the Master of the King Elephant, Saddan, the lord of many
White Elephants, the Lord of Life, the eminently just Ruler."
The words Thunaparanta' and Tambadipa' are corruptions of
Sanskrit terms used by ancient Indian writers to describe parts
of Further India reputed to produce gold and copper respect-
ively. But whatever significance they had had in earlier times had
been completely lost by the time of the Konbaungset dynasty,
when, according to Burney, Thunaparanta meant all the coun-
tries to the northward of Ava and Tampadipa all to the southward.