Place names

Ava-Burma Pacification Superintendency (緬甸宣慰使司)

I have adopted this term following Ray Huang's usage in Goodrich and Fang (1976; Vol. 2; 1208). It is used to translate the Chinese name “Mian-dian” (緬甸), by which the Ming administrators and scholars referred to a variety of polities based at different times at Ava, Toungoo, Pegu and Rangoon. The name remains today the Chinese name for Burma/Myanmar. Gu Yan-wu in his Tian-xia Jun-guo Li-bing-shu noted Ava-Burma's territory extending "east to the Ba-bai Pacification Superintendency, south to the ocean, west to the territory of Meng-yang, and north to the territory of the Meng-mi Pacification Commission" (Gong Yin 1985; 207). The MSL references can be compared against accounts contained in Coedes (1966; 181-92), Elias (1876), Lieberman (1980, 1984, 1986), Pe Maung Tin and Luce (1960), Phayre (1967; 63-139), Scott and Hardiman (1900), Than Tun (1983-90), Tin Hla Thaw (1959) and Than Tun (1959). For information on further Chinese sources relating to this polity, see Chen, Xie and Lu (1986; 750-52, 921), Dao Yong-ming (1989; 381-413), Fang Guo-yu (1987; 1001-02) and Gong Yin (1985; 205-07 and 1992; 625-27). It might be useful for readers to note that in the 16th-century MSL references, ""Mang Rui-ti"" appears to be the name used for Tabinshweti."