Mon

A people in mainland Southeast Asia speaking an Austro-Asiatic language akin to Khmer, who formed the earliest states in the lower Irrawaddy valley of Burma, Chao Phraya valley, Khorat, and peninsular regions of Thailand. Their origin is unknown, but archaeological evidence indicates that at the beginning of the Christian Era the Mons must have occupied a large territory stretching from Lower Burma through into the southern part of the Indochinese Peninsula. Also called Hanthawaddy Kingdom, the Mon kingdom was powerful in Myanmar (Burma) from the 9th to the 11th and from the 13th to the 16th century and for a brief period in the mid-18th century. The capital of the Mon probably was the port of Thaton, which was located northwest of the mouth of the Salween River. The Mon center eventually shifted to Pegu, located on the Pegu River, about 50 miles from present-day Rangoon. The Mon culture was not abandoned or displaced, and the Mon blended the old with the new. The Mons are now only a small ethnic minority centered around the eastern shore of the Gulf of Martaban.

A people in mainland Southeast Asia speaking a language akin to Khmer (see Austro-Asiatic). Their origin is unknown, but archaeological evidence indicates that at the beginning of the Christian Era the Mons must have occupied a large territory stretching from Lower Burma through into the southern part of the Indochinese Peninsula. The first historically documented Mon state is the Buddhist kingdom of DvAravatI, which appears in Chinese sources of the 7th century and was absorbed into the westward expanding Khmer empire of Angkor in the 11th century. Later, the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya absorbed both Mons and Khmers into its population. The equally Buddhist Mon state of Thaton in Lower Burma was also absorbed by the southward expanding Burman kingdom of Pagan in the 11th century, to which it passed on its religion, script and other cultural elements. Although the Mons in Burma, also referred to by the name of Peguans or Talaings, did at times become independent again, they are now only a small ethnic minority centred around the eastern shore of the Gulf of Martaban.