Ananda Thuriya

Ananda Thuriya အနန္တ သူရိယ
Senior Minister
In office 1167–1174
Monarch	Narathu (1167–71) Naratheinkha (1171–74)
Minister
In office 1151–1167
Monarch	Sithu I
Personal details
Born	c. 1110s
Died	1174 Pagan (Bagan)

Ananda Thuriya (Burmese: အနန္တ သူရိယ, pronounced [ʔənàɴda̰ θùɹḭja̰]; also spelled Anantathuriya; d. 1174) was a senior minister to kings Sithu I, Narathu and Naratheinkha of the Pagan Dynasty of Myanmar. He is best remembered in Burmese history for the poem he wrote for King Sithu II, just a few minutes before his execution, titled The Law of Nature. The extant poem, likely a result of a 14th-century update, is considered to be the first known instance of poetry in Burmese as well as monarchical criticism.

The future minister, whose personal name is lost to history, began his career as a royal attendant at the palace of King Sithu I (r. 1112–67) in Pagan (Bagan). Descended from a line of royal attendants, he attended to the children of Prince Narathu, including Naratheinkha and Sithu II. He was a tutor to Naratheinkha.

The attendant entered the upper echelons of power in 1151 when the king promoted him to serve as a royal adviser/minister (amat (အမတ်)), with the title of Ananda Thuriya. The appointment certainly was not a routine matter as ministers of the day were usually drawn from more distant branches of the royal family.Royal chronicles say that Crown Prince Min Shin Saw vigorously opposed the appointment because of the attendant's commoner origins. He may have also viewed Ananda Thuriya as too close to his younger brother and rival Narathu. At any rate, Min Shin Saw lost the power struggle, and was exiled.

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