Atula Thiri Maha Yaza Dewi

Atula Thiri Maha Yaza Dewi ( ; ; c. 1518–1568) was the chief queen consort of King Bayinnaung of Burma (Myanmar) from 1550 to 1568. The queen was of Toungoo royalty, daughter of King Mingyi Nyo and younger half-sister of King Tabinshwehti. She was the mother of King Nanda. Her 1534 marriage to Bayinnaung, a commoner, solidified an unfailing alliance between Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung who together would go on to found the Toungoo Empire (or the Second Burmese Empire). Early life The future queen of Burma was born Princess Thakin Gyi in Toungoo (Taungoo) to King Mingyi Nyo and Khin Nwe, Princess of Mobye (Mong Pai). Commonly known as Khin Gyi, the princess was likely half-Shan, a product of the system of marriage alliances among the small kingdoms that dominated Burma at the time. Her maternal grandfather was the sawbwa (chief) of the Shan state of Mobye (present-day northern Kayah State), which was a tributary of the Shan state of Thibaw (Hsipaw). Indeed, Thibaw in turn was a tributary and the only reliable ally of Ava, whose authority Mingyi Nyo had spurned in 1510. (The princess was likely related to Hkonmaing of Thibaw and his son Narapati III of Mobye who became kings of Ava between 1542 and 1551.) When she reached teenage, the princess became romantically involved with a commoner, one Ye Htut (later Bayinnaung), who was a close confidant and adviser of her brother the king. Circa April 1534, their affair was discovered, which under Burmese law constituted an act of treason. Some suggested to Ye Htut that he should mutiny. He refused and submitted to arrest, saying that although it was no crime to for a young man to love a young woman, it was an unpardonable crime for a soldier to break his oath of allegiance. Tabinshwehti deliberated at length with his ministers, and finally came to the conclusion that Ye Htut should be given his sister in marriage, and a princely title of Kyawhtin Nawrahta. With this decision, Tabinshwehti won the loyalty of his brother-in-law "without parallel in Burmese history". Ye Htut later received the title Bayinnaung (lit. "King's Elder Brother"). Chief queen Atula Thiri bore Bayinnaung a daughter and a son, early in their marriage 1534–1535. She saw her husband only a few times a year as Bayinnaung and Tabinshwehti were always away on their military campaigns: Lower Burma (1534–1541), Prome and Pagan (1542–1545), Arakan (1545–1547), and Siam (1547–1549).