Around 3500 years as people began to make broze ,in the valley of Irrawaddy around Ava rice began to be cultivated.In Togaung an important event happened when from India Abhiraja from the Kosala kingdom,which was from the Sakyan clan.Dr Cushings had put the Shan migration to Burma some two thousand years ago,and according to him it was the Terp Shans or Karens that destroyed the ancient kingdom of Tagaung .He noted it was not the later that caused the annihilation of the Burmese kingdom. While one of Abhiraja”s sons had founded another kingdom of Arakan,according to the Chronicle of Burmese kings.After a reign of multiple kings after Abhiraja followed,another prince founded the kingdom with capital at Prome.Centuries later the
same dynastic rulers founded the kingdom of Pagan.
The periodiztion of Burmese history by Harvey
1. Burma before 1044
2. Kingdom of Pagan 1044-1287
3. Shan Dominion 1287-1531
4. Toungoo Dynasty 1531-1732
5. Konbaung Dynasty 1752-1824
Anawrahta founded the kingdom of Pagan and he built the Shwezigon Pagoda in 1055 AD,that had the important relics of Buddha’s collarbone from Prome and tooth from Ceylon.
The Chinese called Burma as Myanmma or Mien and the Shan name for Burma is Man.The Burmese Chronicle Tagaung Yazawin notes “About three hundred years before the birth of Gautama ,or 923 BC, Abhiraja arrived from Kapavastu”. In 105 AD king Samudra of India ruled Burma and Brahmanical Hinduism was carried further east by the early part of the next century of the Christian era.
The Mon(Talaings)spread over Burma from eastern Tibet as did the Tibeto Burman races like the Chins.Writing came from South India to the Pyus(now extinct race)about AD 300 that contains Kadamba letters.Thamala was king of Pegu(AD 825- 37) and the old name of Pegu is the same word as Orissa(A modern Indian state)and Pegu was colonized from Orissa,shows how much of the Burmese are Indian by culture affinities,and the lesser and distant traditions they are from their Mongolian descent. By fifth century of CE Conjeeveram in Madras became a big Centre of the Hinayana faith.
Tissa[1043-57) was a heretic king of Pegu,who did not pay obeisance to his Buddhist faith.And in India but 261 BC Asoka conquered Kalinga(modern Odisha)and from there via Assam and the eastern coast made its way to Lower Burma.Writings of Talaing(town in Burma that itself is formed from the South Indian region of Telangana,a modern Induan state).
The kingdom of Prome ,that was ruled by a king calledVikrama ,half Indian was overthrown not later than AD 800.The Pyu people were known by the Arakanese and Chinese as by the same name,had their main town at Prome.The fall of Prome and the Chinese description of Burma, consisting of eighteen states,that were dependent on the Pyu,in the ninth century, shows that they were a people of much consequence.
Much of the eighteen states are in the Burmese plains as the Khmer Kingdom of Funan in the 3rd CE comprised the IndoChina region and Tenasserim.In the Upper Burma the Nanchao kingdom based at Yunnan had from the 8th AD fended off attacks by the Chinese until 1253 AD.The Nanchao Chiefs also conquered the tribes of Upper Irrawaddy in AD 754.In 808-09 the Nanchao Chief took the name Pyushin or ‘Lord of the Pyu”.The fall of Prome saw the people there migrate to Pagan and assimilate with the population there,and subsequent came to be known as Burmese.
This link with Assam brought from mainland India Mahayanism into Pagan alongwith the North Indian stone vault among other architecture motifs,that clearly outshone the Talaing shoddiness in brick architecture that became rampant half a century later.The glory of Pagan reached its zenith in 849 AD under Chief Pyinbya Nyaung-U Sawrahan 931-64 succeeded Theinkho but was overthrown by Kunhsaw,but Anawrahta the king’s son killed the pretenders son and seized Pagan in 1044 AD.Pagan rose into prominence as Prome and its people the Pyu’s became extinct,through the eleventh to the thirteenth century.A trade route began to develop from the Yunnan to Shan States,into the confluence of Irrawaddy-Chindwin into Assam.Anawrahta 1044- 77 AD assumed the throne as his father declined to be king.