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Photo: Bagan today: thousands of temples and temple ruins

In 849 Burmans found the town of Bagan on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy about 500 kilometers north of its mouth. Bagan was to be the center of the first Burmese realm about which a wealth of historical information exists. Although even before then in the Ayeyarwaddy valley realms with urban centers had existed, there are only scarce historical sources concerning those earlier realms. Before the Burmans the people of the Mon, related to the Cambodians, and before them the Tibeto-Burman people of the Pyu had founded realms in the Ayeyarwaddy valley or delta, but were in the course of time conquered by the Bagan Burmans.

King Anawratha ascends the throne of the Bagan realm in 1044. In 1056 he is converted to Buddhism by a Mon monk, Shin Arahan.

A little later, in 1057, King Anawratha makes war against the Mon town of Bago (Pegu) to gain possession of holy Buddhist scripts (the Tripitaka), which the Mon King Manuha is unwilling to give up voluntarily. After a few months siege of Bago, Manuha finally surrenders. Bago is destroyed and the Tripitaka is carried off to Bagan on the backs of 32 white elephants. The Burmese army brings 30,000 captured Mons to Bagan, among them numerous craftsmen and artisans, who in the following decades not only enrich, but even determine the culture of Bagan. During that time pagodas are almost exclusively built in the Mon style. The Burmese even incorporate the script of the Mon. Mon King Manuha is presented to the main pagoda of Bagan, Shwezigon, as temple slave.

After his campaign against the Mon, King Anawratha makes successful conquests against the Shan realm of that time, which is adjacent to the Burmese realm in the North, and against the Arakan realm to the West of Bagan.

After a reign of 33 years King Anawratha is killed by a wild buffalo in 1077. He is succeeded to the throne by his son Sawlu, who further extends the borders of the realm. After King Sawlu's death in 1084 King Kyanzittha ascends the throne and further extends the realm to the South.

In 1287 hordes of Mongolian horsemen under Kublai Khan bring the Bagan realm to a graceless and bloody end.

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