Prince Myo Tu, Prince of Mekkhaya

Thiri Maha Thu Dhammayaza (Burmese: သီရိမဟာသုဓမ္မရာဇာ, Pali: Sīrimahāsudhammarājā; born Myo Tu; 1847 – 1879), commonly known as the Prince of Mekkhaya, was a prince of the first rank of the late Konbaung dynasty. He was a senior son of King Mindon and was the Viceroy to Taungdwingyi Province.[1] He was considered one of the four most skilled sons of King Mindon, alongside the princes of Thonze, Nyaungyan and Myingun.[2]

Prince Myo Tu
Prince of Mekkhaya
Reign1853 - 1879
PredecessorPrince Phyo
Successordisestablished
Viceroy to Taungdwingyi Province
Reign1878
BornMyo Tu
1847
Ava
Died1879 (aged 31–32)
Mandalay Palace
SpousePin Princess and six concubines
Regnal name
Thiri Maha Thu Dhammayaza
HouseKonbaung
FatherKing Mindon
MotherNanda Dewi
ReligionTheravada Buddhism

He was called 'the second Prince of Mekkhaya' by historians, not to be confused with the first Prince of Mekkhaya who compiled the first English–Myanmar dictionary.[3]

Early life and career

Maung Myo Tu, the third of six siblings, was born on 14 July 1847 to the future King Mindon and his consort Nanda Dewi, the first Queen of the Northern Gilded Chamber (later the second Queen of the Northern Apartment).[4] After his father ascended the throne, he received the title of Thado Minhtin and was granted the appanage of Mekkhaya[5] (a town on the western bank of the mouth of the Zawgyi River in Kyaukse District) on 26 August 1853.[6] At that point he became known as the Prince (or Myoza) of Mekkhaya (an equivalent position to a duke).

He and five other princes were novitiated on 1 July 1860.[7]

On 15 November 1863, King Mindon married his son to the Pin Princess, but the marriage was not consummated;[8] this led to dissatisfaction on her part and a later divorce. The Prince of Mekkhaya had six concubines at the time of his marriage: Maiseit Khin Lay (Khin Nan Yin), Malun Khin Lay (Khin Myo Nwe), Tayoketan Khin Lay, Khin Thit, Khin Mi Mi and Khin Khin, the last being his favourite.[9]

He led the defense services in their successful suppression of the Myingun Myinkhondaing rebellion. King Mindon praised his actions by saying, "The hti and the throne are yours, my son," leading to widespread expectations that he would be the future crown prince.[10] This fell through in 1874 when Amyint administrator Maung Gyi attended on him, breaking the king's rule against relationships between the adult princes and government employees.[11]

Later life and death

In 1872 he was appointed as an administrator of over 50 industrial factories, including the Royal Mint, succeeding Crown Prince Kanaung.[12]

When King Mindon fell ill in 1878, all potential heirs to the throne were seized and thrown into prison by Hsinbyumashin, who dominated the king's last days.[13][14] The king was informed of the situation within a week; the Prince of Mekkhaya was then released and appointed Viceroy to Taungdwingyi Province, but he was arrested again on the following day.[15][16]

He was executed on 17 February 1879 as part of the royal massacre.[17][18]

See also

References
  1. Khin Khin Lay 2003: 396
  2. Than Swe: 80
  3. Than Swe: 74
  4. Than Swe: 78
  5. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 121
  6. Than Swe: 75
  7. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 202
  8. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 218
  9. Than Swe : 80–81
  10. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 231
  11. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 280
  12. Konbaung Set Vol. 3 2004: 266
  13. Sein Tin 2005: 59–62
  14. Khin Khin Lay 2003: 375–378
  15. Sein Tin 2005: 63–64
  16. Khin Khin Lay 2003: 397–400
  17. "မြနန်းစံကျော်ရွှေနန်းတော်ကြီးဆီမှ". 7Day News - ၇ ရက်နေ့စဉ် သတင်း.
  18. "၁၂၄၀ ပြည့်နှစ် မန္တလေးနန်းတွင်း အရှုပ်တော်ပုံတွင် စီရင်ဖျောက်ဖျက်ခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည့် မင်းတုန်းမင်းတရားကြီး၏ ဒုတိယမြောက်ဆောင်တော်မိဖုရားကြီး၊ မက္ခရာမင်းသားကြီးနှင့် မင်းသား ၄၀ ကျော်အားရည်စူး၍ ဆုတောင်းအမျှပေးဝေ". Eleven Media Group Co., Ltd (in Burmese).

Bibliography
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