Pagan Kingdom (1044): Anawrahta and the Rise of Burma

The Pagan kingdom was the first state to unite the Irrawaddy valley, the heartland of modern Myanmar. Its rise began in 1044, when Anawrahta seized the throne of Pagan, a modest city on the middle Irrawaddy, and spent the next three decades turning it into the dominant power of the region. He is remembered as the founder of the Burmese nation and the king who made Theravada Buddhism the faith of the court, a legacy still visible in the thousands of temples on the plain of Bagan.

Background: Pagan before Anawrahta

The Burmans (Bamar) migrated south from the region of Nanzhao, in today’s Yunnan in China, into the dry zone of central Myanmar during the 9th century. There they met older populations, especially the Pyu, whose city-states had dominated the valley for centuries, and the Mon of the south.

Burmese tradition dates the fortification of Pagan to 849, though archaeologists think the city grew into a major centre more gradually. Before 1044 it was one of several small principalities. Its strength lay in the irrigated rice lands of Kyaukse, south of modern Mandalay, where canals and weirs fed by the Irrawaddy’s tributaries produced reliable harvests in an otherwise dry landscape.

Anawrahta takes power

Anawrahta (also written Aniruddha in Pali inscriptions) came to the throne in 1044 after overthrowing a rival, Sokkate, in what the chronicles describe as single combat. The date 1044 is now generally accepted; older chronicles gave earlier dates that historians have since corrected.

His first task was to secure the Kyaukse granary and the irrigated lands of Minbu further south. Control of rice surpluses gave Pagan the manpower to build armies and monuments. Over the following decades Anawrahta pushed Pagan’s authority north into the Shan hills, west towards Arakan and south towards the Mon country of Lower Burma.

Thaton and the turn to Theravada Buddhism

According to the Burmese chronicles, a Mon monk named Shin Arahan came to Pagan and persuaded Anawrahta to embrace Theravada Buddhism, the school based on the Pali scriptures. When King Manuha of Thaton refused to share copies of these scriptures, Anawrahta marched south and took the city, traditionally in 1057. Manuha, his court, monks, artisans and sacred texts were carried off to Pagan.

The story became central to Burmese identity, but it should be read with care. The chronicles were compiled centuries later, and some historians argue that the conquest of Thaton and the role of Mon culture were exaggerated. What is clear from inscriptions and buildings is that Pagan’s elite increasingly sponsored Theravada monasteries, while Mahayana Buddhism, Hindu deities and local spirit (nat) worship continued to coexist.

Anawrahta also tried to reduce the influence of the Ari, a group of monks the chronicles portray as corrupt. Modern scholars note that these descriptions come from later Theravada writers and may be one-sided.

Building a kingdom

Anawrahta did not create a centralised state in the modern sense. Pagan ruled through a core of irrigated districts directly controlled by the crown, surrounded by tributary lords who sent men and goods. Clay votive tablets bearing his name have been found across a wide area of Myanmar, from the north to the south, marking places where his authority or patronage reached.

He also built. The Shwezigon Pagoda, a great gilded stupa near Nyaung-U, was begun during his reign to house relics and finished under his successor Kyansittha. Its bell-shaped form became a model for later Burmese stupas.

Pagan’s reputation grew abroad. Around the 1070s, King Vijayabahu I of Sri Lanka, having driven the Chola forces from his island, asked Pagan to send monks to restore the proper ordination of the Sri Lankan sangha, a sign that Pagan was now recognised as a strong Theravada centre.

Economy and society

Pagan’s power rested on agriculture rather than long-distance trade. The dry zone receives little rain, so the crown’s prosperity depended on irrigation works in Kyaukse, Minbu and later Mu valley districts. Inscriptions record canals, tanks and fields being granted to temples together with the cultivators who worked them, showing how land, labour and religion were tied together.

Society was organised around obligations to the crown and to religious foundations. Some groups owed military service, others supplied labour or produce, and many people were bound to work the lands of a particular monastery. The surviving inscriptions, written in stone from the late 11th century onwards, are the main evidence historians use to reconstruct this system, since contemporary chronicles do not survive.

Anawrahta’s conquests also gave Pagan access to the coast of Lower Burma and the trade routes of the Bay of Bengal. This brought contact with India and Sri Lanka, the sources of Buddhist texts, artistic styles and relics that shaped the city’s religious culture.

Key people

• Anawrahta (r. 1044-1077): the conqueror who turned Pagan into a regional kingdom.
• Shin Arahan: the Mon monk credited in the chronicles with converting the king; he remained an influential primate under later rulers.
• Manuha: king of Thaton, said to have been brought captive to Pagan; the Manuha temple there bears his name.
• Kyansittha (r. 1084-1112/13): a general under Anawrahta who later became king, completed the Shwezigon and built the Ananda temple.
• Vijayabahu I (r. 1055-1110): Sri Lankan king who exchanged envoys and monks with Pagan.

After Anawrahta

Anawrahta died in 1077; the chronicles say he was gored by a wild buffalo. His son Sawlu ruled briefly before being killed during a revolt, and Kyansittha took the throne in 1084. Under Kyansittha and his successors, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries, Pagan reached its height.

The kingdom’s elite poured wealth into religious foundations. Kings, queens and nobles endowed temples, monasteries and lands to the sangha, earning religious merit. Historians estimate that more than 10,000 religious buildings were raised on the plain of Pagan over about 250 years. Over time, so much tax-free land passed to monasteries that the crown’s income may have been weakened, one of several explanations offered for Pagan’s later decline.

Burmese also became a written language in this period. The Myazedi inscription of around 1113, carved in Pali, Mon, Pyu and Burmese, is one of the most important early records of written Burmese.

Decline and fall

In the late 13th century Pagan came into conflict with the Mongol Yuan dynasty. After the Battle of Ngasaunggyan in 1277 and further invasions up to 1287, Pagan lost control of its provinces. The city itself survived, but power fragmented among Shan lords and smaller kingdoms such as Ava and Pegu.

Timeline

• 849: Traditional date for the fortification of Pagan.
• 1044: Anawrahta takes the throne of Pagan.
• 1057: Traditional date of Anawrahta’s conquest of Thaton.
• c. 1070s: Pagan sends monks to Sri Lanka at Vijayabahu I’s request.
• 1077: Death of Anawrahta.
• 1084: Kyansittha becomes king.
• c. 1113: The Myazedi inscription is carved.
• 1277-1287: Mongol invasions break the power of Pagan.

Why it matters

Anawrahta’s reign created the first political framework that joined the Irrawaddy valley under one dynasty, a pattern later Burmese kingdoms tried to restore. Pagan’s patronage of Theravada Buddhism shaped the religion, script and monumental landscape of Myanmar, and the temples of Bagan, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, remain the kingdom’s most visible legacy. Pagan’s links with Sri Lanka also placed it within a wider Theravada world that included Sukhothai and other later kingdoms of mainland Southeast Asia.