The majority of Mon live around the city of Bago or the site of their historic capital, the port of Mawlamyine; they also constitute a significant percentage of the population further south along the lowland coast to the city of Ye.

Early history

Humans lived in the region that is now Myanmar as early as 11,000 years ago. The first identifiable civilization is that of the Mon. The Mon probably began migrating into the area in about 3000 BC, and their first kingdom Suwarnabhumi, was founded around the port of Thaton in about 300 BC. Spoken tradition suggests that they had contact with Buddhism via seafaring as early as the 3rd century BC, though definitely by the 2nd century BC when they received an envoy of monks from Ashoka. Much of the Mon's written records have been destroyed through wars. The Mons blended Indian and Mon culture together in a hybird of the two civilizations. By the mid-9th century, they had come to dominate all of southern Myanmar.

The Mon are primarily associated with the historical kingdoms of Dvaravati and Haripunchai; up until the 14th century, outposts of Mon culture continued to spread very far east, including modern Thai and Isan plateau cities such as Lampang and Khon Kaen. As late as the 14th and 15th centuries, it is believed that the Mon were the ethnic majority in this vast region, but intermarried freely with Cambodian and Tai-Kadai populations. Archaeological remains of Mon settlements have been found south of Vientiane (Laos), and may also have extended further to the north-west in the Haripunchai (Thailand) area.

The Mon converted to Theravada Buddhism at a very early point in their history; unlike other ethnic groups in the region, they seem to have adopted Theravada orthodoxy before coming into contact with Mahayana tendencies, and it is generally believed that the Mon provided the link of transmission whereby both Thais and Cambodians converted from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism to Theravada Buddhism (increasingly from the 1400s). Although the precise date cannot be fixed, it seems that the Mon have been practicing Theravada Buddhism continuously for a longer period than any other extant religious community on earth, except for Sri Lanka, as the lineage was destroyed in India.

Like the Burmese and the Thais, some modern Mons have tried to identify their ethnicity with the semi-historical kingdom of Suwarnabhumi; today, this claim is contested by many different ethnicities in South-East Asia, and contradicted by scholars. Historical scholarship indicates that the early usage of the term (as found in the edicts of Ashoka) indicated a location in Southern India, and not in South-East Asia. However, from the time of the first translations of the Ashokan inscriptions in the 19th century, both the Burmese and the Thais have made concentrated efforts to identify place-names found in the edicts with their own territory or culture; sometimes these claims have also relied upon the creative interpretation of place-names found in Chinese historical sources.

A Mon dynasty ruled Lower Burma after the fall of the Pagan dynasty from 1287 to 1539 with a brief revival during 1550-53. At first Martaban was the capital of this kingdom and then Pegu. The Mon king Rajadhirat, who waged war with the northern Burman kingdom of Ava during the whole duration of his reign, unified and consolidated the Mon kingdom's domains in Lower Burma.

Rajadhirat succeeded his father Binnya U as ruler of Pegu after a succession struggle in 1383. He unified Lower Burma during the 1380s. From 1385 to his death around 1421, Rajadhirat's kingdom of Pegu and the kingdom of Ava in Upper Burma were engaged in a continual state of warfare. The use of scorched earth tactics by both sides was a prominent feature of this warfare.

Rajadhirat's daughter became the Mon Queen Baña Thau several years later and reigned in relative peace starting a revival in Theravada Buddhism.

The story of Rajadhirat's reign is recorded in a classic epic that exists in both Mon language and Burmese language forms.

Portrait of Rajadhirat

Queen Baña Thau and Queen Camadevi of Haripunjaya are the two most famous queens among the small number of queens who ruled in mainland Southeast Asia. Baña Thau's reign began a 50 year period of peace between Burman Ava in Upper Burma and Mon Pegu in Lower Burma. After ruling Pegu for around seven years, in 1460 Baña Thau decided to abdicate and move from Pegu to Dagon where she could lead a life of religious devotion next to the Shwedagon pagoda.

Baña Thau chose a monk to succeed her on the throne of Pegu. The monk Pitakahara, who had helped her escape from Ava, left the sangha (Monastic Assembly), was given the titles Punnaraja and Dhammacedi, and became Baña Thau's son-in-law and a suitable heir to the throne by marrying her younger daughter Mipakathin. Baña Thau lived in Dagon next to the Shwedagon pagoda until the end of her life in 1470 or 1472. Even after she moved to Dagon she is said to have still worn a crown.

The actually handing over of power from Queen Baña Thau to Dhammacedi, who became king under the title Ramadhipati in the year 1457, is commemorated in an inscription written in the Mon language.

In Dagon, Baña Thau devoted her time and attention to the Shwedagon pagoda, enlarging the platform around the pagoda, paving it with stones and placing stone posts and lamps around the outside of the pagoda. She extended the glebe lands supporting the pagoda to Danok. Almost everything that Baña Thau did, she did in multiples of four:

"There were four white umbrellas, four golden alms-bowls, four earthenware vessels, and four offerings were made each day. There were twenty-seven men who prepared the lamps each day. There were twenty men as guardians of the pagoda treasury. There were four goldsmith's shops, four orchestras, four drums, four sheds, eight doorkeepers, four sweepers, and twenty lamp lighters. She built round and strengthened the sevenfold wall. Between the walls Her Majesty Banya Thau had them plant palmyra and coconut trees."

She also had her own weight in gold (25 viss) beaten out into gold leaf and covered the Shwedagon pagoda with this gold leaf. The inhabitants of Dagon donated 5,000 viss of bronze to the pagoda

Queen Baña Thau personally chose Dhammazedi (reigned 1472-92) to succeed her. Dhammazedi had been a monk before he became king of Pegu. Under Dhammazedi, Pegu became a centre of commerce and Theravadan Buddhism. These two devout Buddhist monarchs initiated a long period of peace in Lower Burma.

The last Mon kingdom was Hongsavatoi - they re-conquered much of their lost territory until the energetic Burman leader U Aungzeya forced them back and captured the kingdom by 1757. The Mon religious leaders were forced to flee to Siam and the Mon have been harshly repressed from the 1750s to the present day.

Colonial Times

Burma was conquered by the British in a series of wars. After the Second Anglo-Burmese War, the Mon territories were completely under the control of the British. The Mon aided the British to free themselves from the rule of the Burman monarchy. Under Burman rule, the Mon people had been massacred after lost their kingdom and many sought asylum in the Thai Kingdom. The British conquest of Burma allowed the Mon people to survive in Southern Burma.

After Burmese independence

The Mon soon became anti-colonialists and following the grant of independence to Burma in 1948 they sought self-determination, U Nu refused them this and they rose in revolt to be crushed again.

They have remained a repressed and defiant group in the country since then. They have risen in revolt against the central Burmese government on a number of occasions, initially under the Mon People's Front and from 1962 through the New Mon State Party. A partially autonomous Mon state, Monland, was created in 1974 covering Tenasserim, Pegu and Ayeyarwady River. Resistance continued until 1995 when NMSP and SLORC agreed a cease-fire and in 1996 the Mon Unity League was founded. SLORC troops continued to operate in defiance of the agreement.

In 1947 Mon National Day was created to celebrate the ancient founding of Hongsawatoi, the last Mon Kingdom, which had its seat in Pegu. (It follows the full moon on the 11th month of the Mon lunar calendar, except in Phrapadaeng, Thailand, where it is celebrated at Songkran.)

British Burma 1886

Mon monarchs ruled lower Burma from 1287 to 1539 with a brief revival during 1550-53