The Curious Case of King Thibaw's Tomb

There is a personal feel-good factor in writing this blog as the very place at the centre of this is my own hometown  - Behrampore , the district headquarters of Murshidabad in West Bengal . Being in the close proximity of heritage sites and monuments built by the  Nawabs of Bengal and itself being a prominent centre of Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 , Berhampore has its own unique place in the medieval and colonial history of Bengal . However , there is a historical site in the town which not only has connection with a royal family from beyond the border of India but also is something that even most inhabitants of the town are unaware of .

A very rare heritage site , believed to contain the tomb of the last Burmese king , Thibaw Min of the Konbaung dynasty , has existed under the veil of mystery for decades at the outskirt of the town . According to an order of West Bengal Heritage Commission , the burial site has been declared as a protected heritage monument under Clause-II of West Bengal Heritage Commission Act-2001 . The tomb at the farthest corner of a blind alley inside the campus of Central Sericulture Research and Training Institute located by the National Highway-34 is in fact a small cluster of tombs that was renovated and partially reconstructed in 2013 .

A notice board outside the enclosure around the burial site

The cluster of tombs one of which is of King Thibaw's 

A Brief History of King Thibaw

Prince Thibaw was born Maung Pu , the son of King Mindon and one of his consorts , Laungsh Mibaya on 1 January 1859 . Thibaw's mother had been banished from the palace court by Mindon and spent her final years as a thilashin , a kind of female Burmese Buddhist renunciant . During the early years of his life , Thibaw studied Buddhist texts at a kyaung to win his father's favour . He passed the Pahtamabyan religious examinations and gained respect and recognition from his father and the chief queen . One of Mindon's chief consorts, the Queen of the Middle Palace , Hsinbyumashin , helped to broker a marriage between her second daughter , Supayalat and Thibaw , who were half-siblings by blood . 

In 1878, Thibaw succeeded his father in a bloody succession massacre . At the time of his accession, Lower Burma , half of the kingdom's former territory , had been under British occupation for thirty years and it was no secret that the King intended to regain this territory . A proclamation issued by the court of King Thibaw in 1885 which called on his countrymen to liberate Lower Burma was used by the British as pretext that he was a tyrant who reneged on his treaties and they decided to complete the conquest they had started in 1824 . The invasion force which consisted of 11,000 men , a fleet of flat-bottomed boats and elephant batteries , was led by General Harry Prendergast .

British troops quickly reached the royal capital of Mandalay with little opposition . Within a day , the troops had marched to the Mandalay Palace to demand the unconditional surrender of Thibaw and his kingdom within twenty-four hours . At the time , the king and queen had retired to a summer house in the palace gardens from where they were captured the following day and exiled to India in full public view .

The Mystery Behind the Tomb

The tomb , if it is of Thibaw , as claimed by the state heritage commission , connects Behrampore to the royal heritage of Burma ( now Myanmar ) but at the same time it stands as a riddle personified . Apparently credible documents maintain that Thibaw , the last Burmese sovereign , was buried at Ratnagiri , an urban settlement by the Arabian Sea , in the state of Maharastra after he died there on 15 December , 1916 at the age of 57 .  Even in 2012 , President Thein Sein became the first leader of Burma to visit the tomb in Ratnagiri . Subsequent to his defeat in the Third Anglo-Burmese war in 1885 , Thibaw is said to have abdicated the royal throne and the king’s court of Mandalay and thereafter taken on a bullock cart to be exiled to India via a steamer trip on the Irrawaddy river . 

King Thibaw on throne

The king was survived by Taw Phaya who was born to Thibaw's youngest daughter , Mayat Phaya in 1924 . So , the essence of the mystery that shrouds the double tombs of king Thibaw — one at Ratnagiri and the other at Behrampore — centres round the query as to where actually lies the sleeping soul of the king belonging to the last royal family of Burma . Academic documents available on the internet suggest that Thibaw’s wife , Supayalat made a desperate attempt to return to Burma and send back Thibaw’s body in a coffin to Mandalay , attracting the wrath of the British government . People in Burma used to believe that their king was invincible . It is possible that afraid of the Burmese people’s belief system with the potential to cause another uprising , the British government in India thwarted every attempt of the Queen Supayalat to bring back the king’s coffin to Burma and ultimately shifted Thibaw’s coffin to Behrampore , probably considering this cantonment town a safe place to keep the security-sensitive tomb hidden from public view . Significantly , till today the tomb of Thibaw remains largely hidden from public view . Whatever be the truth behind the tombs , the site definitely demands serious preservation efforts and research to unfold the mystery .