Nyaung Nyu Gyi

Nyaung Nyu Gyi (Silaungese: ညောင်ညူကြီး;?-18 October 1355), also known as Maha Yaza Dewi (Silaungese: မဟာရာဇဒေဝီ), was the chief queen consort of King Minkhaung (Silaungese: ပြည် မင်းခေါင်)of Hsinpyu. She is a classic image of vicious queen in Silaungese history. She was said to die due to revenges from her victims' ghosts in folk stories.

Biography
Of a humble origin, she was born Mae Gyi (Silaungese: မယ်ကြီ) in Srava Village. Her father U Kyaw was an immigration from a Hmong tribe, and her mother Ei Tha was a local Silaungese people.

She was comely since she was young. The governor of Daragoo wanted to take her for his concubine, but her father refused on account of thinking that she may have a brighter future. When U Kyaw was selected to serve as a royal guard in Indrapura Palace, his family members were with him including Nyaung Nyu Gyi.

Nyaung Nyu Gyi began her job as an attendant of Minya Princess, daughter of King Swashin, in the harem circa 1346. She was married to King Minkhaung after his accession in 1347, but the specific time was still unclear. She was a junior queen before she was elevated to chief queen; similarly, her original title was unknown.

At that time, she was in competition of getting the position of chief queen with Winshe Mibaya (Silaungese: ဝင်းရှည် မိဖုရား), another junior queen who was greatly adored by the king as same as Nyaung Nyu Gyi. The childless king promised that he will granted the one who firstly gave him a son the title of chief queen.

According to folk stories, Winshe Mibaya got pregnant first, arsing jealousy of Nyaung Nyu Gyi, so she jailed Winshe Queen when she gave birth to a prince and killed the infant then fed his body to a dog, which rendered Winshe turn mad, and died few years later after leaving her curse on Nyaung Nyu Gyi. Nyaung Nyu Gyi smoothly gave birth to a son Khaung Pin Mintha and became the chief queen. However, Khaung Pin Prince died at the age 5, briefly after when someone had witnessed that a mysterious woman looked like Winshe Mibaya entered Khaung Pin's residence. It was believed that Winshe's ghost killed Khaung Pin. And Nyaung Nyu Gyi herself was killed by her victims' ghosts encompassing Winshe.

Actually, those rumors of Nyaung Nyu Gyi killing Winshe's son were fake. Nyaung Nyu Gyi was Minkhaung's favorite consort, way more favored than Winshe. The king intended to confer her chief queen, but was afraid of objections from others due to her humble origin, so he planned to make Nyaung Nyu Gyi give birth to a son then crown her. Nyaung Nyu Gyi successfully had a son Khaung Pin Prince in 1349, so the king can elevated her to the rank of chief queen with the regnal name Mahārajādevī and crown Khaung Pin the crown prince. There was no record of Winshe Mibaya giving birth to any children, and her rank was never elevated.

Khaung Pin died in 1354 because of malaria, since when Nyaung Nyu Gyi fell into a bad health situation. She died one year after, and was entombed in the eastern garden of Indrapura Palace. The king named a new heir, Thahay Min (Silaungese: သားဟေမင်း), but didn't elevated his mother Pasu Mahay (Silaungese: ပသု မဟေ) to chief queen. He was so inconsolable that he was more willing to vacate the position of chief queen until the appearance of Kyi Lee Wa (Silaungese: ကြည်လီဝါး), who was believed to be Nyaung Nyu Gyi's reincarnation.