An 18th century Burmese depiction of four ethnicities reckoned among the traditional list of 101 nations
101 Nations (Burmese: လူမျိုး ၁၀၁ ပါး), also translated as 101 Tribes or 101 Ethnicities, is a traditional Burmese catalogue form in which a set of "one hundred and one" ethnic groups are listed together. Originated from Buddhist Jatakas, this cultural motif appears in classical chronicles, folktales, religious sermons and local commemorative texts, and has been used historically as a way to symbolize the world as known to the Burmese people, to record tribute relationships, or to index ethnic diversity under a dynasty. In a way, it is comparable to the role the table of nations play in Judaeo Christianity. Many versions of the list exist, and there are many differences as well as overlaps between them.
Overview
Pali literature, like the Mahā-Ummagga Jātaka and Sutasoma Jātaka, mentions a hundred and one kings or one hundred and one polities that exist in Jambudvīpa. Over time, this term was re-appropriated by Burmese literature by making Burma the religious center of the known world. Thus, the phrase "101 nations" also serves as a rhetorical device to mean "all of humanity" in Burmese language.
Variants and formats
There is no single canonical list of 101 names, although one formulaic verse, "Seven Burmish, four Mon, thirty Tai and sixty Indian constitute 101 nations"( မြန်မာသတ္တ၊မွန်လေးဝနှင့်၊ ရှမ်းကသုံးဆယ်၊ခြောက်ဆယ်ကုလား၊ လူမျိုးတစ်ရာ့တစ်ပါး ), is quite popular. Compilers often adapted the roster to local political realities, religious agendas, or poetic needs. Variants of the list appear in different regions and periods; some versions mix toponyms, tribal names, castes and legendary peoples from Indian literature. Some versions feature further ethnological or racial categorizations, while others do not. The list is attested in the following historical sources:
A devotional poem by Shin Own Nyo ( ရှင်အုန်းညို ဂါထာခြောက်ဆယ်ပျို့)
The Administration of Burmese Kings by Bagan-U-Tin (မြန်မာမင်းအုပ်ချုပ်ပုံ စာတမ်း)
The Tabular Chronicle (အင်းစောက်ရာဇဝင်)
Shin Own Nyo version
The "60-Gathas-pyo" poem (ဂါထာခြောက်ဆယ်ပျို့) is a classic Buddhistdevotional poem composed by the 16th century monk-poet Shin Own Nyo (ရှင်အုန်းညို). Despite not featuring all one hundred and one tribes, it is considered to be the earliest local attestation of the list, offering a glimpse of the worldview of the first Ava period. Without any categorization, the poem mentions the following:
In the above list, entries with asterisks are uncertain as ethnonyms due to possible punctuation errors.
Zatadawbon version
There are two variant lists found in Zatadawbon Yazawin, one of the oldest Burmese royal records. This version is the oldest complete list, enumerating all 101 nations. The list is difficult to be dated due to the complexity of multiple historical layers and editions in the chronicle, but it likely represents the Ava Dynasty or Toungoo dynasty at the very least. Just like Shin Own Nyo, the chronicle does not make any categorization. The first variant lists the following:
The Burmese tend to categorize ethnic groups based on either physical or geographical features. For example, both Chinese people, Kachin people, Karen people are reckoned among Tai peoples (ရှမ်း), despite the underlying linguistic and cultural differences. Throughout the age of colonialism, European people were called "white kalars" (ကုလားဖြူ; Kulāḥ Phrū) and thus listed in the same category with other Indo-aryan and Dravidian peoples.
Modern usage and legacy
In the modern period, the phrase may appear in local histories, museum exhibits, and cultural revival projects. Some scholars and communities often reinterpret the lists for identity politics, nationalism or heritage displays.
12Here, ethnonyms are romanized more or less based on IAST Pāḷi system to emphasize historical orthography
↑The exact term used here is ကုလား (Kulah; "Kalar"). The connotation in this context is neutral, as derived from Pali kula ("clan"), portraying the Indian people as descendants of famous mythological figures
↑ဦး, ဌေးဝေ (2014). စည်သူဂါမဏိသင်္ကြံ၏ ရခိုင်ရာဇဝင် or ရခိုင်ရာဇဝင် ရခိုင်သမိုင်း[Caññsū Gāmaṇi's Chronicle: The Arakanese History] (in Burmese). Yan Aung literature.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
↑Cowell, E. B., ed. (1897). "Mahā-Ummagga Jātaka (No. 546)". The Jātaka: or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, Vol. VI. Cambridge University Press.
↑အုန်းညို, ရှင် (4 April 1517). ဂါထာခြောက်ဆယ်ပျို့ (in Burmese) (1sted.). Hantharwaddy Press, Rangoon (published 1928).
↑Royal Historians of Burma (c. 1680). U Hla Tin (Hla Thamein) (ed.). Zatadawbon Yazawin (1960ed.). Historical Research Directorate of the Union of Burma.
↑အရိယဝံသ အာဒိစ္စရံသီ, မုံရွေးဇေတဝန်ဆရာတော် (17 November 1833). မုံရွေးဆရာတော် မှတ်စု[Moam-Yway's Notebook] (in Burmese). the Hantharwaddy Press, Rangoon (published June 1963).
