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Rakhine people

Ethnic group in Myanmar

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The Rakhine people consist of seven different ethnic groups: Rakhine, Kamein, Kwe Myi, Daingnet, Maramagyi, Mru and Thet. Among them, the Rakhine are the majority in Rakhine State and have long been influenced by their proximity to India and have formed trading links with the subcontinent. The Thet, Kamein, Daingnet and Marma are the minority ethnic groups living in the hills.

The Rakhines are predominantly Theravada Buddhist. Their language contains similarities with the Burmese language and they are very close to Burma in culture and traditional dress. They have developed their own kingdoms, dynasties, scripts, coins, costumes, culture, and dialects. They also have their own ethnic armed group in Myanmar's Rakhine State known as the Arakan Army.

The Rakhine people have a variety of appearances, showing a mix of traits from both South Asian and East Asian backgrounds. Rakhine men mostly wear a sarong called lungyi, while the women also wear a sarong called thabein. The Rakhine people celebrate several key festivals including Sangrain and Buddha Purnima.

Ethnonyms

"Rakhine" (less commonly spelt Rakhaing) is the contemporary ethnonym and name of the region in Rakhine, Burmese, and English today. The word is extant to the mid-11th century, appearing on a pillar inscription at Shite-thaung Temple, and also appears in European, Persian, and Ceylonese accounts by the 15th century.

The term Rakhine may have come from the Pali word "Rakkhapura" from "Rakkhita" meaning the land of the people of Rakhasa (Rakhasa > Rakkha > Rakkhaing > Rakhaing) who were given this name in honor of their preservation of their national heritage and ethics or morality. The word Rakhine means, "one who maintains his own race." In the Rakhine language, the land is called Rakhinepray, the ethnic Rakhine are called Rakhinetha.

U Kala's Maha Yazawin traces the word's etymology to Alaungsithu's conquest of the region during the Pagan era, but epigraphic evidence to support the underlying theory remains scant. Arthur Phayre traces the etymology to the Sanskrit or Pali words for 'monster' or 'demon' (rākṣasa and rakkhasa) respectively, which is more likely. Some Rakhine inhabitants now prefer the alternative spelling of ရက္ခိုင်.

Between the 17th and 18th centuries, the Rakhine began calling themselves Mranma (မြန်မာ) and its derivatives, as attested by texts like the Rakhine Minrazagri Ayedaw Sadan and the Dhanyawaddy Ayedawbon. The word, which is also cognate with Bamar and is the Rakhine pronunciation of "Myanmar," continues to be used by their descendants in Bangladesh, who are known as the Marma. By this period, the Bamar began to call the Rakhine the Myanmagyi (မြန်မာကြီး; lit. 'great Mranma / Myanma'), as attested by contemporaneous Burmese and foreign sources. The ethnonym reflected their common ancestral kinship ties with the Buddhist-professing Bamar, with whom the Rakhine identified.

By 1585, European, Persian, and Bengali accounts began describing the Rakhine and Buddhist groups like Barua people as the Magh and its derivatives (e.g., Mogh, Mugh, Mog, etc.). The word's etymology is likely to derive from Magadha, the name of an ancient Buddhist kingdom. The term Magh (or Mog) has historically been used in Bengali accounts to refer to the Marma people and the Arakanese/Rakhine. With the rise of the Shunga dynasty and the decline of Buddhism in Magadha, many local Buddhists are believed to have migrated east, settling between Chittagong and the Arakan Yoma mountains. This eventually lead to the growth of the Arakan Kingdom, which expanded into Chittagong.

British authorities adopted the ethnonym Arakanese for the Rakhines by the late 19th century. After 1991, the Burmese government changed the official English name of the ethnic group to Rakhine, as part of a broader effort to indigenize the country's English ethnonyms and place names.

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