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Min Khamaung
King of Arakan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Min Khamaung (Arakanese:မင်းခမောင်း; Burmese pronunciation: [mɪ́ɴ kʰa̰ máʊɴ], Arakanese pronunciation: [máɴ kʰa̰ máʊɴ];1557 - c. May 1622), also known as Hussein Shah, was the king of Arakan, a former state in Myanmar (Burma), from 1612 to 1622.
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (February 2025) |
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Early life
The future Arakanese (ရခိုင်) Rakhine king was born to Princess Pyinsala Sanda (ပဥ္စလစန္ဒာ) and Prince Razagyi in Khamaungseit (ခမောင်းဆိပ်) which is located on the bank of headwaters of Lemro River in the year 1577. He had a younger sister who was one year younger than him. The brother and sister had eventually fallen in love by living together without parents, and they got married. They gave birth to their son Thiri Thudhamma.
During a war between Taungoo and Arakan, the crown prince Khamaung was captured by the Portuguese mercenary Filipe de Brito e Nicote, and was held for ransom in exchange for his independence from the various Burmese kingdoms until 1603.[1] He later managed to escape.
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Reign
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Min Khamaung succeeded the throne after his father, Min Razagyi, died in 1612.[2] At that time, Mrauk U-Arakan was chaotic due to the Portuguese insurrections.[3] Razagyi had formed an unwilling alliance with the Portuguese mercenary captain Sebastian Gonzales Tibao to fend off the Mughals. However, Tibao had betrayed and taken over the Arakenese navy and begun using it to raid the coast in 1610.[4]
By 1615, Khamaung was able to subdue Tibao and resolved any tensions caused by the insurrections with the Burmese diplomatically. Khamaung then launched a second attack to retake Bhulua from the Mughals. The governor of Bhulua fled, allowing Arakan to occupy the city. Khamaung and his forces followed the Bhulua garrison to the Dakatia River, where the Arakanese forces were defeated and Khamaung was captured. Khamaung negotiated for his freedom, promising not to attack Bhulua again in exchange for various resources such as elephants, equipment and servants.[5]
The subahdar (governor) of Bengal, Qasim Khan, found this release humane but unstatesmanlike as it missed an opportunity to subjugate Arakan. Accordingly, Qasim Khan built up an army and sent an expedition in February 1616 to take Chittagong back from Arakan. The forced launched a quick and early siege, that with superior Mughal siege weaponry and firepower, seemed poised to take Chittagong before the Arakanese army could arrive. However, dissent arose amongst the ranks stemming from a personal officer of the subahdar being the commander of mostly imperial forces. The Arakanese recovered their defence with reinforcements and proceeded to cut off food supply lines with an army of 10,000 men.[5][6]
After the successful defence, Min Khamaung strengthened his military situation by capturing Sandwip back from Tibao with the help of Portuguese mercenaries in late 1617. Regaining the lost navy, he began to raid far into Bengal, as far inland as to attack towns on the Meghna River.[5]
Min Kamaung's military repelled and crushed the last of the Portuguese insurrection and invasion with the aid of Dutch military assistance from the Dutch East India Company VOC in 1625.[3]
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Death
The King died on 1 June [O.S. 11 May] 1622 Saturday, 4th waxing of Nayone 984 ME in Mrauk U at age 45 of natural illness. He was succeeded by his son Heir-apparent Min Hari Thiri Thudhamma.[7]
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