The ethnonym of the Mon people in olden days were different from present name Mon, written MAN. In the pre-Angkor Khmer inscriptions, the Mons were called RAMAN, RMMAN and RAMANYA in 6th –7th centuries A.D. In 1021 A.D, the Javanese named them as RMEN and REMEN. The great Myanmar King Kyansitha referred them as RMEN in his Palace Mon inscription at Pagan inscribed on huge stones in the 11th century A.D, when Myanmars were known as MIRMA. A few centuries later, the Mons were known as RMAN as recorded by the great Mon King Dhammazeti at Bago in 15th century A.D. The Mons were even known by the Thais as RAMAN. However, due to frequent contacts with each other, the Thais began to call them Mon.

The Mon language is not a tonal language. It is entirely different from both the Myanmar and Thai languages. It is closely related to Khmer. It is important to note that Mon-Khmer is a linguistic term. Mon in the west and Khmer in the east with cognate languages and dialects in between them are grouped as the Mon-Khmer family in the field of linguistics.

It is impotant to distinguish between race and language. For instance, Mon, Khmer, Myanmar and Thai and Mongoloid in race. But they speak different languages. On the other hand the Negroids who live in the south coast speak basically Mon-Khmer. Mon is in the Austric Family but in the Austroasiatic sub-division.

Of the present inhabitants of Myanmar, the Mons are the oldest. Their language, Austroasiatic, is related more or less distantly to other languages. The more you study the languages of Myanmar the more widespread you will find the culture of the Mons.

The Mons of Myanmar have always tended to hug the east of Myanmar rather than the west. Thus, early in the Christian Era, their hold of Southern Myanmar was impaired by the infiltration of South Indians by sea, mostly by the Delta.

In Siam, during the 7th century A.D, the Mon Kingdom of Dvaravati was at it’s height. It was a Buddhist Kingdom, centred at Lopburi. Meanwhile in Myanmar the Tibeto-Burmans were coming in from the north. By the 7th century, their leader, the PYU, now civilized, had occupied the Ayeyarwady valley west of the Mons, and reached Pyay at the head of the Delta, where they founded the first great capital of Myanmar, Sri Ksetra.

In respect of the Mon homeland, A.H. Chiristie once suggested Tongkin Basin as the swarming ground of the Mon-Khmer. In his article on "Chinese and Indo-Europeans", E.G. Pulleyblank writes: "The word for river in Chinese Kiang or Chiang, can now be shown to have pronounced something like Karwz or Krawz in old Chinese. It is no doubt cognate to the Mon-Khmer word for river."

There was a linguistic paper by Professors Jerry Norman and Tsu-Lin Mei presented to the 3rd Sino-Tibetan Conference in 1970. The authors stated that ancient South China was almost exclusively populated by non-Chinese people. They also stated that the Austroasiatic family of languages includes Munda in northern India, Khasi in Assam; Palaung-Wa in Upper Myanmar and Yunnan; Mon-Khmer in Lower Myanmar and Combodia; as well as in parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

As the Chinese came down from their homeland in the Yellow River valley they met Mon-Khmer in the middle of the Yangtze region between 1000 and 500 B.C, when the Chinese adopted the Mon-Khmer word Krung/Krong/Krag which has evolved to the modern Chinese word Kiang or Chiang for river.

All the statements support the assumption of taking Yangtze Kiang Valley as the original homeland of the Mon-Khmer. In the Mon language, the word Krung/Krug means river in ancient literature and old Mon inscriptions but it means creek or stream in modern Mon. Because the Mons had obtained the Sanskrit word Mahasamudra for sea or ocean their own word for ocean labi subsequently changed to river and their word for river, to creek or stream.

The Mon-Khmer were the pioneers in wet-rice cultivation and their migration has something to do with the rice. Irrigated rice is one of the great economic discoveries in the history of humanity. It is the prime product of Southeast Asia and the first contribution to civilization.

Due to the rapid growth of population the Tongking Plain became overcrowded and a great number of Mon-Khmer fell back along the Red River, the shortest and easiest route to the Ganges Plain in India. On their way they passed the delta of the Ayeyarwady River in Ramannadesa in Lower Myanmar.

In 832 Nancho sacked the PYU capital, and in 835 the two chief cities, very likely Mon, of Lower Myanmar. This is likely to have been the moment when the MRANMA appeared upon the scene. They formed part of a new migration of Tibeto-Myanmar speaking people. Descending suddenly from the Shan Hills, they conquered Kyaukse from the Mons. Mons fell back towards the South, and they must have been thick along the Samon and Sittaung Valleys.

But a number of Mons were isolated in the North and Northwest of Kyaukse. There was a Mon Prelates resident in Kyaukse even in the middle of the Bagan period: he left an inscription in Old Mon which still stands on the northwest side of Kyaukse Hill.

The Bamas learnt letters and Buddhism from the Mons. Though, close kin to the PYU, they adopted not PYU writing, but Mon. Two centuries later they also got Brahmanism as well as Buddhism from the Mons.

The oldest writings found at Tavoy are Mon and Buddhist; they date only from the Bagan period. Pali-Mon Kalyani inscriptions of Bago 1479 A.D showed the accounts of war of the Aniruddha. The Cambojans, hoping to conquer all the Mon, invaded lower Myanmar. By that time the Mons were weakened by clannishness, the quarrels of Thaton and Bago; the rivalry of India settlements in the Delta, and the religious struggle between the older cults of Sanskrit Bhrahmanism and the conquering cult of Pali Buddhism. Aniruddha seized this moment to step in. A genuine religio-national impulse stirred him. The captured King Makuta and his family were allowed some royal state and settled at Myinkaba, a mile south of Bagan, where they built in stone the Nanpaya, a little gem of Mon culture.

Kyansittha wed his own daughter to the Mon prince the grandson of Makuta and promised the throne to the sibling of their wedlock. All the 12 inscriptions were inscribed by him only in Mon. His temples too, are of a distinctive type, PYU perhaps in plan and structure, Mon in decoration and stone sculpture. Later inscriptions called him "Klan cacsa’ the soldier, the modern version of which is Kyansittha.

At Shwezigon Pagoda; it’s original name, Jayabhumi (Zibon) was soon corrupted into "Zigon". The two four-faced pillars set up on the east side of the pagoda is a grand inscription of his legend. Kyansittha’’ deadbed scene is told in the Rajakumar inscription of the Myinkaba Kubyaukgyi. The date is approximately 1113 A.D. Inscribed in four languages Mon, Pali, in place of Sanskrit and Myanmar, which appears for the first time, PYU for the last.

Ramannadesa means country of the Ramans. Raman is the name for Mon in olden days. It was in lower Myanmar comprising fertile deltas of the Ayeyarwady, the Sittaung and Thanlwin. The old Indians and Ceylonese referred to it as Suvanabhumi, meaning goldenland.

Mon settlements were found not only in Myanmar but also in old Siam. Ramannadesa or Lower Myanmar was the western Mon Kingdom and in the old Siam known as Dvaravati, was the eastern Mon Kingdom.

The Bago Kalyani inscription engraved in the 15th century A.D. by a Mon King Dhammazeti (Ramadhipati) in Pali and Mon repeated these terms as country of the Mons. The capital of the Mon country was known as Sudhamavati, meaning city of the good law. Historians have regarded it as the cradle of the first region of Buddhism in old Myanmar.

The Mon people lived in three provinces of Ramannadesa such as Pathein, Hamsavati (Bago) and Mottama. Mon chronicles gives a list of 57 kings beginning from Siharaja and ending with Manuha.

The second capital of Ramamadesa, Mottama was founded by a commoner Mon King known as Magadu: Magadu built Mottama and founded his dynasty in the 13th century. His father-in-law; king of Sukhothai (Ramkhamheang) conferred on him the title of Werirow which means the king who has come down from the sky.

Eight Kings ruled Mottama. The eighth king Banya U after 16 years of his reign shifted the capital from Mottama to Hamsavati (Bago). That was the second time for Bago to become the capital of Ramannadesa. Banya U’s son and successor Banya New was the most famous Mon king of Hamsavati he bore two titles as Siharaja rajadhirit and Sutasona rajadhiraj. His daughter Banya Thao (Sin Saw Pu) became queen of Ramannadesa in a later period. She was the only queen in the history of Mon and Myanmar.

Modern Bago was formerly known as Hamsavati (city of Brahmani duck). Bago also had an Indian name Ussa, which was derived from Orissa in the east coast of India with which the Mons had very early contacts.

Mon legends are found not only in palm-leaf but also found in the stone inscriptions. Such Mon inscriptions were inscribed by a famous Mon king known as Dhammazeti whose title is Ramadhipati. He reigned Hamsavati (Bago) from 1472-92 A.D. he was not of royal blood but a commoner. During the reign of the Mon Queen Shin Saw Pu of Hamsavati (1453-72 A.D), Dhammazeti was a learned monk, well versed in various languages. He was also skilled in both arts and sciences. He studied not only in Bago but also at Innwa and Bagan.

During his reign he built many pagodas and temples and monasteries. Dhammazeti’s Mon inscriptions always gave accounts of his meritorious deeds.