Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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(althoughsomestudies,particularlybyMonhistorians,claimthattheyarrivedmuch
earlier).LikethePyu,theMonestablishedaseriesofminiaturekingdomsandcity-states,the
most notable being at
Thaton
and
Bago
(aka Pegu), both founded in the ninth century.
As in the Pyu city-states, the Mon traded extensively with India, and were strongly influen-
ced by Indian culture and ideas. They were among the first peoples to convert to
Theravada
Buddhism
andfollowed(atleasttobeginwith)arelativelypureformofthereligion-unlike
the heterogeneous Ari Buddhism practised further north by the Pyu.
Bagan and the Bamars
The beginning of the end of the Pyu Millennium came in 832 with the arrival of a new wave
ofinvadersandsettlerswhowouldsubsequentlybecomethenation'sdominantethnicgroup:
the
Bamar
. Following migratory routes first taken by the Pyu a thousand years previously,
Bamar raiders descended upon the Ayeyarwady valley from the Nanzhao Kingdom in Yun-
nan, sacking the major Pyu city of Hanlin in 832 before returning in 835, raiding and pil-
laging further Pyu towns. Some of the invading Bamar appear to have brought their famil-
ies with them and to have settled in the region. The exact details are vague, although what
is known is that sometime in the mid-ninth century - the traditional date given is 849 - the
Bamar settled and fortified the small town of
Bagan
(aka Pagan), located in a strategic loca-
tion close to the confluence of the Ayeyarwady and Chindwin rivers in the middle of the old
Pyu heartlands.
After their initial raids, the migration of the Bamar appears to have been a relatively peace-
ful affair - not so much an apocalyptic clash of cultures as a gradual merging of two related
ethnicgroups,PyuandBamar,bothoriginallyhailingfromsouthernChinaandspeakingsim-
ilar Sino-Tibetan languages. Further Bamar from Nanzhao continued to arrive in the region
during the ninth and tenth centuries, assimilating many aspects of the already thousand-year-
old Pyu civilization. Bagan, meanwhile, gradually extended its authority over the surround-
ing plains and by 1044 had expanded to become the centre of its own sizeable statelet, cov-
ering an area stretching across the central plains as far as modern Mandalay, Meiktila and
Magwe.
King Anawrahta and the rise of Bagan
The history of the Bagan Empire began in 1044 with the accession of
KingAnawrahta
(aka
Aniruddha; ruled 1044-78), who transformed Bagan from one of several minor kingdoms in
Upper Burma into the pre-eminent power in the land. In doing so, he united most of the ter-
