36 Facts About Pagan Empire

Pagan Empire's rulers built over 10,000 Buddhist temples in the Bagan Archaeological Zone of which over 2000 remain.

Origins of the Pagan Empire kingdom have been reconstructed using archaeological evidence as well as the Burmese chronicle tradition.

The region of Pagan Empire received waves of Burman settlements in the mid-to-late 9th century, and perhaps well into the 10th century.

Pagan Empire graded every town and village according to the levy it could raise.

At any rate, all scholars accept that during the 11th century, Pagan Empire consolidated its hold of Upper Burma, and established its authority over Lower Burma.

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The emergence of Pagan Empire would have a lasting impact on Burmese history as well as the history of mainland Southeast Asia.

Pagan Empire entered a golden age that would last for the next two centuries.

Pagan Empire patronised Mon scholars and artisans who emerged as the intellectual elite.

Pagan Empire appeased the Pyus by linking his genealogy to the real and mythical ancestors of Sri Ksetra, the symbol of the Pyu golden past, and by calling the kingdom Pyu, even though it had been ruled by a Burman ruling class.

Pagan Empire supported and favoured Theravada Buddhism while tolerating other religious groups.

Pagan Empire introduced standardised weights and measures throughout the country to assist administration as well as trade.

Over his 27-year reign, Pagan Empire's influence reached further south to the Strait of Malacca, at least to the Salween river in the east and below the current China border in the farther north.

Pagan Empire's reign saw the rise of Burmese culture which finally emerged from the shadows of Mon and Pyu cultures.

Pagan Empire's reign saw the realignment of Burmese Buddhism with Ceylon's Mahavihara school.

Indeed, Htilominlo was the last of the temple builders although most of his temples were in remote lands not in the Pagan Empire region, reflecting the deteriorating state of royal treasury.

All the vassal states of Pagan Empire revolted right after the king's death, and went their own way.

The male side of Pagan Empire ended there although the female side passed into Pinya and Ava royalty.

In general, the king of Pagan Empire received a periodic nominal tribute but had "no substantive authority", for example, on such matters as the selection of deputies, successors, or levels of taxation.

Pagan Empire largely stayed out of the affairs of these outlying states, only interfering when there were outright revolts, such as Arakan and Martaban in the late 1250s or northern Kachin Hills in 1277.

Early Pagan Empire army consisted mainly of conscripts raised just prior to or during the times of war.

Economy of Pagan Empire was based primarily on agriculture, and to a much smaller degree, on trade.

At any rate, the Kyaukse agricultural basin's development in the 10th and 11th centuries enabled the kingdom of Pagan Empire to expand beyond the dry zone of Upper Myanmar, and to dominate its periphery, including the maritime Lower Myanmar.

Evidence shows that Pagan Empire imported silver from Yunnan, and that traded upland forest products, gems and perhaps metals with the coast.

All the innovations that Pagan Empire Dynasty introduced, one area that it regressed was the use of coinage.

The success and longevity of the Pagan Empire sustained the spread of Burman ethnicity and culture in Upper Burma in a process that came to be called Burmanization, which Lieberman describes as "assimilation by bi-lingual peoples, eager to identify with the imperial elite".

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Primary language of the ruling class of Pagan Empire was Burmese, a Tibeto-Burman language related to both the Pyu language and the language of the ruling class of Nanzhao.

The use of Sanskrit, which had been prevalent in the Pyu realm and in the early Pagan Empire era, declined after Anawrahta's conversion to Theravada Buddhism.

For much of the Pagan Empire period, written materials needed to produce large numbers of literate monks and students in the villages simply did not exist.

Besides religious texts, Pagan Empire's monks read works in a variety of languages on prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, and medicine, and developed an independent school of legal studies.

Religion of Pagan Empire was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox—largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu schools as well as native animist traditions.

Likewise, the early Pagan Empire court worshiped snakes venerated in pre-Buddhist times.

Pagan Empire stands out not only for the sheer number of religious edifices but for the magnificent architecture of the buildings, and their contribution to Burmese temple design.

Pagan Empire temples fall into one of two broad categories: the stupa-style solid temple and the gu-style hollow temple.

The convergence of cultural norms around existing Pagan Empire-centered norms, at least in the Irrawaddy valley core, in turn facilitated the latter-day political reunification drives of Toungoo and Konbaung dynasties.

Geopolitically, Pagan checked the Khmer Empire's encroachment into the Tenasserim coast and upper Menam valley.

Not only did Pagan help restart Theravada Buddhism in Ceylon but the over two centuries of patronage by a powerful empire made Theravada Buddhism's later growth in Lan Na, Siam, Lan Xang, and Khmer Empire in the 13th and 14th centuries possible.