Suwannaphum (also Suwarnabhumi) is an old name for the mouth of the Sittang river in Burma. According to Mon histories, Mon seafarers brought Buddhism to the region in the 3rd century BCE.
The Mons also have a legend that Buddha visited the area with his disciple Ananda. He came across a promontory at the mouth of the Sittang River. There he saw two golden drakes, the female resting on the back of the male, and he smiled. Ananda asked why. "This area will silt up," the Buddha answered, pointing to the river mouth, "There my doctrine will survive".
Ashoka is known to have sent a mission of Buddhist monks to Suwarnabhumi to spread Theravada Buddhism. The ancient monastic settlement of Kalasa, near Thaton and claimed by Mon and Burman chronicles to have been founded by Asoka's missionaries, were mentioned in early Ceylonese records as being represented at a great religious meeting in Ceylon in the 2nd century BCE.
Thaton was a center for a Mon kingdom which stretched from the Ayeyarwady delta region to as far east as Cambodia.
Like the Burmese and the Thais, some modern Mons have tried to identify their ethnicity and, specifically this kingdom at Thaton, with the semi-historical kingdom of Suwarnabhumi ("The Golden Land"); today, this claim is contested by many different ethnicities in South-East Asia, and contradicted by scholars.
Historical scholarship indicates that the early usage of the term (as found in the edicts of Ashoka of India, who sent Buddhist missionaries there in the 3rd century BC) indicated a location in Southern India, and not in South-East Asia.
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