Mon People; Mon State

In the third century b.c. the emperor Ashoka sent a Buddhist delegation to visit and bring news of Buddhism to the Mon, who dominated the southern coast of Burma. Beginning about 1,300 years ago, the Mon had a huge trading kingdom along the Andaman Sea coast that stretched across the Irrawaddy Delta and all the way south nearly to Dawei (Tavoy). In the sixteenth century there was a Mon kingdom with a capital at Pegu (Bago). In modern Burma, Mon State lies south of Bago and is centered around the Salween River as it reaches the coast at Moulmein, the state’s capital. Mon State is bordered by Kayin (Karen) State on the east and Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) to the south; to the north lies the Bago region. The Mon alphabet, together with Pali writing, is the origin of modern Bamar script. Mon-style Buddhist structures, chedis, and payas, including Shwedagon, are found in Bagan, Rangoon, and south of there. But present-day Mon people are slowly being assimilated and losing their language (a member of the Mon-Khmer language family, and unrelated to Burmese, Shan, or Karen). The Mon State army has been fighting the central government for decades.