Zatadawbon Yazawin
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| Author | Court historians |
|---|---|
| Original title | ဇာတာတော်ပုံ ရာဇဝင် |
| Language | Burmese |
| Series | Burmese chronicles |
| Genre | Chronicle, History |
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Publication date
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13th to 19th centuries |
Zatadawbon Yazawin (Burmese: ဇာတာတော်ပုံ ရာဇဝင်, pronounced: [zàdàdɔ̀bòʊɴ jàzəwɪ̀ɴ]; also spelled Zatatawpon; lit. the "Chronicle of Royal Horoscopes") is the earliest extant chronicle of Burma. The chronicle mainly covers the regnal dates of kings as well as horoscopes of select kings from Pagan to Konbaung periods. In terms of regnal years, the chronicle is considered "the most accurate of all Burmese chronicles, particularly with regard to the best-known Pagan and Ava kings, many of whose dates have been corroborated by epigraphy."
The chronicle was continuously updated and handed down by court historians from generation to generation. Given its inscriptionally verified regnal dates of 11th century Pagan kings, the list keeping of regnal dates probably had begun at least since the 11th century, if not earlier. The earliest portions of the chronicle appear to have written some time in the late 13th century or the early 14th century. The original author is unknown but based on the internal text, he was a contemporary of Shin Ditha Pamauk, the diplomat and monk who led the Pagan delegation to the Mongol court in 1286–87. Furthermore, internal evidence indicates the original author first wrote the chronicle in the late Pagan or Myinsaing or Pinya periods (late 13th to early 14th centuries). The original author apparently had access to earlier records now lost to history, which he noted as yazawin mhat-chet akyin ("summary and notes of chronicles").
Over the following centuries, however, the original, simple chronicle of regnal lists came to be layered upon (and bookended) by religious history (and mythology). By King Minyekyawdin's reign (1673–98), much of the current form of the chronicle had come into existence, although later historians continued to update the regnal dates of following kings down to the last Burmese monarch Thibaw.
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