Mingyi Swe

Mingyi Swe (, ; officially styled as Minye Thihathu (မင်းရဲ သီဟသူ, ); and as Minye Theinkhathu (မင်းရဲ သိင်္ခသူ), ; 1490s – 1549) was viceroy of Toungoo (Taungoo) from 1540 to 1549 during the reign of his son-in-law King Tabinshwehti of Toungoo dynasty. He was also the father of King Bayinnaung, as well as key viceroys in Bayinnaung's administration. He rose to the position of viceroy of the ancestral home of the dynasty, after having started out as a royal household servant of Tabinshwehti. All the Toungoo kings from Bayinnaung to Mahadhammaraza Dipadi descended from him. Background The genealogy of Mingyi Swe and his first wife Shin Myo Myat (ရှင်မျိုးမြတ်), the parents of King Bayinnaung, is unclear. Though there are no extant contemporary records regarding Bayinnaung's ancestry or childhood, different traditions about the king's genealogy have persisted. According to Maha Yazawin, the official chronicle of Toungoo Dynasty compiled two centuries later, Swe was born to a gentry family in Toungoo (Taungoo), then a vassal state of Ava Kingdom. His parents were Taungkha Min (တောင်ခမင်း) and Kayenawaddy (ကရေနဝတီ), a descendant of viceroys of Toungoo, Tarabya (r. 1440–1446), and Minkhaung I (r. 1446–1451). When he reached adulthood, Swe was married to Myo Myat, a 5th generation descendant of King Thihathu of Pinya (r. 1310–1325) and his chief queen Mi Saw U of Pagan Dynasty. Despite the official version of royal descent, oral traditions speak of a decidedly less grandiose genealogy: That the couple were commoners from Ngathayauk in Pagan district or Htihlaing village in Toungoo district, and that Swe was a toddy palm tree climber, then one of the lowest professions in Burmese society. The commoner origin story first gained prominence in the early 20th century during the British colonial period as nationalist writers promoted it as proof that even a son of a toddy tree climber could rise to become the great emperor like Bayinnaung in Burmese society. To be sure, the chronicle and oral traditions need not be mutually exclusive since being a toddy tree climber does not preclude his having royal ancestors. Royal household servant Whatever their origin and station in life may have been, the couple's lives were changed for good in 1516 when both were chosen to be part of the seven-person staff to take care of the royal baby Tabinshwehti.