History of Thaton

kingdom at Thaton, with the semi-historical kingdom of Suwarnabhumi ("The Golden Land"); today, this claim is contested by many different ethnicity in Southeast Asia, and contradicted by scholars. Historical scholarship indicates that the early usage of the term (as found in the edicts of Ashoka of India, who sent Buddhist missionaries there in the 3rd century BC) indicated a location in southern India, and not in Southeast Asia.

In the kingdom of Dvaravati, Thaton was an important seaport on the Gulf of Martaban, for trade with India and Sri Lanka. Shin Arahan, also called Dhammadassi, a monk born in Thaton and raised and educated in Nakhon Pathom, an old capital of the Mon kingdom of Dvaravadi, now in Thailand, took Theravada Buddhism north to the Burmese kingdom of Bagan. In 1057, King Anawrahta of Bagan conquered Thaton