Kyaswa

Kyaswa (Burmese: ကျစွာ, pronounced [tɕa̰zwà]; 1194–1250) was king of Pagan dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) from 1234 to 1250. Kyaswa succeeded his father Htilominlo and was even more devout.^[3] Kyaswa's reign like his father's was largely peaceful but the depletion of the royal treasury due to large tax-free religious landholdings became more pronounced. The royal treasury was so depleted that Kyaswa had trouble completing a temple.

The devout king, unlike predecessors before him, did try to address the issue by reclaiming some of religious land from forest-dwelling monks. However public opinion against any seizure of monastic land forced him to return the land. Frustrated, the king left the administration of the kingdom to his son and his deputies, and spent his time composing religious writings, and giving his patronage only orthodox (Theravada) sects. The forest-dwelling monks neither needed his patronage nor feared his authority. Toward the end of his reign, forest-dwellers were openly offering meat and liquor to their devotees.^[4]

The king devoted to scholarship and promoting the dhamma with humanitarian policies. Unlike other Pagan kings, he would not resort to forced labor to build his temples. His Pyathada Temple in Pagan is much smaller than many temples built by his predecessors. In 1249, he issued a royal edict to be put up, carved on stone, in every village of more than 50 houses in the empire:

Kings of the past punished thieves by divers torture, starting with impaling. I desire no such destruction. I consider all my beings as my children, and with compassion to all I speak these words...^[5]

By his death in 1250, the empire founded by Anawrahta over 200 earlier was still peaceful but already on its last legs, thoroughly unprepared for the internal disorders and external forces that were to come.

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