Pinya Kingdom

The Kingdom of Pinya ruled central Myanmar from 1313 to 1365. It was the successor of Myinsaing, the polity that had controlled much of Upper Burma after the collapse of the Pagan Empire. Pinya was founded by Thihathu as the de jure successor of Pagan, but it faced internal divisions from the outset. The northern province of Sagaing, led by Thihathu's eldest son Saw Yun, fought for autonomy in 1315–1317 and formally seceded in 1325 after Thihathu's death. The remaining kingdom was torn by rivalry between Thihathu's other sons, Uzana I and Kyawswa I, until 1344. Pinya exercised little control over its vassals: the southern towns of Toungoo and Prome were practically independent, and central authority recovered only briefly under Kyawswa I. In the 1350s Kyawswa II repaired relations with Sagaing in order to confront the northern Shan state of Maw. Two Maw raids in 1358–1359 and 1362–1363 devastated the countryside, and Toungoo broke away. After the Maw sacked both Sagaing and Pinya in 1364, Thado Minbya of Sagaing seized the ruined capitals and founded the Ava kingdom in 1365. Pinya thus belongs to the small-kingdoms period of Burmese history, when no single power could reunite the former Pagan realm. The kingdom controlled two of the three main granaries of Upper Burma but never realised its potential, and its experience anticipated the regional rivalries that kept Myanmar divided until the sixteenth century.