At the end of this period of foreign domination, a governor
of Pegu, placed there by the king of Pagan, comes on the
scene. He would seem to have formed a strong connection
with the Talaings and, rebelling against his master, made
himself king. He and his two immediate successors are
counted by the Talaing writers as the second dynasty which
reigned in Pegu. They do not appear in Phayre's lists of
the kings. Their names are Akhamaman, Lakkhya and
Taraphya. The latter, hearing the report of Warero of
Martaban, sent to "him asking help against the armies of
Pagan. The king of Martaban went over and by his prompt
help the invaders were driven away up the Irrawaddy again.
A quarrel, however, ensued between the allies and, in a single
combat between the two kings, Taraphya was slain. Pegu
then passed over to the domination of Martaban. The
city was thus reduced from its kingly state and became a
provincial town for a space of sixty years. The kings who
reigned in Martaban during that time are not counted as
kings of Pegu.
Martaban thus for a time became the capital of Lower
Burma, the Ramannadesa of the books. In A.D. 1287 it
had a Burmese governor, Alimamah, whom Warero, the first
king of Martaban, entrapped and slew. This Warero, origin-
ally a merchant named Magadu, who was in the habit of
visiting the Siamese capital of Sukhothai for purposes of
trade, had by a combination of circumstances settled in
Sukhothai and attained to a high position in the palace.
He formed an intimacy with a daughter of the king, unknown
to her father, and the young couple, seeing no other course
open, eloped and fled the country in her father's absence.
