[Published as M. W. Charney, “A Reinvestigation of Konbaung-era Burman Historiography on the Beginnings of the Relationship Between Arakan and Ava (Upper Burma)” Journal of Asian History 34.1 (2000): pp. 53-68] A Reinvestigation of Konbaung-era Burman Historiography on the Beginnings of the Relationship Between Arakan and Ava (Upper Burma) Michael Walter Charney 1 (National University of Singapore) Introduction In recent work, Michael Aung-Thwin contested the Shan identity of the so-called Three Shan Brothers. In doing so, he challenged colonial and postcolonial historiography on Burma that repeated an error made by Arthur Phayre in the nineteenth century. Based on this misunderstanding, Aung-Thwin asserts, justification was assumed for the claim that late Pagan-era Burma had devolved into the chaos and fragmentation that would characterize the Ava period (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries). 2 Whether one agrees with Aung-Thwin’s conclusions or not, it is clear that prevailing perspectives on indigenous history as inherited from a colonial past need to be re-explored, not only to free indigenous histories from colonial projects, but also because new materials have come to light or, often more importantly, have been reinterpreted. Similar reinvestigations of the relationship between Arakan and Upper Burma during the Ava period are only beginning to be made. 3