It is noticeable that Târanâtha states[139] that in the Koki countries, among which he expressly mentions Pukham (Pagan) and Haṃsavatî (Pegu), Hinayanism was preached from the days of Asoka onwards, but that the Mahayana was not known until the pupils of Vasubandhu introduced it.
The presence of Hinayanism in Lower Burma naturally did not prevent the arrival of Mahayanism. It has not left many certain traces but Atîśa (c. 1000), a great figure in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, is reported to have studied both in Magadha and in Suvarnadvîpa by which Thaton must be meant. He would hardly have done this, had the clergy of Thaton been unfriendly to Tantric learning. This mediæval Buddhism was also, as in other countries, mixed with Hinduism but whereas in Camboja and Champa Śivaism, especially the worship of the lingam, was long the official and popular cult and penetrated to Siam, few Śivaite emblems but numerous statues of Vishṇuite deities have hitherto been discovered in Burma.
The above refers chiefly to Lower Burma. The history of Burmese Buddhism becomes clearer in the eleventh century but before passing to this new period we must enquire what was the religious condition of Upper Burma in the centuries preceding it. It is clear that any variety of Buddhism or Brahmanism may have entered this region from India by land at any epoch. According to both Hsüan Chuang and I-Ching Buddhism flourished in Samaṭata and the latter mentions images of Avalokita and the reading of the Prajñâ-pâramitâ. The precise position of Samaṭata has not been fixed but in any case it was in the east of Bengal and not far from the modern Burmese frontier. The existence of early Sanskrit inscriptions at Taungu and elsewhere has been recorded but not with as much detail as could be wished.[140] Figures of Bodhisattvas and Indian deities are reported from Prome,[141] and in the Lower Chindwin district are rock-cut temples resembling the caves of Barabar in Bengal. Inscriptions also show that at Prome there were kings, perhaps in the seventh century, who used the Pyu language but bore Sanskrit titles. According to Burmese tradition the Buddha himself visited the site of Pagan and prophesied that a king called Sammutiraya would found a city there and establish the faith. This prediction is said to have been fulfilled in 108 A.D. but the notices quoted from the Burmese chronicles are concerned less with the progress of true religion than with the prevalence of heretics known as Aris.[142] It has been conjectured that this name is a corruption of Arya but it appears that the correct orthography is arañ representing an original araṇyaka, that is forest priests. It is hard to say whether they were degraded Buddhists or an indigenous priesthood who in some ways imitated what they knew of Brahmanic and Buddhist institutions. They wore black robes, let their hair grow, worshipped serpents, hung up in their temples the heads of animals that had been sacrificed, and once a year they assisted the king to immolate a victim to the Nats on a mountain top. They claimed power to expiate all sins, even parricide. They lived in convents (which is their only real resemblance to Buddhist monks) but were not celibate.[143] Anawrata is said to have suppressed the Aris but he certainly did not extirpate them for an inscription dated 1468 records their existence in the Myingyan district. Also in a village near Pagan are preserved Tantric frescoes representing Bodhisattvas with their Śaktis. In one temple is an inscription dated 1248 and requiring the people to supply the priests morning and evening with rice, beef, betel, and a jar of spirits.[144] It is not clear whether these priests were Aris or not, but they evidently professed an extreme form of Buddhist Śaktism.
Chinese influences in Upper Burma must also be taken into account. Burmese kings were perhaps among the many potentates who sent religious embassies to the Emperor Wu-ti about 525 A.D. and the T'ang[145] annals show an acquaintance with Burma. They describe the inhabitants as devout Buddhists, reluctant to take life or even to wear silk, since its manufacture involves the death of the silk worms. There were a hundred monasteries into which the youth entered at the age of seven, leaving at the age of twenty, if they did not intend to become monks. The Chinese writer does not seem to have regarded the religion of Burma as differing materially from Buddhism as he knew it and some similarities in ecclesiastical terminology shown by Chinese and Burmese may indicate the presence of Chinese influence.[146] But this influence, though possibly strong between the sixth and tenth centuries A.D., and again about the time of the Chinese invasion of 1284,[147] cannot be held to exclude Indian influence.
Thus when Anawrata came to the throne[148] several forms of religion probably co-existed at Pagan, and probably most of them were corrupt, though it is a mistake to think of his dominions as barbarous. The reformation which followed is described by Burmese authors in considerable detail and as usual in such accounts is ascribed to the activity of one personality, the Thera Arahanta who came from Thaton and enjoyed Anawrata's confidence. The story implies that there was a party in Pagan which knew that the prevalent creed was corrupt and also looked upon Thaton and Ceylon as religious centres. As Anawrata was a man of arms rather than a theologian, we may conjecture that his motive was to concentrate in his capital the flower of learning as known in his time—a motive which has often animated successful princes in Asia and led to the unceremonious seizure of living saints. According to the story he broke up the communities of Aris at the instigation of Arahanta and then sent a mission to Manohari, king of Pegu, asking for a copy of the Tipiṭaka and for relics. He received a contemptuous reply intimating that he was not to be trusted with such sacred objects. Anawrata in indignation collected an army, marched against the Talaings and ended by carrying off to Pagan not only elephant loads of scriptures and relics, but also all the Talaing monks and nobles with the king himself.[149] The Piṭakas were stored in a splendid pagoda and Anawrata sent to Ceylon[150] for others which were compared with the copies obtained from Thaton in order to settle the text.[151]
For 200 years, that is from about 1060 A.D. until the later decades of the thirteenth century, Pagan was a great centre of Buddhist culture not only for Burma but for the whole east, renowned alike for its architecture and its scholarship. The former can still be studied in the magnificent pagodas which mark its site. Towards the end of his reign Anawrata made not very successful attempts to obtain relics from China and Ceylon and commenced the construction of the Shwe Zigon pagoda. He died before it was completed but his successors, who enjoyed fairly peaceful reigns, finished the work and constructed about a thousand other buildings among which the most celebrated is the Ananda temple erected by King Kyansithâ.[152]
Pali literature in Burma begins with a little grammatical treatise known as Kârikâ and composed in 1064 A.D. by the monk Dhammasenâpati who lived in the monastery attached to this temple. A number of other works followed. Of these the most celebrated was the Saddanîti of Aggavaṃsa (1154), a treatise on the language of the Tipiṭaka which became a classic not only in Burma but in Ceylon. A singular enthusiasm for linguistic studies prevailed especially in the reign of Kyocvâ (c. 1230), when even women are said to have been distinguished for the skill and ardour which they displayed in conquering the difficulties of Pali grammar. Some treatises on the Abhidhamma were also produced.
Like Mohammedanism, Hinayanist Buddhism is too simple and definite to admit much variation in doctrine, but its clergy are prone to violent disputes about apparently trivial questions. In the thirteenth century such disputes assumed grave proportions in Burma. About 1175 A.D. a celebrated elder named Uttarâjîva accompanied by his pupil Chapaṭa left for Ceylon. They spent some years in study at the Mahâvihâra and Chapaṭa received ordination there. He returned to Pagan with four other monks and maintained that valid ordination could be conferred only through the monks of the Mahâvihâra, who alone had kept the succession unbroken. He with his four companions, having received this ordination, claimed power to transmit it, but he declined to recognize Burmese orders. This pretension aroused a storm of opposition, especially from the Talaing monks. They maintained that Arahanta who had reformed Buddhism under Anawrata was spiritually descended from the missionaries sent by Asoka, who were as well qualified to administer ordination as Mahinda. But Chapaṭa was not only a man of learning and an author[153] but also a vigorous personality and in favour at Court. He had the best of the contest and succeeded in making the Talaing school appear as seceders from orthodoxy. There thus arose a distinction between the Sinhalese or later school and the old Burmese school, who regarded one another as schismatics. A scandal was caused in the Sinhalese community by Râhula, the ablest of Chapaṭa's disciples, who fell in love with an actress and wished to become a layman. His colleagues induced him to leave the country for decency's sake and peace was restored but subsequently, after Chapaṭa's death, the remaining three disciples[154] fell out on questions of discipline rather than doctrine and founded three factions, which can hardly be called schools, although they refused to keep the Uposatha days together. The light of religion shone brightest at Pagan early in the thirteenth century while these three brethren were alive and the Sâsanavaṃsa states that at least three Arhats lived in the city. But the power of Pagan collapsed under attacks from both Chinese and Shans at the end of the century and the last king became a monk under the compulsion of Shan chiefs. The deserted city appears to have lost its importance as a religious centre, for the ecclesiastical chronicles shift the scene elsewhere.
The two Shan states which arose from the ruin of Pagan, namely Panya (Vijayapura) and Sagaing (Jeyyapura), encouraged religion and learning. Their existence probably explains the claim made in Siamese inscriptions of about 1300 that the territory of Siam extended to Haṃsavatî or Pegu and this contact of Burma and Siam was of great importance for it must be the origin of Pali Buddhism in Siam which otherwise remains unexplained.
After the fall of the two Shan states in 1364, Ava (or Ratnapura) which was founded in the same year gradually became the religious centre of Upper Burma and remained so during several centuries. But it did not at first supersede older towns inasmuch as the loss of political independence did not always involve the destruction of monasteries. Buddhism also flourished in Pegu and the Talaing country where the vicissitudes of the northern kingdoms did not affect its fortunes.