Talk:Baña Thau

I have summarised many sources in this entry. There is still some information to be added and some details to be resolved, but it is essentially complete. In this and other entries I will make on Mon kings and queens, I favor the Mon name, but include the other names also. Jonfernquest 18:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)]

Added a redirect from to this Baña Thau page from Shin Sawbu page. Baña Thau is her commonly accepted Mon name and since she was a Mon queen, it is most appropriate to use this name, however most people in Burma know her by her Burmese name Shin Sawbu. Most history books use this name too. Jonfernquest 16:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)]

Have to add a more precise chronology, details of the other two inscriptions, and also perhaps there is no real dispute. It seems pretty clear that she ruled at Pegu for seven years, abicated, and then ruled at Dagon for another 10 years until her death. Will also correct her name from Banya Thau and change the names of her two sons and brother to their Mon names, and add links to a reign table of Mon kings. Jonfernquest 17:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)]

Saya Thein's summary
This week I discovered Saya Thein's 1910 summary straight from the chronicle which pretty much reads like an encyclopedia entry. I'm slowly integrating this information. Using the dates from the Mon tradition because Baña Thau is a Mon queen and there is no reason to prefer the dates from the Mon tradition, however I am giving the dates from the Burmese tradition in footnotes. All I am doing is finding the original sources and copying information in a reasonable way from them, so this is not really original research. It might summarize the available information better than some other secondary sources though. Call it an exercise in antiquarianism (Jonfernquest 04:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC))

Small point
My intuitive translation of viharadevi is 'queen (or goddess) of the monastery'. I checked the Pali-English Dictionary and the entry on devi (329, under deva) seems to defend my translation. Where can I find another source that uses the translation found in this article?
 * Yes. In Burmese, it would be Wiharadewi (ဝီဟရဒေဝီ), 'wihara' (monastery) + 'dewi' (goddess/queen). Maybe if you used the dictionary to site both parts of her name.--Hintha (talk) 22:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I felt it unnecessary to look look up vihara/wihara since I knew it meant monastery, refuge, etc. The problem I had with the translation was 'divinity' (devi/thewi). I am not prepared to accept viharadevi/wiharathewi (however you want to transliterate it) as 'divinity of the monastery'. It seems more likely that she would be called the queen or goddess of the monastery. My apologies if I was not clear in my prior post.richardtgreer (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Here are some relevant links (you might need to scroll down a bit to find the highlighted-red term): for vihAra: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.3.pali.1286798 for devI (a sub-category under the term deva): http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.1.pali.1831104

I think that you will find that your (Hintha) rendering of Viharadewi reflects my translation exactly. richardtgreer (talk) 06:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)