Page 362 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

360 CONTEXTS History
craftsmen and artists, who would subsequently play a key role in helping create the
thousands of flamboyant temples that survive to this day. Anawrahta’s conversion to
Theravada Buddhism by the Thaton-born monk Shin Arahan (see p.385) also proved
crucial in establishing this branch of Buddhism as the country’s dominant faith, as it
continues to this day. Anawrahta also safeguarded the religion elsewhere in Southeast
Asia by stopping the advance of the (then) Hindu Khmer, and helped to restart
Theravada ordinations in Sri Lanka, whose Buddhist monasteries had been destroyed
by the Indian Cholas.
Age of empire
The following two centuries marked the golden age of Bagan, led by a succession of
capable rulers who continued Anawrahta’s grandiose building works at home and
conquests abroad, establishing the Bagan dynasty as one of the two great Southeast
Asian powers, rivalled only by the Khmer Empire of Angkor.
Anawrahta was succeeded by his eldest son, Sawlu (ruled 1078–84), whose brief reign
ended when he was killed during a rebellion in the south. Sawlu was succeeded in turn
by Anawrahta’s second son, Kyansittha (ruled 1084–1112), and Kyansittha’s grandson,
Alaungsithu (aka Sithu I; ruled 1112–67), both of whom continued to push back the
frontiers of the Bagan Empire while launching into ever more spectacular temple-
building projects at home. Alaungsithu was murdered by his homicidal son, Narathu
(ruled 1167–71; see box, p.213), who was himself assassinated shortly afterwards.
Order was restored under Narapatisithu (ruled 1174–1211), under whom the empire
reached its greatest geographical extent, stretching south to the Malay peninsula and
east into present-day Thailand.
The period also saw the emergence of a new and distinctive Bamar culture. Bagan’s
temple architecture began to develop its own unique flavour, transcending earlier Mon
and Pyu models, while Burmese script became the primary vehicle for the written
language, displacing Mon and Pyu scripts. The region’s ethnic Pyu increasingly merged
with the Bamar majority, while their language died out and their legends and histories
were appropriated by the rulers of Bagan.

Decline and fall
A further four decades of peace and stability followed under Narapatisithu’s successors,
the devout but ineffectual Htilominlo (ruled 1211–35), the last of Bagan’s great temple
builders, and his successor Kyazwa (ruled 1235–50). The empire’s former dynamism
had been lost, however. Revenues remained static, while expenses continued to rise, as
kings and nobles continued their attempts to accrue religious merit by endowing yet
more temples and monastic foundations – by 1280, it’s estimated, as much as
two-thirds of Upper Burma’s available agricultural land had been donated to the
Buddhist clergy, effectively destroying the rulers’ own revenues.
The agents of change came, once more, from the northeast. In 1271, and again in
1273, the Mongol armies of Kublai Khan demanded tribute of King Narathihapate
(ruled 1256–87; see p.219), and, when this was refused, launched a series of attacks
against the northern Bagan provinces in 1277, 1283 and 1287, moving progressively
southwards on each occasion, eventually reaching Bhamo. Narathihapate fled south
and was subsequently murdered, at which point many of the empire’s tributary states,

1174–1211 1287 1300 onwards
Bagan Empire reaches Mongol invasion leads to Emergence of the independent Shan States in
its apogee under King the collapse of the Bagan northeastern Myanmar, and the Hanthawaddy
Narapatisithu Empire Kingdom in the south

356-402_Myanmar_B2_Contexts.indd 360 30/06/17 2:21 pm