Kingdom of Mrauk U

The Kingdom of Mrauk U was the Arakanese state of the Bay of Bengal coast, lasting from 1429 to 1785. Its founder Min Saw Mon built his walled capital at Mrauk U under the protection of the Bengal Sultan, then his successors slipped the leash: with Portuguese guns and ships they seized Chittagong, fended off two Burmese invasions in the sixteenth century, and at their height held the coastline from the Sundarbans to the Gulf of Martaban. Mrauk U grew rich and strange: Buddhist kings with Muslim titles, mosques beside pagodas, a court where Bengali, Burmese and Portuguese adventurers all found employment, and a thriving trade in rice, slaves and piracy that sailors feared from Pegu to Aceh. The Mughals took Chittagong back in 1666, and the long decline set in. In 1785 the Konbaung kings of Burma stormed the walls, carried off the last king and the sacred Mahamuni image, and Arakan became a province of Burma, its temples left to the jungle that tourists photograph today.