From Mouse King to Puppet: A Sick Buddhist Prophecy Twist
It is not surprising to see sycophants in the corrupt Myanmar military and the junta’s fear-driven top-down governing system. However, it is more than shameful to witness the leader of a so-called government fawning over another country’s leader who is, in fact, also a dictator. The most shameful thing is that he even quoted the Buddha’s prophecy, which appears to have been fabricated by the ministers of ancient Burmese kings as propaganda to promote their image among the South Asian Buddhist states such as Lan Na, Phitsanulok, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, etc. in present-day Thailand, Lan Xang in Laos, Cis- and Trans-Salween Shan states in modern-Myanmar.
During the meeting between the Myanmar junta leader and Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin Palace in Russia on March 4, 2025, the former praised the latter as the ‘King of Russia’ in a pathetic attempt to establish mutual support while discussing long historical diplomatic relations between the two countries. Min Aung Hlaing brought a readily prepared book, which he claimed was the original copy printed in 1838, along with other magnified copies; one of them was published in 1941 or 1942 (unclear due to his accent). He also made sure the book was well prepared with Russian translations. When he asked for approval from Putin to elaborate on this, the latter was willing to hear and urged him to continue. We later learned that the book in question was “The Biography of U Aung Zeya” written by U Saw (not the U Saw who assassinated Aung San but Pali Sayargyi U Saw). This book and the meeting record were continuously shared on social media, especially by a Facebook account of Thein Win Oo, a pro-junta lobby, on the same day. The complete title of the book was “The Taking-over of the Golden Land – the Biography of U Aung Zeya”. U Aung Zeya (another spelling– U Aung Zay Ya) was King Alaungpaya, the founder and first emperor of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. Many Burmese generals deeply respect him for his military powers and victories over the ethnic states of present-day Myanmar and some city-states in Thailand. In this book, Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the Myanmar junta, referenced writings about the Buddha’s prophecy for the mouse (king) called Thoma who offered a clump of soil to the Buddha. Just as in many other Burmese stories of the Buddha’s prophecies, how the Buddha smiled prompting his disciple Ven. Ānandā to ask the reason; he prophesied that this mouse would become a Russian King over 2,000 years later (after he passed away). According to the Buddhist calendar which starts counting from the year after the Buddha passed away, it is now the Buddhist year 2568. The exact writing is “ဤသောမကြွက်မင်းသည် ငါဘုရားသာသနာတော် အနှစ် နှစ်ထောင် (၂၀၀၀)ကျော်သောအခါ၊ ပါပမင်းတို့လက်ထက် သိုးဆောင်း ၁၂ မျိုးတို့တွင်၊ ရုရှားလူမျိုးဖြစ်လတ္တံ့။ ထို ရုရှားလူမျိုးမင်းသည်၊ လက်နက်စကြာ အမျိုးမျိုးကို တတ်မြောက်၍၊ လက်နက်စကြာရှင်ဖြစ်လတ္တံ့” meaning that the mouse king Thoma would become a Russian among 12 different nationalities of Thoe Saungs (a term used by ancient Burmese to refer to Europeans) and he would learn new ways and have different ‘cakka (powerful weapons)’. He would, then, become a chakravarti (a Sanskrit term meaning ‘an ideal universal ruler’), the Lord of Cakka weapons. The writing continued that the Russian King would have a friendship with the King of Myanmar.
In fact, these writings were stories created by the ministers of ancient Burmese Kings. According to our studies, these prophecies were told by Minister Sinta Kyawthu in his poems during the Coronation Ceremony of King Alaungpaya, the founder of Konbaung dynasty, and these unctuous prophecies resurfaced during the reign of King Mindon who was fond of it. As a strong supporter of Buddhism, King Mindon was also told prophecies by the Lord Buddha for him becoming a king and the founding of Mandalay City and his role in sponsoring Buddhism.
In fact, the prophecies of the four animal characters came together in the story and they all became kings in their next life. The four characters were Pālileyyaka Elephant (a story of an elephant who was present in Buddha’s time and who looked after the Buddha secluded in a forest, as written in Buddhist scriptures) and the others which were later created by Burmese, a parrot called Kesara (another Burmese transliteration spelling, Kay Thara), a mouse called Soma (Thoma) and a crow called Mahinda. When the Buddha was residing in Pālileyyaka Forest, the said four animals (animal kings, to be exact) came to the Buddha. The elephant offered five different lotus flowers to the Buddha, the parrot offered a white mango (Abbantara mango), the mouse offered a clump of soil and a kind of root vegetables, and the last, the crow, offered one Tin (approximately, 34 kilos) of rice with the husk. The Lord Buddha smiled and prophesied at each of them; the elephant would become King Mindon, the parrot to be an English king and he would attack and occupy Burma, the mouse to be a Russian king, and the crow to be King Alaungpaya in the years after the Buddhist Era-2,000.
Although the junta’s leader intended to fawn over Vladimir Putin as the Russian King who was a mouse in one of his former lives, the junta appears to refer to himself as King Alaungpaya. According to some sources from Nay Pyi Taw and looking at the photos of the recent visits of the junta leader to the museum of the Myanmar army, which were released by the state-controlled media, the junta leader seems to regard himself as the reincarnation of King Alaungpaya! Just like the other Myanmar generals who delude themselves into believing they are reincarnated ‘good kings’ to save the country and Buddhism, he is unsurprisingly another fool.
However, it seems most of the Burmese generals never wish to be ‘King Narathu’ or ‘Taruk-Pyay King’; these two kings of Bagan Kingdom were dethroned by the foreigners– the first one was killed by the mercenaries sent by the Sinhalese or Bangladesh kingdom (which was never clear but surely from an ancient South Asian kingdom from the west of Myanmar), and the second dethroned by the Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China.
Anyway, it was an obvious display of obsequious and shameful manner of the junta leader who claims himself as a nation’s leader, who was telling a nonsense story of the prophecies that were the panegyric poems exaggerating about the ancient monarch’s glory in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was also propaganda used by the ministers of King Alaungpaya to assist in his expansion of the emperor in the areas of modern Myanmar, Thailand, and partly of India and Bangladesh. At the same time, it was also propaganda against the British rule in the southern parts of Burma during the reign of King Mindon. Just one element of truth in the story of prophecies is the story of the elephant. The Buddhist Pitaka texts talked about the Pālileyyaka elephant who offered his voluntary service to the Lord Buddha during his stay in the Pālileyyaka Forest. The texts solely said that the elephant died of a broken heart at the moment when the Buddha left the forest, and he was reborn a celestial divine named “Pālileyyaka Deva”. Under the Facebook post of a pro-junta lobby, a commenter pointed out this reference about the elephant, highlighting it being in a celestial realm. No one, especially the pro-junta sycophants, responded.
It is unclear if Putin believes in this or not. He might be thinking, “This guy, Min Aung Hlaing, is fawning over me,” or perhaps he enjoys being called a ‘king’. I value my country’s history and traditional beliefs. I know which aspects are correct and true. Although I read and studied many ancient history books in my childhood, I learned as I grew older what could be true, and which could be exaggerated propaganda or panegyric compositions. I can’t believe the junta leader, the head of a nation’s army, believes in this inaccurate story and has this delusion. It’s an unbelievable thing to say in a bilateral state meeting, almost like a personal meeting and this conversation should have been whispered. At least, it seems he might have tried his best to fawn over Putin for his favors and continuous support. Anyway, both sides (the two isolated countries’ dictators) surely got a picture to show the international communities that they have partners who mutually support each other “close in hearts and spirits though they are far apart in distance,” as said by the Myanmar junta leader.
Although the pro-junta lobbies are bragging about the meeting of the junta leader, releasing the photos and videos of his visit, publishing essays and news articles about the history of the Myanmar-Russian diplomatic ties and even revealing the photocopy of the official letter from Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung, the Chief Minister of King Mindon to a Russian priest 149 years ago, his remarks were actually shameful. He quoted inaccurate information such as exaggerated prophecies and fawned over another country’s leader who was conducting a violent military campaign leading to several deaths and injuries of many lives, referred to him as a Buddhist prophesied ruler and praised their meeting as a ‘prophesied meeting’– quoting the Buddha, the one who guided Ahimsa (non-violence). The worst of worst part was that he told Putin that he shamelessly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citing incorrect historical information and describing it as a ‘response to protect sovereignty,’ and wished for its victory, mentioning a Burmese proverb “A just war must win.” It also recalled his statement at a military graduation ceremony in Ba Htoo, a garrison town in Shan State and a strategic military base against the ethnic armed forces (EAOs) in the Northern Shan State, that he vowed to continue the ‘just war’. At the end of the meeting, Putin also thanked him for his gift, the book, and commented that there are four major religions in Russia, including Buddhism. Prior to the Myanmar junta leader’s remarks, he also thanked him for his presents– six elephants that were gifted just like in the ancient times of the Burmese kings. Gifting the elephants symbolized ‘power’ and ‘strong alliance’ or ‘mutual friendship’. This practice was common in Asia, amongst Buddhist and Hindu states. In ancient times, the Burmese kings targeted the other states and kingdoms that possessed ‘elephants’ especially ‘white elephants’. They mostly tried to occupy or reduce them into their tributary states, so they paid tribute to Burma, including elephants. If a state or kingdom showed no intention to ‘exchange elephants’ or ‘gift elephants’ that the Burmese kings wished and demanded, they went to war. Most of the Burmese Siamese Wars, for instance, were fought over possessing ‘elephants’ and ‘white elephants’. Sometimes, Burmese and ethnic kings showed their willingness to share elephants with one another if they assumed or wished to be in friendship with them. Now, another megalomaniac, just like other Burmese generals who believed themselves to be the former ‘powerful kings’, are once again gifting the elephants to Russia, the country they wish to seek refuge or support from.
To sum up, the two crime lords are nothing more than rogues in cahoots, and this meeting means nothing beyond that. It was simply a meeting between the two dictators whom both were warranted for their responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity– the first one warranted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the second recently by the Argentina court. Both regimes share the same challenges that the two states are isolated and sanctioned by the West. This meeting was designed just to put themselves on the world’s platform, showing them as ‘mutual partners’, and plotting their next move together. Apparently, the Myanmar junta leader and his officials tried their best to gain an advantage and continuous support from this meeting with this Russian dictator. Instead of considering the internal peace and political stabilities to restore the people’s wish, it seems they have decided to continue oppressing the Spring Revolution and ethnic armed forces, mixing and messing up with the ‘global balance of power’ and misusing the ‘geopolitical importance’ of the country. It seems the junta leaders will grasp their ‘greed for power’ until their last breath. If so, they could unwillingly face their misfortune in the end, as said by a Burmese proverb “A snake charmer dies being bit by his snake.”
References:
1. The Great Chronicle of Buddhas, Volume IV, Ven. Mingun Sayadaw; p.18-30.
2. Jinatthapakāsanī (The Buddhamvamsa), Kyee Thae Lae Htat Sayadaw; p.500-505.
3. Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi (the Glass Palace Chronicle), Volume II, p. 345-356.
4. The Biography of U Aung Zeya, Pali Sayargyi U Saw; p.46-52.