Swasawke

Who was Swasawke?

Swasawke was king of Ava from 1367 to 1400. When he was elected by the ministers to succeed King Thadominbya who left no heir, Swasawke took over a kingdom that was barely three years old, and still faced external and internal threats. By the end of his long reign, Swasake had successfully cemented Ava's authority in Upper Burma.

In the north, he successfully fought off the Shan raids into Upper Burma, a longstanding problem since the days of Sagaing and Pinya kingdoms. He maintained friendly relations with Lan Na Kingdom in the east, and Launggyet Kingdom of Arakan in the west. In the south, he brought semi-independent kingdoms of Toungoo and Prome firmly into Ava's orbit. But his attempts to extend control farther south were unsuccessful. His invasions of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom touched off the Forty Years' War between Ava and Pegu. Swasawke and King Razadarit of Pegu agreed to a truce in 1391 that would last until Swasawke's death in 1400.

For the most part, his long reign was peaceful. In contrast to the short reigns by various kings since the fall of Pagan, Swasawke's 32-year reign brought much needed stability to Upper Burma. He redeveloped the economy of the kingdom by repairing the irrigation system, and reclaiming much of the arable land which had lapsed into wilderness as the result of the Mongol invasions nearly a century earlier. Under Swasawke's leadership, Upper Burma centered in Ava, finally achieved stability it had lacked for much of the past hundred years.