King Anawrahta

King Anawrahta the builder of the First Myanmar Union was the 42nd king in the long Bagan dynasty of 55 rulers. He ruled from A.D, 1044 to 1077. During that long reign of 33 years he carried out with outstanding success many works of merit in the fields of politics, economics and religion.

With might and main he wielded power and maintained law and order and restored peace and brought prosperity. With the assistance of his loyal commanders and knights errant who led his four armed forces the Infantry, the Cavalry, the Elephantry and the Chariotry he extended his domains to the four directions where his writ ran and his infhence deeply felt. Prominent among his brave men were five paladins namily (1) Kyanzittha the spearman of Payeinma, (2) Byatta the swift runner and horse rider of Thaton, (3) Nyaung U-Hpi the great swimmer of Nyaung U, (4) Nga Htwe Yu the toddy climber of Myinmu and (5) Nga Lone Let-Phe the ploughman near Popa Hill.

For the defence of his far-flung Kingdom, Anawrahta organized his armed forces on the levy system which required every townlet and village to raise a levy and he built 43 outposts along the eastern foothills from where external invaders used to come. Of them thirty three outposts still exist today as villages. They are (1) Kaungton (2) Kaungsin and (3) Shwegu in Bhamaw district, (4) Yinkhe, (5) Moda (6) Katha and (7) Htigyaing in Katha district,(8) Mya-daung, (9) Tagaung, (10) Hintha Maw, (11) Kyan-hnyat and (12) Sampanago in Mogok district, (13) Singu, (14) Konthaya, (15) Magwetaya, (16) Yenantha, (17) Sone-myo, (18) Madaya, (19) Thetkegyin, (20) Wayindoke, (21) Taung-byone, (22) Myo-din in Mandalay distict, (23) Mekkaya, (24) Ta-on, (25) Myin Saing and (26) Myittha in Kyaukse district, (27) Hlaing-det, (28) Thagaya,and (29) Nyaung Yan, in Meiktila district, (30) Shwe Myo in Yamethin district, (31) Myo-hla, (32) Kelin and (33) Swa-in Taungoo district.

With his armed forces Anawrahta toured his kingdom for inspection and supervision and made expeditions to neighbouring countries such as Bengal and Gandalayit [China] for worshipping sacred shines and relics of the Buddha. He sent Kyanzittha with a small body of brave fighters to Utha Pegu to defeat and drive out the raiders from the Mekong Valley. He gave military aid to King Vijaya Bahu I of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] at the latter's request at the time of the Cholas invasion.

Agriculture was Bagan's main economy and dry cultivation was the general practice of the farmers in Upper Myanmar. Networks of irrigation were constructed throughout the kingdom. Anawrahta repaired old water reservoirs like Meiktila Lake and constructed iirigation system which still eriches the Kyaukes area. He built four weirs and canals such as Kinda, Ngalaingzin, Pyaungbya, and Kume on the Panlaung River and three weirs and canals, Nwa-det, Kunshe and Nga Pyaung on the Zawgyi River. Anawrahta personally supervised the construction of irrigation works. He peopled the irrigated areas with villages which under royal officers served the Canals.

Eleven irrigated areas in Kyaukse district came to be known as "Le-dwin" or "The rice country". They are (1) Pinle (2) Myitmana (3) Myit-tha (4) Myin-gon-daing (5) Ya-mon (6) Pa-nan (7) Mekkhaya (8) Ta-pyet-tha (9) Thin-daung (10) Ta-mok-so and (11) Khan-lu.In the Minbu areas there are six paddy lands (1) Saku (2) Salin (3) Leikaing (4) Mapinsaya (5) Phaung Lin and (6) Kya-bin.These irrigated paddy lands were economic zones of Anawrahta's Bagan.
Anawrahta encouraged internal trade and external commerce. With Bagan as the powerhouse in the center of Myanmar, natural waterways - the Ayeyarwaddy, the Chindwin, the Shweli, the Tapaing, the Duthtawaddy, the Zawgyi, the Panlaung and the Samon Rivers and yearly maintained man-made roads, bridges and canals provided access for internal trade and movement of armed forces. Land routes in the remote regions, though difficult and not all weathered because of mountainous terrains and heavy monsoon rain, brought in cross-border swapping and bartering of goods through border outposts and towns. Seaports on Myanmar coast line such as Pathein, Negrai, Dalla, Thanhlyin, Martaban Yey, Taninthatee, Dawei and Myeik were gateways through which oversea contact for trade, politics religion and culture was made. Mention of foreigners and foreign missions are found recorded in stone inscriptions of Anawrahta's time.

In religion Anawrahta was accredited with being "the introducer of Theravada Buddhism to Bagan". He was also the royal pation, promoter and supporter of the Buddha Sasana which flourished throughout his domains. It was Maha Thera Shin Arahan, a learned missionsry Mon bhikkhu from Thaton in Ramanyadesa in Lower Myanmar who came to Bagan in A.D 1056 and advised Anawrahta to bring the pure form of Buddhism in written Tipitaka [Buddhist Scriptures] from Thaton [Suvanna Bhumi]. Under the guidance of this Raja guru Shin Arahan and with the assistance of his collcague missionary monks as well as the patronage and support of Anawrahta pure Buddhism was established and it spread and flourished. Debased Buddhism was stamped out and animistic practices and superstitious beliefs were eliminated by royal orders. Anawrahta sent monks to Ceylon to help the Singhalese king revive the Buddha Sasana in his land.
Many religions buildings such as stupas, pagodas temples, monasteries, schools, meditation caves religious libraries and rest houses and wells were built by Anawrahta. Among the many religious edifices to the credit of Anawrahta, Shwezigon Pagoda at old Bagan is the most prominentone. Anawrahta built it in A.D.1059. It is to-day in 2003, nine hundred and forty four years old. In it were enshrined sacred relics of the Buddha. The Pagoda was built of stone blocks brought by a human chain from the quarries at the Tuyin hill range about 7 miles away from the site of the construction. Pious devotees, by turn, lined up every day along that distance and stone bricks were passed on by hands to the construction site. Shwezigon Pagoda at old Bagan is held in great veneration by the Buddhists at home and abroad. It is a solid cylindrical structure resting on three square terraces, a prototype of the Myanmar stupa.
Reconstruction of the golden palace where Anawrahta had resided on a well-chosen site in the archaeological zone of ancient Bagan is a great tribute paid by the Myanmar people of to-day to King Anawrahta the founder of the First Myanmar Union. The ground breaking ceremony held at the construction site on the morning of 2 September 2003 was graced with the attendance and particupation of Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt who took the leading role in the performance of the rituals. Based upon stone inscriptions, mural paintings, old chronicles and historical records and accounts, archaerlogists, historians and architects have designed a scale model of the golden palace of Anawrahta, which will be constructed on the consecrated ground in due course.

The Pagodas of King Anawrahta

Author: U Thaw Kaung

The first unifier of Myanmar, King Anawrahta, reigned at Bagan as the capital from AD 1044 to 1077. He was the first historic king of Myanmar and renowned in our chronicles as the great king who brought Theravada Buddhism to Upper Myanmar and made it the official religion of the whole country. The flourishing of Buddhism in Myanmar today has its origins in King Anawrahta’s achievements.

Visitors to Bagan can see the splendid golden Shwe Zigon, a pagoda (Chedi) built in the same style as the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Yangon. Shwe Zigon was first built by King Anawrahta who enshrined in the pagoda a Tooth Relic of the Buddha which he had received from the King of Sri Lanka and also a Frontlet Relic he obtained from Thayekhittaya (Srikshetra) near Pyay (Prome). But King Anawrahta was able to complete only the lower three terraces of the pagoda before his sudden, tragic death, and it was the great King Kyansittha (AD 1084 - 1113) who completed the building of this pagoda which the Myanmar chronicles praise as being "famous in the world of men and the world of spirits as far as the world of Brahmas."

King Anawrahta also built the Shwe Sandaw at Bagan and earlier in his reign around AD 1060, the Myinkaba Pagoda at Myinkaba. Shwe Sandaw, the pagoda of the Golden Holy Hair, "standing half a mile to the south of the southeast corner the Bagan City Wall is earlier than the Shwe Zigon, and is the prototype of many later pagodas built in the same style up to the present day; it is also a precursor of the Shwe Zigon. It is supposed to be modelled on the Sulamani (Culamani) Chedi of Tavatimsa (Heaven). The five steep receding terraces at the base are square in shape and they can be climbed by stairways in the middle of each side. Above the terraces there are two octagonal bases from which a cylindrical bell-shaped dome rises, topped by moulded rings which ends in a conical finial crowned with a hti (umbrella). It is 135 ½ feet high. The corners at the base are guarded by lions with divided bodies.

The terraces at one time had lovely decorative, unglazed terracotta plaques (around 288) which depicted scenes from the Buddhist birth-stories, the Jatakas ; sadly, very few of these oldest plaques to be found in Bagan remain, as only about 25 from the Shwe Sandaw can be seen in the Bagan Archaeological Museum. Prof. G.H. Luce says that they are the work of "artists who put grace into all their handiwork".
The Shwe Sandaw being a pagoda from the early period of the Bagan Dynasty had some Brahmanical influences. The Hindu elephant god of Wisdom, Ganesha adopted into the Buddhist pantheon as Maha-peinne (i.e. Mahavinayaka ‘Remover of Obstacles’) was worshipped, and four images of this god once adorned the four corners of the square terraces of this pagoda. Fragments of the images which had broken and fallen down were found at the base. The pagoda was also sometimes referred to as Maha-peinne (Mahapinnai) the name given in the Chronicles as the name which King Anawrahta conferred on the Pagoda.

Shwe Sandaw means "Golden Holy Hair" Relic and the name is from the Buddha Hair Relic which King Anawrahta received from the King of Ussa Bago (Pegu) and which he enshrined in this pagoda. King Anawrahta had helped the King of Bago to repel an invasion by the Khmers (Myanmars call them Gyuns) and the King of Bago had presented the Holy Hair Relic as a mark of gratitude. This Holy Hair Relic is supposed to be one of those originally given by the Buddha to the two merchant brothers Tapussa and Bhallika who brought them back to Myanmar to enshrine in Thayekhittaya. The King of Bago had obtained four Holy Hair Relics at the fall of Thayekhittaya and he enshrined three in pagodas and kept one in a jewelled casket. This specially kept Hair Relic was the one presented to King Anawatahta who enshrined it in the Shwe Sandaw.

The platform enclosure of this pagoda is paved with stone. Visitors can still see many of the old stone umbrellas, altars and almsbowls. Some of the four gandhakuti, "Perfumed Chambers" for images were in ruins and recently repaired. You can see in the south chamber, the 28 Buddhas inscribed with names in post-Anawrahta writing. See especially the huge, more-than-lifesize Buddha image sitting in the padmasana posture, with the dhyanamudra gesture of the early Bagan Period with reredos 5 ½ feet above its pedestal, in a small vaulted gu-phaya (cave temple) towards the east of the Shwe Sandaw.
In early Bagan times when sailing ships came from Sri Lanka across the Indian Ocean and when ships sailed up north along the Ayeyarwady River, the sailors would know that they were nearing the capital when they could see a small white pagoda (chedi) on a height, a slight bluff, on the right bank as the river finally turns south towards the sea. This stupa is the lovely Lawkananda nestling among verdant vegetation and trees marking the site of the once busy harbour of the capital. It is about three miles below Bagan, the river bank at Bagan being too steep and the currents at the bend of the river too strong for boats to anchor there. The Pali title of the pagoda means "Joy of the World" and it was indeed an appropriate name as Bagan was once for the Myanmars and foreign visitors alike, the centre of the first kingdom and a joyous place of residence for kings and commoners, a thriving centre of trade and a vibrant area of religious fervour where Theravada Buddhism first flourished in Upper Myanmar.

Visitors will now see a golden, glistening stupa by the riverside, a beckoning flame soaring above the waters, as the pagoda was entirely gilded a few years ago.
Lawkananda is said to mark the site where the great Myanmar King Anawrahta, in a spirit of pious devotion, descended neck-deep into the cold waters of the wide Ayeyarwady River to bear on his head the jewelled casket housing the Holy Tooth Relic of the Buddha which had been presented to him by the King of Sri Lanka. He enshrined the Tooth Relic in another stupa not far from the river bank, a couple of miles north of his palace in what is now Nyaung-Oo town, and he named it Shwe Zigon.
There is a belief in Myanmar that kings who have attained high authority are often future Buddhas and King Anawrahta who with strong religious zeal established the pure form of Buddhism in his capital and Kingdom made a solemn vow that if he were to attain Buddhahood another Holy Tooth would reappear from the first, and miraculously not only one but four replicas "proceeded". He enshrined one of the Holy Tooth at Lawkananda to mark the place where the first Holy Tooth had arrived. The others were enshrined in pagodas on Mt. Tan Kyi across the river and at Mt. Tuywin, not far from the modern airport.
It is a lovely place, this simple tall pagoda, the Lawkananda, rising 86 feet above three receding octagonal terraces, surrounded by a quiet, spacious platform, shaded by trees which in turn rise above the waters. It is a place to rest, meditate or sit quietly away from the cares of the world. The pagoda has an elongated bell-shaped dome rather similar to the earlier Pyu pagodas at Thayekhittaya (Sri-kshetra). The Pagoda is at the southern end of the road from Bagan and near the village of Thiripyitsaya (Sri Vajra).
Nowadays, with the building of Bagan Myo Thit, the New Town, near Thiripyitsaya, Lawkananda has become not only a popular tourist site, but also a thriving place of religion, with its newly gilded stupa and a new hti (umbrella) to top its ringed, conical finial. The oldest Footprint of the Buddha in Myanmar made of stone, was found on the stone-paved platform of this pagoda and is now in three fragments at the Bagan Archaeological Museum. There are also two stone inscriptions still in situ; one of them is bilingual in Pali and Myanmar and is dated AD 1231 from the reign of King Nantaungmya, much later than the building of the pagoda. On the other inscription the name of the pagoda is given as Lokananta, and mentions a dedication in AD 1207 to "the monastery ofthe Cakravatin Anurudha" King Anawrahta’s name is written in Bagan inscriptions as Aniruddha, or Anuradha.
King Anawrahta’s name is associated also with some other early pagodas in Bagan, namely Ashe (East) Petleik and Anauk(West) Petleik Pagodas at Thiripyitsaya, the Myinkaba Pagoda at Myinkaba village and a pagoda called Maung Di Pagoda near Twantay in Yangon Division. He also built the Pitakataik, the earliest library building still extant in Myanmar today. 
 
There is a pagoda, a small, solid chedi with only a few simple decorative features, at Myinkaba village, about 7 miles south of the main Bagan walled city, which is connected with King Anawrahta's ascendancy to the royal throne. This is the Myinkaba Zedi (Pagoda) rising 44 feet, with a low terrace from the ground, on the north bank of the Myinkaba Chaung (Stream) as it enters the village of the same name. Professor Gordon Luce refers to this village as the old village of Myin-Bagan.
This pagoda with a simple form, a double-banded anda, a dome and a finial (the original has been lost) looks like a small prototype of King Anawrahta's later larger pagodas like the Shwe Sandaw which are much more developed in form and decoration. It is supposed to mark the spot where King Anawrahta killed his half brother and previous king Sokkate in single combat. Anawrahta had given Sokkate the honour of striking the first blow, for he was the elder, but Sokkate's lance missed, and when Anawrahta struck, his Areindama magical lance pierced the king's body through and through.
King Sokkate's horse ran away and the king's body was lost in the stream. Only the saddle of the horse was recovered from the stream called Myinkaba (myin means "horse", and ka-ba means "brought on the saddle".)
King Sokkate was the son of King Nyaung-U Saw Rahan and Ale-pyinthi, the middle princess. King Saw Rahan had made three sister princesses his queens. After King Saw Rahan, King Kyaung-byu-min became king and he took the three sister queens to be his queens also, and the youngest sister Myauk-pyinthi gave birth to Anawrahta. Sokkate and his brother Kyizo took back the throne by making King Kyaung-byu become a monk. It is said that Anawrahta became exceedingly angry when Sokkate called him by a derisive name which meant that he, Sokkate, intended to take Anawrahta's mother. Anawrahta rebelled and mustered his forces around Mt. Popa and came back to attack the king and killed him. The chronicles relate that the Myinkaba Pagoda was built by Anawrahta as an atonement for killing Sokkate ; Anawrahta was a pious king who wanted to make amends for his violent deed. The pagoda was therefore probably built at the beginning of King Anawrahta's glorious reign, around AD 1044.
There are twin pagodas at Thiripyitsaya village south of Bagan and very near Bagan Myo-thit (Bagan New Town) called Ashe (East) Hpet-leik and Anauk (West) Hpet-leik which are also usually assigned to the reign of King Anawrahta. Some scholars think that these two pagodas were built earlier, and that Anawrahta renovated them and put in the two series of beautiful, unglazed terracotta plaques depicting Jataka scenes from the previous lives of the Buddha. Five hundred and forty six plaques have been recovered, though originally there were probably 1,100 of them, many were lost and some broken into fragments. These graceful, simple figures with a charm of artistic merit were probably made by Mon ceramic artists brought from Thaton to Bagan around AD 1060. There are glosses in Old Mon on some of the plaques.
The name Hpet-leik means "Rolled Leaves" and it probably derives from the rolled leaf form of the dome and finial resembling the early ear-plug ornaments made of gold leaves.
The Ashe (East) Hpet-leik is larger than the Anauk (West) Hpet-leik, though both have tall double-banded anda, with sikhara niches at the four cardinal points which were for housing Buddha images. The structures are a combination of gu, hollow temple and solid stupa. Each pagoda has a square base harmika between the anda and finial. Covered ambulatory corridors run around the base to house the unglazed plaques.
The early repair work done by the Indian Archaeology Dept. in 1907 and 1915 put in concrete galleries and roofs, and some plaques were wrongly relocated in the dim corridors. Recent renovation has resulted in bringing more light to see the Jataka plaques which are the distinctive feature of these twin pagodas.
King Anawrahta, the first historic king who unified the Myanmar country into a whole single kingdom reigned for 33 years from AD 1044 to 1077. This great king not only unified the country for the first time, he also introduced into his kingdom Theravada Buddhism, the pure Southern School of Buddhism which has been to all the Myanmar people the dominant religion and the main element in their culture, social life and customs.
In AD 1059 or 1060, when Anawrahta had reigned in Bagan for about 16 years (i.e. nearly half-way period of his long reign), a Buddhist missionary monk Shin Arahan from the Mon country of Lower Myanmar came to Bagan and the king revered him and accepted the Theravada doctrine which he preached. The King on the advice of Shin Arahan requested for copies of the Buddhist scriptures, the Tipitakas, from the Mon King Manuha, who flatly refused. So King Anawrahta went to war with his large army and conquered the Mon Kingdom of Thaton and brought back to Bagan 30 sets of the Tipitakas placed on the 32 white elephants of the Mon King.
King Anawrahta also has the distinction of being the king who built the first Royal Library, the Pitaka-taik around AD 1057, nearly two thousand years ago, and the building still stands today as a strong testimony of the Myanmar people's love for learning and religion. Visitors should see this library as it is one of the few surviving buildings in Bagan apart from the pagodas. It is near the Tharaba Gate and next to the Shwegu-gyi temple, which some historians believe used to be a library also housing the sacred scriptures as well as being a cave pagoda. The Pitaka-taik is a solid single storey structure, square in plan measuring 51 feet on each side. There are doorways only on one side, on the east, where there are three doorways. Three perforated windows each on the other three sides provide dim light. Modern librarians praise the building for being so strongly built that it has survived for nearly two millenium, with thick walls providing protection against the fierce sun of Bagan, for giving good ventilation through the stone perforated windows and for being detached in a compound of its own to protect against the fires which ravaged Bagan several times. Only the top part is from the Konbaung period as King Bodawpaya (AD 1781 to 1819) repaired the five multiple roofs and spire, with the peacock-like finials in plaster carving in 1783.
The stone perforated windows have lovely designs ; one of an eight-petalled lotus flower and the other of a mythical lion with its head and mane turned back gracefully towards its tail. The inner circumbulatory corridor has an entrance in the east into the inner sanctum which must have housed a Buddha image at one time, though now it is bare. The palace was once located near this library within the walled city.
King Anawrahta's conquests stretched down to Southern Myanmar, so we can still see some of his pagodas outside his capital Bagan. A good example is the Maung Di Pagoda across the Yangon River, about seven miles towards Twantay.
The Maung Di Pagoda is connected with an ancient legend of a princess who fell in love with a common fisherman named Maung Di. The princess was from an ancient town called Kya-khat Wa-yan (the town surrounded by kya-khat bamboo); this town is supposed to be at the site of the present day Khabin village, the site of a small walled and moated town on an eminence near the junction where the road from Twantay to Kun-chan-kon meets the Dalla road, just about half-a-mile from the Maung Di Pagoda. The village of San-ywa is near by, about seven miles east of Twantay.
The legend says that Princess Kya-khat Wa-yan fell in love with a young man named Maung Di who used to catch fish near the sea shore, but he ran away from her. She chased him all along the Dalla Taw-kyi-dan ridge and the names of several pagodas on the road that runs on the ridge are supposed to commemorate events in this love chase. For example at the place where the Princess entreated Maung Di to love her is the pagoda called Kyaik Pa, in Myanmar meaning ("Love Me"); at the place where Maung Di said he can not love her is the Kyaik Bu ("Cannot Love") Pagoda; at the place where Maung Di got away from the clutches of the Princess and where she swooned is Kyaik Hmu (or Mu) Pagoda (the "Swooning" Pagoda) and where the Princess hand touched Maung Di the Let-khite Pagoda ("Hard Touch" Pagoda) and so on. Actually the Bama people were trying to give a Myanmar meaning to ancient Mon words and titles, the word Kyaik meaning Pagoda in Mon, whereas it means love in Bama (Myanmar).The present day Pagoda Trustees and the local authorities are now trying to dispell this legend and substitute it with a new one. Even the name of the pagoda has been changed from Maung Di to Mong Tee ("Beating the Gong") Pagoda. The new legend which might have an inkling of factual truth says that King Anawrahta camped near the Maung Di Pagoda at Khabin on his march to conquer Thaton and that big gongs were beaten to announce the start of his campaign. Whichever legend is accepted, for present day visitors the Maung Di Pagoda is a good example of the early Bagan period Mon pagoda which had been repaired many times even up to recent times. And there is no doubt that the pagoda is closely connected with King Anawrahta. The largest terracotta plaques signed at the back with early inscriptions in Mon stating that they were made by the hand of King Aniruddha himself can still be seen there preserved in the pagoda compound. These plaques at one time lined the two upper octagonal terraces of the pagoda. Professor Gordon Luce, the eminent authority on Bagan, thinks that these plaques or baked clay tablets are not only the largest, but they are probably the earliest of the King's votive tablets, and in design they are the simplest. Luce is of the opinion that this pagoda was probably built by King Anawrahta on his early expedition to the south around AD 1050 and so it may well antedate his capture of Thaton. As in most early Mon pagodas the lowest terrace is of laterite, below the two octagonal ones. Only the terraces and the lower part of the anda are from the early Bagan period, as the top part had been rebuilt in recent times.
King Anawrahta, the champion of Myanmar prowess, the brave king who unified the whole of Myanmar for the first time and established Theravada Buddhism on a firm foundation, has left for posterity the cultural and religious heritage which can be seen in his works of merit, the pagodas he built, to the present day.