MYAZEDI INSCRIPTION

epigraph written in 1113 in the Pali, Pyu, Mon, and Burmese languages and providing a key to the Pyu language. The inscription, engraved on a stone found at the Myazedi pagoda near Pagan, Myanmar (Burma), tells the story of King Kyanzittha's deathbed reconciliation with his estranged son, whom he had disinherited by a peace-producing compromise of 1084 that had helped end the bloodletting between the Pagan and Mon kingdoms. The period described by the Myazedi stone saw the gradual decline in the formal use of the Pali and Mon languages, and the rise of the Burmese language, which was reaching maturity as a medium of literary expression, using Mon script. The later decades of the Pagan period marked the ascendancy of Burman cultural traits at the expense of Mon tradition. The Myazedi inscription is a benchmark from which to chronicle the development of a peculiarly Burman culture.