Pagan Kingdom: Map & History

History

The origins of the Pagan Kingdom have been reconstructed using archaeological evidence as well as the Burmese chronicle tradition. Considerable differences exist between the views of modern scholarship and various chronicle narratives.

The local myths and chronicles written down in the 18th century trace its origins to 167 AD, when Pyusawhti founded the dynasty at Pagan (Bagan). But the 19th-century Glass Palace Chronicle (Hmannan Yazawin) connects the dynasty's origins to the clan of the Buddha and the first Buddhist king Maha Sammata (မဟာ သမ္မတ).

The Glass Palace Chronicle traces the origins of the Pagan Kingdom to India during the 9th century BC, more than three centuries before the Buddha was born.

Government

Pagan's government can be generally described by the mandala system in which the sovereign exercised direct political authority in the core region (pyi, lit. "country", ပြည်, [pjì]), and administered farther surrounding regions as tributary vassal states (naingngans, lit. "conquered lands", နိုင်ငံ, [nàiɴŋàɴ]). In general, the crown's authority diffused away with the increasing distance from the capital. Each state was administered at three general levels: taing (တိုင်း, province), myo (မြို့, town), and ywa (ရွာ, village), with the high king's court at the centre. The kingdom consisted of at least 14 taings.

The core region was the present-day Dry Zone of Upper Myanmar, measuring approximately 150 to 250 kilometres (93 to 155 mi) in radius from the capital.

Economy

The economy of Pagan was based primarily on agriculture, and to a much smaller degree, on trade. The growth of the Pagan Empire and subsequent development of irrigated lands in new lands sustained a growth in the number of population centres and a growing prosperous economy. The economy also benefited from the general absence of warfare that would stunt the economies of later dynasties. According to Victor Lieberman, the prosperous economy supported "a rich Buddhist civilization whose most spectacular feature was a dense forest of pagodas, monasteries, and temples, totaling perhaps 10,000 brick structures, of which the remains of over 2000 survive."

Agriculture was the primary engine of the kingdom from its beginnings in the 9th century.

Culture and society

Various estimates put the population of Pagan Empire as anywhere between one and two and a half million but most estimates put it between one and a half and two million at its height. The number would be closer to the upper end, assuming that the population of pre-colonial Burma remained fairly constant. (The size of population in medieval times tended to stay flat over the course of many centuries.