Page 360 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

358 CONTEXTS History
HISTORY AND POLITICS IN MODERN MYANMAR
the history of Myanmar is a multifaceted, complex and frequently controversial subject. the
official government-sponsored narrative emphasizes Myanmar’s status as a country forged out
of a patchwork of disparate peoples joined together in the glorious cause of national unity,
sovereignty and the greater good, while travelling around the country you’ll probably notice
posters and displays promulgating the “three Main National Causes” promoted by the military:
“Non-disintegration of the Union/Non-disintegration of national solidarity/Perpetuation of
sovereignty”.
Not surprisingly, official history tends to focus on the primacy of the country’s Bamar
majority and their role in building the modern nation-state of Myanmar, while huge statues of
the country’s three great Bamar unifiers and nation-builders – Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and
Alaungpaya – tower symbolically over the new capital of Naypyitaw. such history inevitably
tends to be written at the expense of smaller ethnic groups – the Mon, shan, rakhine, Kayin
and many others – who have found themselves at the margins of the majority Bamar
world-view, and whose cultures, languages and identities have been progressively swamped
and suppressed.

Pyu city-states
Myanmar’s recorded history begins with the arrival of the Pyu in the second century
BC. Migrating south from Yunnan in southern China, the Pyu gradually settled along
the northern Ayeyarwady valley, establishing a string of independent city-states along
local trade routes between China and India. Tang-dynasty Chinese annals record
eighteen Pyu statelets, including eight walled cities (each with twelve gates – one for
each sign of the zodiac). The largest early Pyu city was at Hanlin (see p.341), although
as the Pyu migrated south down the Ayeyarwady this was eventually eclipsed, in
around the seventh or eight century, by Sri Ksetra (aka Thayekhittaya; see p.193).
Pyu civilization lasted roughly a thousand years – the “Pyu Millennium”, as it’s
sometimes described – laying the foundations for the great Bagan Empire that would
eventually succeed it and, by extension, much of the basis of modern Burmese culture.
Religious and cultural ideas travelling north from India played a profound role in Pyu
society. By the fourth century most Pyu had converted to a local form of “Ari
Buddhism” (see p.385), while they also developed an alphabet based on the Indian
Brahmi script and adapted architectural ideas from the subcontinent – Myanmar’s first
stupas, later to become the country’s defining architectural and religious symbol, made
their first appearance at Sri Ksetra.

Mon kingdoms
Meanwhile, the second of Myanmar’s two major early civilizations was taking root in
the south of the country. The first Mon peoples began to migrate into Lower Burma
from the kingdom of Dvaravati (roughly equivalent to present-day Thailand) from the
sixth century onwards (although some studies, particularly by Mon historians, claim
that they arrived much earlier). Like the Pyu, the Mon established a series of miniature
kingdoms and city-states, the most notable being at Thaton and Bago (aka Pegu), both
founded in the ninth century.

c.700 AD c. 825 832 & 835
Sri Ksetra (Thayekhittaya) emerges Foundation of the Mon Bamar raiders from Yunnan
as the main Pyu city in the cities of Thaton and Bago in attack Pyu settlements in the
Ayeyarwady valley southern Myanmar northern Ayeyarwady valley

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