Having refused an off er of the throne because Sawlu was still alive, Kyanzittha went in disguise to the rebel camp and was carrying the king to safety on his shoulders, when Sawlu had second thoughts about his rescuer’s motives and wondered if he was being abducted for a foul purpose. After all, both he and his father had treated Kyanzittha badly. So Sawlu cried out that he was being stolen away. In disgust Kyanzittha threw his ungrateful burden aside and plunged into the Irrawaddy to
make good his own escape. “Th en die, you fool,” Kyanzittha shouted, “at the hands of the Mon.” Because the rebels were moving northwards to invest Pagan, Kyanzittha was obliged to seek refuge in the Chindwin
valley. But Yamankan lacked suffi cient strength to take Pagan by storm,
and its refusal to surrender meant that he had to get ready for Kyanzittha’s counter-attack. Moving further upstream to the locality where Ava was later built, the rebels constructed a fortifi ed encampment and awaited the next move of the Burmans. It was not long coming. Kyanzittha rallied large numbers to his standard and, after conducting rituals pleasing to the nats, he marched against Yamankan, whom he overcame through a tough fi ght.
Invested in 1084 as the new king of Pagan, Kyanzittha showed at once the restraint that caused him to be recognized as a ruler worthy of this city of religious merit. He announced that the throne should eventually return to Anawrahta’s line. So, in due course, he gave his only daughter to Sawlu’s son, and when she gave birth to a boy named Alaungsithu, Kyanzittha anointed him king, saying: “My lord, my grandson, this is your throne and I am your servant—a mere caretaker.” Kyanzittha told his courtiers how this public act of piety resulted from the timely protection
aff orded him by an enormous naga when he was a fugitive. Th at he
believed the snake was none other than the saviour god Vishnu should
come as no surprise: Th eravadan Buddhism was now established strongly
enough at Pagan for Hindu and Mahayana ideas to be tolerated without fear of theological complications. In a previous life, Kyanzittha even
claimed to have worshipped the Buddha in the company of Th agyamin,
king of the nats. One Hindu temple remains standing within the old city walls of Pagan. It may have been a royal place of worship, possibly where Kyanzittha gave thanks to Vishnu, who is depicted lying asleep on the
cosmic serpent Ananta. Th e temple would of course have served Indian
merchants living in the capital as well.
Temples at Pagan were designed for worshippers to enter a sanctum that contained one or more statues of the Buddha. Burman architects worked with only two basic ground plans but they achieved an amazing variety of forms. One is based on a solid brick core encircled by a vaulted corridor, while the other has a vaulted inner sanctum, often surrounded by a covered corridor. Kyanzittha’s famous foundation, the Ananda
The “Rosetta Stone” of Burma, showing inscriptions in Pyu on the left and Burmese on the right
temple, possesses a solid core with two encircling corridors, which are entered from four spacious porches. Half-barrel arches, an innovation at Pagan, transfer the thrust of the main superstructure across the two corridors to the earth. For its decoration, especially for the bas-reliefs, Kyanzittha looked to Mon traditions. It needs to be recalled that at this time the Mon language was spoken in Pagan.
Th e exterior symmetry of the Ananda temple remains its distinctive
feature. Each side of the building is perfectly balanced by pediments
that rise to the base of the central tower, a slender golden pagoda. Th e
principal entrance was probably on the west, as the narrative sculpture begins on that side. To appreciate the extent of the narrative it is necessary to walk round the outside of the temple and then along its inner corridors. Sculptures, bas-reliefs and murals once presented pilgrims with a detailed
Two views of a reclining Buddha at Pagan. Theravada Buddhism always favoured large statues
account of the Buddha’s mission. Th ough much smaller in scale, the
Ananda temple recalls most closely the purpose behind the construction of Borobudur, the great stupa erected by the Sailendra dynasty in central Java. We are fortunate that in 1885 the lower basement of Borobudur was uncovered: inscribed there was guidance for the sculptors who worked on
its granite blocks from 778 until 824. Th ey were instructed to carve scenes
Sailendra kings wished to show their subjects at Borobudur was the true path each individual must tread to reach buddhahood.
Stupas, such as Anawrahta’s Shwezigon, are usually bell-shaped. From the very beginning of the Buddhist faith, they were reserved for relics of the Buddha. Stupas ultimately descend from the memorial tombs of Magadha, as the Ganges valley was called in ancient times. But they were regarded as the very symbol of Buddhism, once this religion spread across Southeast Asia. Because many temples in Burma have been capped with stupa-like superstructures, or at least rounded towers, there tends to be a degree of confusion over stupas and pagodas. And the practice of burying relics inside the fabric of large brick-built temples, either behind or beneath sanctums, only serves to blur any meaningful distinction between their roles.
Besides arranging for the repair of neglected Buddhist monuments in northern India, Kyanzittha was also on good terms with the Chola rulers in the south of the subcontinent. An inscription at Pagan goes so far as to claim that Kyanzittha converted a Chola prince to the teachings of the
Buddha by a personal letter written on gold leaves. Th e Tamil Cholas had
emerged as a dominant Indian power during the same period of Pagan’s
rise to supremacy in Burma. Th ey invaded Sri Lanka, sacked a number
of neighbouring kingdoms, and launched seaborne raids as far away as
the Indonesian archipelago. Th e fi rst confrontation between the Cholas
and the Srivijayans, whose Sumatra-based trading empire controlled the Straits of Malacca, may have taken place in 1017, to be followed by a bigger attack on Srivijayan ports in 1025. A third Chola off ensive occurred
in the 1070s. Th ese expeditions are testimony of a formidable navy that
turned the Bay of Bengal into a Chola lake, until overstretch allowed their enemies in India to eclipse the Cholas in the twelfth century.
By Kyanzittha’s death in 1112, Pagan was unchallenged and subject rulers accepted both its political and religious authority. On his deathbed Kyanzittha was moved by the pious attitude of his son Yazakumar, who at the king’s request had already agreed to relinquish the throne. Not only did he graciously accept the elevation of his cousin, the young Alaungsithu in his stead, but even more he dedicated his own estates to assist with Kyanzittha’s accumulation of merit. An inscription in four
languages—Mon, Pyu, Burmese and Pali, the language of Th eravada
Buddhism—explains how Yazakumar honoured Kyanzittha one year after his father passed away. Often called the “Rosetta Stone of Burma”, their parallel rendering of the dedication has proved invaluable for the
decipherment of Pyu. Th at this proto-Burman language was employed at
all, affi rms the continued existence of the Pyus in the kingdom of Pagan.
Even though Sriksetra may have been reduced to a ruin, Pyu cultural infl uence was far from extinguished.
Th e merit gained by temple building, either through commissions
from the king or members of the royal family, was always considered to be in the national interest; because royal merit could be shared by all. Yazakumar is quite explicit about this intention at the close of his inscription: it records his desire for “the attainment of divine wisdom”. He even threatens his descendants with ignorance, if they neglect the maintenance of his inscription. “Let none of them ever see the Buddha.”
In the same manner Alaungsithu, the grandson of Anawrahta and
Kyanzittha’s successor, raised works of merit wherever he went. Th e Glass
Palace Chronicle relates how sailing from Bassein, he visited the Malayan
peninsula, Arakan and Bengal. Possibly his long periods of absence from Pagan engendered a bitter rivalry between his sons, left kicking their heels in the empty palace. As Alaungsithu grew old and travelled less
frequently, he could not but notice the unpleasantness at court and settled on Narathu as his successor. It proved to be an unwise choice. From his earliest years the tutor-monk Panthagu had been fearful of this prince’s destiny. Everything he taught him, Narathu already seemed to know: a ready understanding that made it impossible for Panthagu to tell what the young prince really thought about anything.
When the eighty-one-year-old Alaungsithu fell gravely ill in 1167, Narathu believed his moment had come. Quickly he removed his unconscious father to the Shwegu temple, Alaungsithu’s favourite place of worship. Narathu must have believed that the king would soon die there, but in the quiet stillness of the temple he regained his strength and demanded to know why he was not in the palace. Hearing of this unexpected improvement, Narathu hastened to his father and secretly smothered him with a blanket. During Alaungsithu’s funeral, however, there was a defi nite sign that mischief had been done: light broke out of the earth where the king’s body was being cremated. Now certain about what had happened, Narathu’s oldest brother arrived in Pagan but, before he could expose the patricidal prince, he succumbed to poison himself. Enthroned, Narathu discovered that he was unloved by his subjects, while
to his face Panthagu said: “No greater baseness and shame has ever been joined in a single human being than you. All your deeds are accursed!” Taken aback though he was by this denunciation, the new king did not dare to harm the venerable monk, who quit the kingdom for Sri Lanka.
Desperate to end his unpopularity and deal with his own guilt, Narathu heeded the advice of the nat Mahagiri, whose shrine he had
visited on Mount Popa. Th e nat informed Narathu that this was the
second occasion on which he had been born a king and committed an
evil deed. Th e only way to improve his karma, and avoid yet another
repetition of such a fate, was to “build a great temple in honour of the Enlightened One and ignite the Light of Holy Truth”. So it was that Narathu raised the Dhammayan, the largest of all Pagan’s temples. Yet he found no peace of mind during its building and his courtiers believed the king to be possessed by a demon nat. Everyone lived in fear of his mood swings, often accentuated by bouts of heavy drinking.
It was therefore a relief when, in 1170, Narathu fell victim to assassins sent by the king of Pateikkaya, whose daughter had been executed
for showing Narathu insuffi cient respect as one of his queens. Having
generously provided for the families of eight of his palace guards, the Pateikkaya ruler dispatched these men to Pagan in order to avenge his daughter’s killing. Disguised as brahmins, the assassins gained access to
the throne room. Th ey approached Narathu with their hands outstretched
in benediction, until they were close enough to draw the daggers concealed under their robes and slay the king. Once the mission was accomplished, they killed each other where they stood.
Th e pyramidal Dhammayan temple remains enigmatic, a brooding
presence that cannot be ignored today in Pagan. For as Panthagu predicted, “the people will shun the temple and creep past it fearfully, remembering the builder’s evil deeds”. Some Burmans maintain that, in the 1760s, the inner corridor was fi lled with rubble at the instigation of a hermit monk in order to trap the evil spirit that had possessed Narathu. Two other suggestions concerning this unprecedented action
are both unsatisfactory. Th e fi rst would explain the desecration as
the consequence of a Sri Lankan raid in 1165, arising from a Burman prohibition on the export of elephants. Sri Lankan naval forces sailing all the way up the Irrawaddy seems hardly more plausible than the second idea that it was the Mongols who picked out the Dhammayan temple for
special treatment. Th e legendary tamer of the resident demon therefore
seems the best candidate, especially if the monk persuaded apprehensive villagers to assist him by carrying great quantities of rocks and stones to the temple.