Pyu
Encyclopedia
Pyu city states were a group of city-states that existed from c. 2nd century BCE
to late 9th century CE in present-day Upper Burma
(Myanmar). The city-states were founded as part of the southward migration by the Tibeto-Burman
-speaking Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant. The thousand-year period, often referred to as the Pyu millennium, linked the bronze age
to the beginning of the classical states period when the Pagan Dynasty emerged in the late 9th century.
The city-states—five major walled cities and several smaller towns have been excavated—were all located in the three main irrigated regions of Upper Burma: the Mu valley
, the Kyaukse plains
and Minbu region
, around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin
rivers. Part of an overland trade route between China
and India
, the Pyu realm gradually expanded south. Halin
, founded in the 1st century CE at the northern edge of Upper Burma, was the largest and most important city until around the 7th or 8th century when it was superseded by Sri Ksetra (near modern Pyay
) at the southern edge. Twice as large as Halin, Sri Ksetra was the largest and most influential Pyu center.
The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism
as well as other cultural, architectural and political concepts, which would have an enduring influence on later Burmese culture and political organization. The Pyu calendar, based on the Buddhist calendar
, later became the Burmese calendar. Latest scholarship, though yet not settled, suggests that the Pyu script, based on the Indian Brahmi script
, may have been the source of the Burmese script.
The millennium-old civilization came crashing down in the 9th century when the city-states were destroyed by repeated invasions from the Kingdom of Nanzhao. The Mranma
(Burmans), who came down with the Nanzhao, set up a garrison town at Pagan
(Bagan) at the confluence of Irrawaddy and Chindwin. Pyu settlements remained in Upper Burma for the next three centuries but the Pyu gradually were absorbed into the expanding Pagan Empire. The Pyu language
still existed until the late 12th century. By the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed the Burman ethnicity. The histories/legends of the Pyu were also incorporated to those of the Burmans.
at the foothills of the Shan Hills have yielded Neolithic
or New Stone Age artifacts dated to 10,000 to 6000 BCE. About 1500 BCE, people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice, and domesticating chickens and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so. By 500 BCE, iron-working settlements emerged in an area south of present-day Mandalay
. Bronze-decorated coffins and burial sites filled with earthenware remains have been excavated. Archaeological evidence at Samon Valley south of Mandalay suggests rice growing settlements that traded with China between 500 BCE and 200 CE.
Circa 2nd century BCE, the Tibeto-Burman
-speaking Pyu began to enter the Irrawaddy valley from the north. The Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant, went on to found settlements throughout the plains region centered around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers that has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age.. The Pyu realm was longer than wide, stretching from Sri Ksetra in the south to Halin in the north, Binnaka and Maingmaw to the east and probably Ayadawkye to the west. The Tang Chinese
records report 18 Pyu states (nine of which were walled cities), covering 298 districts. Archaeological surveys have actually so far unearthed 12 walled cities, including five large walled cities, and several smaller non-fortified settlements, located at or near the three most important irrigated regions of precolonial Burma: the Mu valley
in the north, the Kyaukse plains
in center, and the Minbu region
in the south and west of the former two. The city-states were contemporary to Funan (Cambodia) and (perhaps) Champa
(southern Vietnam), Dvaravati
(Thailand), Tambralinga
and Takuapa near the Isthmus of Kra, and Sri Vijaya (southeast Sumatra
). All these statelets foreshadowed the rise of the "classical kingdoms" of Southeast Asia in the second millennium CE.
Of the 12 walled cities excavated thus far, five are the remains of largest Pyu states: Beikthano, Maingmaw, Binnaka, Halin and Sri Ksetra.
) with direct land access to the well-watered Kyaukse plains to its northeast, is the oldest urban site so far discovered and scientifically excavated site. Its remains—the structures, pottery, artifacts, and human skeletons—date from 200 BCE to 100 CE. Named after Hindu god Vishnu
, the city may be the first capital of a culturally and perhaps even politically uniform state in the history of Burma. It was a large fortified settlement, measuring approximately 300 hectares inside the rectangular (3 km by 1 km) walls. The walls and fortifications along it measured six meters thick, and are radiocarbon dated to a period between 180 BCE and 610 CE. Like most subsequent cities, the main entrance of the walls led to the palace, which faced east. Stupas and monastic buildings have also been excavated within the city walls.
Both Maingmaw and Binnaka may have been contemporary of Beikthano. The chronicles, which do not mention Beikthano at all, do mention the two, though not specifically as Pyu cities. The chronicles state that the ruler of Binnaka was responsible for the fall of Tagaung, the city identified by the chronicles as the original home of Burmese speakers. Binnaka was inhabited until about the 19th century, according to a Konbaung era palm-leaf sittan (record) discovered there.
This design of the city influenced the city planning of later Burmese cities and the Siamese city of Sukhothai
. For example, the number of gates and configuration was also found in subsequent major Burmese capitals such as the 11th century Pagan and 19th century Mandalay. The city's configuration was also found at other contemporary cities such as Maingmaw and Beikthano in the Pyu realm and Danyawaddy and Wethali in Arakan as well as later cities such as Sukhothai, which emerged over a millennium later. Structural remains of temples at Halin show that the design of city's temples influenced the 11th to 13th century temples at Pagan. Excavated artifacts point to Halin's Pyu script to be the earliest writing in the Pyu realm (and in Burma). It was based on an earlier version of the Brahmi script (Mauryan and Guptan). Inscriptions at Sri Ksetra show a later version of the same script.
Known for the production of salt
, a highly prized commodity in the first millennium, Halin was superseded by Sri Ksetra as the premier Pyu city-state circa 7th century. By the Chinese accounts, Halin remained an important Pyu center until the 9th century when the Pyu realm came under repeated attacks from the Nanzhao Kingdom. The Chinese records state that the city was destroyed by the Nanzhao warriors in 832 CE, with 3000 of its inhabitants taken away. However, radiocarbon dating reveals human activity to about 870 CE, nearly four decades after the reported sack of the city.
Sri Ksetra or Thaye Khittaya , located 8 km southeast of Prome
(Pyay) at present-day Hmawza village, was the last and southernmost Pyu capital. The city was founded between the 5th and 7th centuries, and likely overtook Halin as the premier Pyu city by the 7th or 8th century, and retained that status until the Mranma arrrived in the 9th century. The city was home to at least two dynasties, and maybe three. The first dynasty, called the Vikrama Dynasty, is believed to have launched the Pyu calendar, which later became the Burmese calendar, on 22 March 638. The second dynasty was founded by King Duttabaung on 25 March 739 (11th waxing of Tagu 101 ME).
Sri Ksetra is the largest Pyu site discovered thus far. (Only Beikthano and Sri Ksetra have been extensively excavated. Other important Pyu cities as Maingmaw and Binnaka could yield more artifacts with more extensive excavations.) It occupied a larger area than that of the 11th century Pagan or 19th century Mandalay. Circular in design, Sri Ksetra was more than 13 km in circumference and three to four km across, or about 1400 hectares of occupied area. The city's brick walls were 4.5 meters high, and had 12 gates with huge devas (deities) guarding the entrances and a pagoda at each of the four corners. It also has curving gateways, such as those found at Halin and Beikthano. In the center of the city was what most scholars think represented the rectangular palace site, 518 meters by 343 meters, symbolizing both a mandala and a zata (horoscope), like in Maingmaw. Only the southern half of the city was taken up by the palace, monasteries and houses; the entire northern half consisted of rice fields. Together with the moats and walls, this arrangement ensured that the city could withstand a long siege by enemies.
Sri Ksetra was an important entrepôt
between China and India. It was located on the Irrawaddy, not far from the sea as the Irrawaddy delta had not yet been formed. Ships from the Indian ocean could come up to Prome to trade with the Pyu realm and China. Trade with India brought deep cultural contacts. Sri Ksetra has yielded the most extensive remains of Theravada Buddhism. Religious art suggests several distinct occupations with earlier influences stemming from Southeast India and later influences from Southwest India while 9th century influences include those from the Nanzhao Kingdom. Much of the Chinese account of the Pyu states was through Sri Ksetra. Chinese pilgrims Xuanzang
in 648 and Yijing
in 675 mentioned Sri Ksetra in their accounts of Buddhist kingdoms of Southeast Asia. The Tang histories mention the arrival at the court of an embassy from the Pyu capital in 801.
in northern Burma (about 200-km north of Mandalay
) where Pyu artifacts including funerary urns have been excavated. The significance is due to the fact that the Burmese chronicles identify Tagaung as the home of the first Burmese kingdom. Aside from Beikthano and Sri Ksetra, most Pyu sites have not seen extensive or any excavation.
of Pagan would build irrigation projects in these three regions in the 1050s to turn them into the main rice granaries of Upper Burma. They would give Upper Burma an enduring economic base from which to dominate the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery in the following centuries.) The Pyu grew rice
, perhaps of the Japonica variety.
.
The trading area of the Pyu states spanned across the present-day Southeast Asia, South Asia and China. Artifacts from the 2nd century northwest India to Java
and the Philippines have been found at Beikthano. Likewise, Pyu artifacts have been found along the coasts of Arakan
, Lower Burma, and as far east as Óc Eo
(in present-day southern Vietnam
). The Pyu also conducted trade and diplomatic relations with China. In 800 and 801–802, Sri Ksetra sent a formal embassy, along with 35 musicians to the Tang court. According to the Chinese, the Pyu used gold and silver coinage. But only silver coins have survived.
on the other. Many of the coins had a small hole along the perimeter, and may have also been used as amulets. Remarkably, after the end of Pyu period in the late 9th century, coins were not used again in the Burmese kingdoms until the 19th century.
or Sanskrit
derived like Sri Ksetra (Thaye Khittaya) and Vishnu (Beikthano). The kings at Sri Ksetra titled themselves as Varmans and Varma (contraction of Vikramas). It was not just a southern phenomenon. To varying degrees, northern Pyu cities and towns also became under the sway of Indian culture. (Indeed, the Burmese chronicles claim that the founding kings of Tagaung were descended from no less than the Sakya clan
of the Buddha
himself.) By the 4th century, most of the Pyu had become predominantly Buddhist, though archaeological finds prove that their pre-Buddhist practices remained firmly entrenched in the following centuries. According to the excavated texts, as well as the Chinese records, the predominant religion of the Pyu was Theravada Buddhism. The Theravada school prevalent in the Pyu realm was probably derived from the Andhra region in southeast India, associated with the famous Theravada Buddhist scholar, Buddhagosa. It was the predominant Theravada school in Burma until late 12th century when Shin Uttarajiva
led the realignment with Ceylon's Mahavihara
school.
The archaeological finds also indicate a widespread presence of Tantric Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism
. Avalokiteśvara
(Lokanatha) (called Lawkanat in Burmese; , lɔ́ka̰ naʔ), Tara
, Manusi Buddhas, Vaiśravaṇa
, and Hayagriva
, all prominent in Mahayana Buddhism, were very much part of Pyu (and later the Pagan) iconography scene. Various Hindu Brahman iconography ranging from the Hindu trinity, Brahma
, Vishnu
and Shiva
, to Garuda
and Lakshmi
have been found, especially in Lower Burma. Non-Theravada practices such as ceremonial cattle sacrifice and alcohol consumption were main stays of the Pyu life. Likewise, the greater prominence of nuns and female students than in the later eras may point to pre-Buddhist notions of female autonomy. In melding of their pre-Buddhist practices to Buddhist ones, they placed the remains of their cremated dead in pottery and stone urns and buried them in or near isolated stupa
s, a practice consistent with early Buddhist practices of interring the remains of holy personages in stupas.
Though their religious beliefs was a syncretic mix of many backgrounds, probably like in the early Pagan period, the outlook of the Pyu reportedly was largely peaceful. Tang Chinese records describe the Pyu as a humane and peaceful people to whom war was virtually unknown and who wore silk cotton instead of actually silk so that they would not have to kill silk worms, and that many Pyu boys entered the monastic life at seven to the age of 20. To be sure, this peaceful description by the Chinese was a snapshot of the Pyu realm, and may not represent the life in the city-states in general.
. But it apparently co-existed with Sanskrit
and Pali
as the court language. The Chinese records state that the 35 musicians that accompanied the Pyu embassy to the Tang court in 800–802 played music and sang in the Fan (Sanskrit) language. Many of the important inscriptions were written in Sanskrit and/or Pali, alongside the Pyu script. The Pyu sites have yielded a wide variety of Indian scripts from King Ashoka
's edicts written in north Indian Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi, both dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, to the Gupta script
and Kannada script dated to the 4th to 6th centuries CE.
The Pyu writing system was based on the Brahmi
-based scripts of both north and south India. The best available evidence suggests that the Pyu script gradually developed between the 2nd and 6th centuries CE. The Pyu script's immediate precursor appears to be the Kadamba script of southwest India. The early period Pyu inscriptions always included interlinear Brahmi scripts. It was not until the 7th and 8th centuries that Sri Ksetra's inscriptions appeared all in the Pyu script, without any interlinear Brahmi.
. There were two eras in use. The first was the Sakra Era, which was adopted in the Pyu realm in 80 CE, just two years after the new era had come into use in India. A second calendar was adopted at Sri Ksetra in 638, superseding the Sakra Era. The calendar, the first day of which was 22 March 638, later became the Burmese calendar, and is still in use in present-day Myanmar. (The existence of two Pyu calendars has been cause for dispute among scholars trying interpret the dates on the finds.)
s and other religious buildings. The styles, ground plans, even the brick size and construction techniques of these buildings point to the Andhra region, particularly Amaravati
and Nagarjunakonda in present-day southeastern India. Some evidence of Ceylonese contact is seen by the presence of Anuradhapura style "moonstones" discovered at Beikthano and Halin. By perhaps the 7th century, tall cylindrical stupas such as the Bawbawgyi, Payagyi and Payama had emerged at Sri Ksetra.
The Pyu architecture greatly influced later Burmese Buddhist temple designs. For example, temples at Sri Ksetra such as the Bebe and Lemyethna were prototypes for the later hollow (gu) temples of Pagan. The floor plan of the 13th century Somingyi Monastery at Pagan was largely identical to that of a 4-th century monastery at Beikthano. The solid stupas of Sri Ksetra were in turn prototypes for Pagan's such as the Shwezigon
, Shwehsandaw
, and Mingalazedi
, and ultimately, the Shwedagon in modern Yangon.
via Yunnan
. Extensive external trade attracted sizable communities of Indians and the Mon
, especially in the south. In the north, trickles of Burmans may have entered the Pyu realm from Yunnan as early as the 7th century. (Modern scholarship however holds that Burmans did not arrive in large numbers until mid-to-late 9th century, and perhaps as late as the 10th century, according to radiocarbon dating of Pagan's walls.)
The size of population of the Pyu realm was probably a few hundred thousand, given that the 17th and 18th century Burma (about the size of present-day Myanmar) only had about 2 million people.
) (Burmans) of the Nanzhao Kingdom entered the upper Irrawaddy valley through a series of raids. According to the Tang Dynasty chronicles, the Nanzhao began their raids of Upper Burma starting as early as 754 or 760. Nanzhao raids intensified in the 9th century, with the Nanzhao raiding in 800-802, and again in 808-809. Finally, according to the Chinese, in 832, the Nanzhao warriors overran the Pyu country, and took away 3000 Pyu prisoners from Halin. (In 835, the Chinese records say the Nanzhao also raided a state, generally identified by some but not universally accepted to be a Pyu state.)
To be sure, the Pyu and their culture did not disappear just because 3000 of them were taken away. The size of the Pyu realm and its many walled cities throughout the land indicates a population many times over. Indeed, no firm indications at Sri Ksetra or at any other Pyu site exist to suggest a violent overthrow. It is more likely that these raids significantly weakened the Pyu states, enabling the Burmans to move into Pyu territories. At any rate, evidence shows that the actual pace of Burman migration into the Pyu realm was gradual. Radiocarbon dating shows that human activity existed until c. 870 at Halin, the subject of the 832 Nanzhao raid. The Burmese chronicles claim the Burmans founded the fortified city of Pagan
(Bagan) in 849 but the oldest radiocarbon dated evidence at Pagan (old walls) points to 980 CE while the main walls point to circa 1020 CE, just 24 years earlier than the beginning of the reign of Anawrahta
, the founder of Pagan Empire.
At any rate, the Burmans had overtaken the leadership of the Pyu realm by the late 10th century, and went on to found the Pagan Empire in the middle of the 11th century, unifying the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery for the first time. Nonetheless, the Pyu had left an indelible mark on Pagan whose Burman rulers would incorporate the histories and legends of the Pyu as their own. The Burman kings of Pagan claimed descent from the kings of Sri Ksetra and Tagaung as far back as 850 BCE—a claim dismissed by most modern scholars. Pyu settlements remained in Upper Burma for the next three centuries but the Pyu gradually were absorbed and assimilated into the expanding Pagan Empire. The Pyu language still existed until the late 12th century but by the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed the Burman ethnicity and disappeared into history.
to gain recognition for Sri Ksetra, Beikthano and Halin as World Heritage sites.
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
to late 9th century CE in present-day Upper Burma
Upper Burma
Upper Burma refers to a geographic region of Burma , traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery , or more broadly speaking, Kachin and Shan States....
(Myanmar). The city-states were founded as part of the southward migration by the Tibeto-Burman
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
-speaking Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant. The thousand-year period, often referred to as the Pyu millennium, linked the bronze age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
to the beginning of the classical states period when the Pagan Dynasty emerged in the late 9th century.
The city-states—five major walled cities and several smaller towns have been excavated—were all located in the three main irrigated regions of Upper Burma: the Mu valley
Mu River
Mu River is a river in upper central Myanmar , and a tributary of the country's chief river the Ayeyarwady. It drains the Kabaw valley and part of the Dry Zone between the Ayeyarwady to the east and its largest tributary Chindwin River to the west, flows directly north to south for about and...
, the Kyaukse plains
Kyaukse District
-Townships:The district contains the following townships:*Kyaukse Township*Sint Kaing Township*Myit Thar Township*Tada-U Township...
and Minbu region
Minbu District
Minbu District is a district of the Magway Division in central Myanmar. The city of Minbu is the administrative centre.-Borders:Minbu District is bounded to the south by Thayet District, to the east by Magway District, to the north by Pakokku District and Gangaw District, to the northwest by Mindat...
, around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin
Chindwin River
The Chindwin River is a river in Burma , and the largest tributary of the country's chief river the Ayeyarwady . It flows entirely within Burma and is known as Ning-thi to the Manipuris.-Source:...
rivers. Part of an overland trade route between China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the Pyu realm gradually expanded south. Halin
Hanlin
For the electronic device see Hanlin_eReaderHanlin is a village in near Shwebo in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar. In the Pyu era it was a city of considerable significance, possibly a local capital replacing Shri Ksetra. Today the modest village is noted for its hot springs....
, founded in the 1st century CE at the northern edge of Upper Burma, was the largest and most important city until around the 7th or 8th century when it was superseded by Sri Ksetra (near modern Pyay
Pyay
Pyay is a town in the Bago Division in Burma. It has an estimated population of 123,800 . Pyay is positioned on the Ayeyarwady River and is northwest of Yangon....
) at the southern edge. Twice as large as Halin, Sri Ksetra was the largest and most influential Pyu center.
The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
as well as other cultural, architectural and political concepts, which would have an enduring influence on later Burmese culture and political organization. The Pyu calendar, based on the Buddhist calendar
Buddhist calendar
The Buddhist calendar is used on mainland Southeast Asia in the countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Sri Lanka in several related forms. It is a lunisolar calendar having months that are alternately 29 and 30 days, with an intercalated day and a 30-day month added at regular intervals...
, later became the Burmese calendar. Latest scholarship, though yet not settled, suggests that the Pyu script, based on the Indian Brahmi script
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
, may have been the source of the Burmese script.
The millennium-old civilization came crashing down in the 9th century when the city-states were destroyed by repeated invasions from the Kingdom of Nanzhao. The Mranma
Bamar
The Bamar are the dominant ethnic group of Burma , constituting approximately two-thirds of the population. The Bamar live primarily in the Irrawaddy basin, and speak the Burmese language, which is also the official language of Burma. Bamar customs and identity are closely intertwined with general...
(Burmans), who came down with the Nanzhao, set up a garrison town at Pagan
Bagan
Bagan , formerly Pagan, is an ancient city in the Mandalay Region of Burma. Formally titled Arimaddanapura or Arimaddana and also known as Tambadipa or Tassadessa , it was the capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma...
(Bagan) at the confluence of Irrawaddy and Chindwin. Pyu settlements remained in Upper Burma for the next three centuries but the Pyu gradually were absorbed into the expanding Pagan Empire. The Pyu language
Pyu language
Pyu language may refer to:*Pyu language , Papua New Guinea, different from Piu*Pyu language , ancient...
still existed until the late 12th century. By the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed the Burman ethnicity. The histories/legends of the Pyu were also incorporated to those of the Burmans.
Background
The archaeological evidence suggests that earliest cultures existed in Burma as early as 11,000 BCE, mainly in the central dry zone in close proximity to the Irrawaddy. The Anyathian, Burma's Stone Age, existed around the same time as the lower and middle Paleolithic eras in Europe. Three caves located near TaunggyiTaunggyi
-Transportation:The main access to Taunggyi is by road. A railway line that passes through Taunggyi was recently built in 1995, but at the moment it offers no passenger service. Regular railway passenger service to the rest of the country is through the town of Shwenyaung, twelve miles to the...
at the foothills of the Shan Hills have yielded Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
or New Stone Age artifacts dated to 10,000 to 6000 BCE. About 1500 BCE, people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice, and domesticating chickens and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so. By 500 BCE, iron-working settlements emerged in an area south of present-day Mandalay
Mandalay
Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of one million, and is the capital of Mandalay Region ....
. Bronze-decorated coffins and burial sites filled with earthenware remains have been excavated. Archaeological evidence at Samon Valley south of Mandalay suggests rice growing settlements that traded with China between 500 BCE and 200 CE.
Circa 2nd century BCE, the Tibeto-Burman
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
-speaking Pyu began to enter the Irrawaddy valley from the north. The Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant, went on to found settlements throughout the plains region centered around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers that has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age.. The Pyu realm was longer than wide, stretching from Sri Ksetra in the south to Halin in the north, Binnaka and Maingmaw to the east and probably Ayadawkye to the west. The Tang Chinese
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
records report 18 Pyu states (nine of which were walled cities), covering 298 districts. Archaeological surveys have actually so far unearthed 12 walled cities, including five large walled cities, and several smaller non-fortified settlements, located at or near the three most important irrigated regions of precolonial Burma: the Mu valley
Mu River
Mu River is a river in upper central Myanmar , and a tributary of the country's chief river the Ayeyarwady. It drains the Kabaw valley and part of the Dry Zone between the Ayeyarwady to the east and its largest tributary Chindwin River to the west, flows directly north to south for about and...
in the north, the Kyaukse plains
Kyaukse District
-Townships:The district contains the following townships:*Kyaukse Township*Sint Kaing Township*Myit Thar Township*Tada-U Township...
in center, and the Minbu region
Minbu District
Minbu District is a district of the Magway Division in central Myanmar. The city of Minbu is the administrative centre.-Borders:Minbu District is bounded to the south by Thayet District, to the east by Magway District, to the north by Pakokku District and Gangaw District, to the northwest by Mindat...
in the south and west of the former two. The city-states were contemporary to Funan (Cambodia) and (perhaps) Champa
Champa
The kingdom of Champa was an Indianized kingdom that controlled what is now southern and central Vietnam from approximately the 7th century through to 1832.The Cham people are remnants...
(southern Vietnam), Dvaravati
Dvaravati
The Dvaravati period lasted from the 6th to the 13th centuries. Dvaravati refers to both a culture and a disparate conglomerate of principalities.- History :...
(Thailand), Tambralinga
Tambralinga
Tambralinga was an ancient kingdom located on the Malay Peninsula that at one time came under the influence of Srivijaya. The name had been forgotten until scholars recognized Tambralinga as Nagara Sri Dharmaraja. Early records are scarce while estimations range from the seventh to fourteenth...
and Takuapa near the Isthmus of Kra, and Sri Vijaya (southeast Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
). All these statelets foreshadowed the rise of the "classical kingdoms" of Southeast Asia in the second millennium CE.
City-states
Beikthano
Beikthano situated in the irrigated Minbu region (near present-day TaungdwingyiTaungdwingyi
Taungdwingyi is a town of Taungdwingyi Township in Magway District in the Magway Division of Myanmar. People inhabited this area since thousands of years ago and one of the earliest civilization of Myanmar, Beikthano Ancient Pyu City, is located near the town. Territorial area is plane and rice,...
) with direct land access to the well-watered Kyaukse plains to its northeast, is the oldest urban site so far discovered and scientifically excavated site. Its remains—the structures, pottery, artifacts, and human skeletons—date from 200 BCE to 100 CE. Named after Hindu god Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
, the city may be the first capital of a culturally and perhaps even politically uniform state in the history of Burma. It was a large fortified settlement, measuring approximately 300 hectares inside the rectangular (3 km by 1 km) walls. The walls and fortifications along it measured six meters thick, and are radiocarbon dated to a period between 180 BCE and 610 CE. Like most subsequent cities, the main entrance of the walls led to the palace, which faced east. Stupas and monastic buildings have also been excavated within the city walls.
Maingmaw
Maingmaw , located the Kyause region, was circular in shape, and has tentatively been dated to the first millennium BCE. At 2.5 km in diameter and 222 hectares, Maingmaw is one of the largest ancient cities on the entire Kyaukse plains. It has two inner enclosure walls, the outer of which is square while the inner one is circular. The plan of a circle within a square suggest a zodiac sign which represents a view of the heavens from the perspective of the sun, the manner in which 19th century Mandalay was also conceptualized. At almost dead center, a 19th century temple called Nandawya Paya, which was probably built upon the ruins of an ancient one. The city is bisected by a canal, thought to be contemporary to the city, though no scientific dating has confirmed it. Excavations—the first of which was carried out in 1979—have unearthed many artifacts, including jewelry, silver coins, and funerary urns. Many of the artifacts such as the coins and funerary urns are virtually identical to those found Beikthano and Binnaka.Binnaka
Binnaka too was located in the Kyaukse region, and virtually identical to its neighbor Maingmaw in numerous ways. Its brick structures shared the same floor plan as those found at Beikthano and other Pyu sites. Excavations have recovered pre-Buddhist artifacts, gold necklaces, precious stone images of elephants, turtles and lions, distinctive Pyu pottery, terracotta tablets with writing that strongly resembled the Pyu script, and various kinds of acid-etched onyx beads along with others made of amber and jade. Also excavated are distinctive silver coins identical to those found at Beikthano and Binnaka, stone molds for casting silver and gold ornamental flowers, a gold armlet in association with a silver bowl that Pyu writing on it, and funerary urns virtually identical to those found Beikthano and Binnaka.Both Maingmaw and Binnaka may have been contemporary of Beikthano. The chronicles, which do not mention Beikthano at all, do mention the two, though not specifically as Pyu cities. The chronicles state that the ruler of Binnaka was responsible for the fall of Tagaung, the city identified by the chronicles as the original home of Burmese speakers. Binnaka was inhabited until about the 19th century, according to a Konbaung era palm-leaf sittan (record) discovered there.
Halin
Halin or Halingyi , located in the Mu valley, one of the largest irrigated regions of precolonial Burma, is the northernmost Pyu city so far discovered. The earliest artifacts of Halin—city's wooden gates—are radiocarbon dated to 70 CE. The city was rectangular but with curved corners, and brick-walled. Excavated walls are approximately 3.2 km long on the north-south axis and 1.6 km on the east-west. At 664 hectares, the city was nearly twice the size of Beikthano. It has four main gates at the cardinal points, and a total of 12 gates, based on the zodiac. A river or canal ran through the city. Traces of a moat exist on all sides except the south, where it was probably not needed, as land was dammed there to create reservoirs.This design of the city influenced the city planning of later Burmese cities and the Siamese city of Sukhothai
Sukhothai (city)
Sukhothai ) was the capital of the Sukhothai Kingdom.Sukhothai is 12 km from the modern city of New Sukhothai.Sukhothai, which literally means "Dawn of Happiness" with an area of 6,596 km2., is about 427 km north of Bangkok and was founded in 1238. Sukhothai was the capital of the...
. For example, the number of gates and configuration was also found in subsequent major Burmese capitals such as the 11th century Pagan and 19th century Mandalay. The city's configuration was also found at other contemporary cities such as Maingmaw and Beikthano in the Pyu realm and Danyawaddy and Wethali in Arakan as well as later cities such as Sukhothai, which emerged over a millennium later. Structural remains of temples at Halin show that the design of city's temples influenced the 11th to 13th century temples at Pagan. Excavated artifacts point to Halin's Pyu script to be the earliest writing in the Pyu realm (and in Burma). It was based on an earlier version of the Brahmi script (Mauryan and Guptan). Inscriptions at Sri Ksetra show a later version of the same script.
Known for the production of salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
, a highly prized commodity in the first millennium, Halin was superseded by Sri Ksetra as the premier Pyu city-state circa 7th century. By the Chinese accounts, Halin remained an important Pyu center until the 9th century when the Pyu realm came under repeated attacks from the Nanzhao Kingdom. The Chinese records state that the city was destroyed by the Nanzhao warriors in 832 CE, with 3000 of its inhabitants taken away. However, radiocarbon dating reveals human activity to about 870 CE, nearly four decades after the reported sack of the city.
Sri Ksetra
Pyay
Pyay is a town in the Bago Division in Burma. It has an estimated population of 123,800 . Pyay is positioned on the Ayeyarwady River and is northwest of Yangon....
(Pyay) at present-day Hmawza village, was the last and southernmost Pyu capital. The city was founded between the 5th and 7th centuries, and likely overtook Halin as the premier Pyu city by the 7th or 8th century, and retained that status until the Mranma arrrived in the 9th century. The city was home to at least two dynasties, and maybe three. The first dynasty, called the Vikrama Dynasty, is believed to have launched the Pyu calendar, which later became the Burmese calendar, on 22 March 638. The second dynasty was founded by King Duttabaung on 25 March 739 (11th waxing of Tagu 101 ME).
Sri Ksetra is the largest Pyu site discovered thus far. (Only Beikthano and Sri Ksetra have been extensively excavated. Other important Pyu cities as Maingmaw and Binnaka could yield more artifacts with more extensive excavations.) It occupied a larger area than that of the 11th century Pagan or 19th century Mandalay. Circular in design, Sri Ksetra was more than 13 km in circumference and three to four km across, or about 1400 hectares of occupied area. The city's brick walls were 4.5 meters high, and had 12 gates with huge devas (deities) guarding the entrances and a pagoda at each of the four corners. It also has curving gateways, such as those found at Halin and Beikthano. In the center of the city was what most scholars think represented the rectangular palace site, 518 meters by 343 meters, symbolizing both a mandala and a zata (horoscope), like in Maingmaw. Only the southern half of the city was taken up by the palace, monasteries and houses; the entire northern half consisted of rice fields. Together with the moats and walls, this arrangement ensured that the city could withstand a long siege by enemies.
Sri Ksetra was an important entrepôt
Entrepôt
An entrepôt is a trading post where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying import duties, often at a profit. This profit is possible because of trade conditions, for example, the reluctance of ships to travel the entire length of a long trading route, and selling to the entrepôt...
between China and India. It was located on the Irrawaddy, not far from the sea as the Irrawaddy delta had not yet been formed. Ships from the Indian ocean could come up to Prome to trade with the Pyu realm and China. Trade with India brought deep cultural contacts. Sri Ksetra has yielded the most extensive remains of Theravada Buddhism. Religious art suggests several distinct occupations with earlier influences stemming from Southeast India and later influences from Southwest India while 9th century influences include those from the Nanzhao Kingdom. Much of the Chinese account of the Pyu states was through Sri Ksetra. Chinese pilgrims Xuanzang
Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
in 648 and Yijing
I Ching (monk)
Yijing was a Tang Dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk, originally named Zhang Wenming . The written records of his travels contributed to the world knowledge of the ancient kingdom of Srivijaya, as well as providing information about the other kingdoms lying on the route between China and the Nālandā...
in 675 mentioned Sri Ksetra in their accounts of Buddhist kingdoms of Southeast Asia. The Tang histories mention the arrival at the court of an embassy from the Pyu capital in 801.
Smaller settlements
Many Pyu settlements have been found across Upper Burma. They include Wati (an urban area west of Maingmaw), Ayadawkye Ywa in the Mu valley, west of Halin and south of a recently discovered bronze age site called Nyaunggan, and several others in Myinmu township, which controls the mouth of the Mu river. A small but politically significant Pyu site is TagaungTagaung, Mandalay
Tagaung is a town in Mandalay Division of Myanmar . It is situated on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River, 127 miles north of Mandalay.-Transport:The Ayeyarwady remains the principal means to reach Tagaung...
in northern Burma (about 200-km north of Mandalay
Mandalay
Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of one million, and is the capital of Mandalay Region ....
) where Pyu artifacts including funerary urns have been excavated. The significance is due to the fact that the Burmese chronicles identify Tagaung as the home of the first Burmese kingdom. Aside from Beikthano and Sri Ksetra, most Pyu sites have not seen extensive or any excavation.
Agriculture
The economy of the Pyu city states was based on agriculture and trade. All important Pyu settlements were located in the three main irrigated regions of Upper Burma, centered around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers: Halin in the Mu valley, Maingmaw and Binnaka in the Kyaukse plains, finally Beikthano and Sri Ksetra at or near the Minbu district. (The irrigation projects of the Pyu were later picked up by the Burmans. King AnawrahtaAnawrahta
Anawrahta Minsaw was the founder of the Pagan Empire. Considered the father of the Burmese nation, Anawrahta turned a small principality in the dry zone of Upper Burma into the first Burmese Empire that formed the basis of modern-day Burma...
of Pagan would build irrigation projects in these three regions in the 1050s to turn them into the main rice granaries of Upper Burma. They would give Upper Burma an enduring economic base from which to dominate the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery in the following centuries.) The Pyu grew rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, perhaps of the Japonica variety.
Trade
The Pyu realm was an important trading center between China and India in the first millennium CE. Two main trading routes passed through the Pyu states. As early as 128 BCE, an overland trade route between China and India existed across the northern Burma. An embassy from the Roman Empire to China passed through this route in 97 CE and again in 120 CE. But the majority of the trade was conducted by sea through the southern Pyu states, which at the time were located not far from the sea as much of the Irrawaddy delta had not yet been formed, and as far south as upper Tenasserim coast towns such as Winga, Hsindat-Myindat, Sanpannagon and Mudon where Pyu artifacts have been found. (It is insufficient to conclude however that the Pyu had administrative and military control over these upper Tenasserim coastal towns.) The ports connected the overland trade route to China via present-day YunnanYunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
.
The trading area of the Pyu states spanned across the present-day Southeast Asia, South Asia and China. Artifacts from the 2nd century northwest India to Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
and the Philippines have been found at Beikthano. Likewise, Pyu artifacts have been found along the coasts of Arakan
Rakhine State
Rakhine State is a Burmese state. Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State in the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region in the east, the Bay of Bengal to the west, and the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh to the northwest. It is located approximately between...
, Lower Burma, and as far east as Óc Eo
Óc Eo
Óc Eo is an archaeological site in Thoại Sơn District in southern An Giang Province, Vietnam, in the Mekong River Delta region of Vietnam. It is also one of the modern day communes of Vietnam. Óc Eo may have been a busy port of the kingdom of Funan between the 1st and 7th centuries AD...
(in present-day southern Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
). The Pyu also conducted trade and diplomatic relations with China. In 800 and 801–802, Sri Ksetra sent a formal embassy, along with 35 musicians to the Tang court. According to the Chinese, the Pyu used gold and silver coinage. But only silver coins have survived.
Currency
A notable feature of the Pyu states is the minting and use of silver coinage. Originated in the Pegu area, these coins date from the 5th century and were the model for most first millennium coinage in mainland Southeast Asia. The earliest type of these non-inscribed coins depicts a conch on one side and a SrivatsaSrivatsa
The Śrīvatsa, Shrivatsa, or Sri Vatsa is a figure of South Asian symbology. Shrivatsa was married to Rudrani. Chandra et al.. state that it denotes "...the auspicious mark represented by a curled noose emblematical of love...".Shrivatsa is an ancient auspicious symbol in India...
on the other. Many of the coins had a small hole along the perimeter, and may have also been used as amulets. Remarkably, after the end of Pyu period in the late 9th century, coins were not used again in the Burmese kingdoms until the 19th century.
Religion
The culture of Pyu city states was heavily influenced by India. Indian culture was most visible in the southern Pyu realm through which most trade with India was conducted by sea. The names of southernmost cities were in PaliPali language
Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pāi Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism.-Etymology of the name:The word Pali itself...
or Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
derived like Sri Ksetra (Thaye Khittaya) and Vishnu (Beikthano). The kings at Sri Ksetra titled themselves as Varmans and Varma (contraction of Vikramas). It was not just a southern phenomenon. To varying degrees, northern Pyu cities and towns also became under the sway of Indian culture. (Indeed, the Burmese chronicles claim that the founding kings of Tagaung were descended from no less than the Sakya clan
Shakya
Shakya was an ancient janapada of India in the 1st millennium BCE. In Buddhist texts the Shakyas, the inhabitants of Shakya janapada, are mentioned as a clan of Gotama gotra....
of the Buddha
Buddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
himself.) By the 4th century, most of the Pyu had become predominantly Buddhist, though archaeological finds prove that their pre-Buddhist practices remained firmly entrenched in the following centuries. According to the excavated texts, as well as the Chinese records, the predominant religion of the Pyu was Theravada Buddhism. The Theravada school prevalent in the Pyu realm was probably derived from the Andhra region in southeast India, associated with the famous Theravada Buddhist scholar, Buddhagosa. It was the predominant Theravada school in Burma until late 12th century when Shin Uttarajiva
Shin Uttarajiva
The Venerable Shin Uttarajiva was primate of Pagan Kingdom during the reigns of three kings Narathu, Naratheinkha and Narapatisithu from 1167 to 1191...
led the realignment with Ceylon's Mahavihara
Mahavihara
The Mahavihara was for several centuries the center of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It was founded by king Devanampiya Tissa in his capital Anuradhapura. The Mahavihara was the place where Theravadin orthodoxy was established by monks such as Buddhaghosa...
school.
The archaeological finds also indicate a widespread presence of Tantric Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
. Avalokiteśvara
Avalokitesvara
Avalokiteśvara is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He is one of the more widely revered bodhisattvas in mainstream Mahayana Buddhism....
(Lokanatha) (called Lawkanat in Burmese; , lɔ́ka̰ naʔ), Tara
Tara (Buddhism)
Tara or Ārya Tārā, also known as Jetsun Dolma in Tibetan Buddhism, is a female Bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism who appears as a female Buddha in Vajrayana Buddhism. She is known as the "mother of liberation", and represents the virtues of success in work and achievements...
, Manusi Buddhas, Vaiśravaṇa
Vaisravana
' or ' also known as Jambhala in Tibet and Bishamonten in Japan is the name of the chief of the Four Heavenly Kings and an important figure in Buddhist mythology.-Names:...
, and Hayagriva
Hayagriva
Hayagriva is a horse-headed deity that appears in both Hinduism and Buddhism.-Hinduism:...
, all prominent in Mahayana Buddhism, were very much part of Pyu (and later the Pagan) iconography scene. Various Hindu Brahman iconography ranging from the Hindu trinity, Brahma
Brahma
Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahma Purana, he is the father of Mānu, and from Mānu all human beings are descended. In the Ramayana and the...
, Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
and Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
, to Garuda
Garuda
The Garuda is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology.From an Indian perspective, Garuda is the Hindu name for the constellation Aquila and...
and Lakshmi
Lakshmi
Lakshmi or Lakumi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity , light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage; and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm. Representations of Lakshmi are also found in Jain monuments...
have been found, especially in Lower Burma. Non-Theravada practices such as ceremonial cattle sacrifice and alcohol consumption were main stays of the Pyu life. Likewise, the greater prominence of nuns and female students than in the later eras may point to pre-Buddhist notions of female autonomy. In melding of their pre-Buddhist practices to Buddhist ones, they placed the remains of their cremated dead in pottery and stone urns and buried them in or near isolated stupa
Stupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....
s, a practice consistent with early Buddhist practices of interring the remains of holy personages in stupas.
Though their religious beliefs was a syncretic mix of many backgrounds, probably like in the early Pagan period, the outlook of the Pyu reportedly was largely peaceful. Tang Chinese records describe the Pyu as a humane and peaceful people to whom war was virtually unknown and who wore silk cotton instead of actually silk so that they would not have to kill silk worms, and that many Pyu boys entered the monastic life at seven to the age of 20. To be sure, this peaceful description by the Chinese was a snapshot of the Pyu realm, and may not represent the life in the city-states in general.
Language and script
The Pyu language was a Tibeto-Burman language, related to Old BurmeseBurmese language
The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
. But it apparently co-existed with Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
as the court language. The Chinese records state that the 35 musicians that accompanied the Pyu embassy to the Tang court in 800–802 played music and sang in the Fan (Sanskrit) language. Many of the important inscriptions were written in Sanskrit and/or Pali, alongside the Pyu script. The Pyu sites have yielded a wide variety of Indian scripts from King Ashoka
Ashoka
Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
's edicts written in north Indian Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi, both dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, to the Gupta script
Gupta script
The Gupta script was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brahmi and gave rise to the Nagari, Sharada and Siddham scripts...
and Kannada script dated to the 4th to 6th centuries CE.
The Pyu writing system was based on the Brahmi
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
-based scripts of both north and south India. The best available evidence suggests that the Pyu script gradually developed between the 2nd and 6th centuries CE. The Pyu script's immediate precursor appears to be the Kadamba script of southwest India. The early period Pyu inscriptions always included interlinear Brahmi scripts. It was not until the 7th and 8th centuries that Sri Ksetra's inscriptions appeared all in the Pyu script, without any interlinear Brahmi.
Calendar
In addition to religion, the Pyu also imported science and astronomical expertise from India. The Chinese records also report that the Pyu knew how to make astronomical calculations. The Pyu calendar was based on the Buddhist calendarBuddhist calendar
The Buddhist calendar is used on mainland Southeast Asia in the countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Sri Lanka in several related forms. It is a lunisolar calendar having months that are alternately 29 and 30 days, with an intercalated day and a 30-day month added at regular intervals...
. There were two eras in use. The first was the Sakra Era, which was adopted in the Pyu realm in 80 CE, just two years after the new era had come into use in India. A second calendar was adopted at Sri Ksetra in 638, superseding the Sakra Era. The calendar, the first day of which was 22 March 638, later became the Burmese calendar, and is still in use in present-day Myanmar. (The existence of two Pyu calendars has been cause for dispute among scholars trying interpret the dates on the finds.)
Irrigation structures
The Pyu-era architectural practices greatly influenced later Pagan and Burmese architecture. The techniques of building dams, canals and weirs found in pre-colonial Upper Burma trace their origins to the Pyu era and the Pagan era. (Burmans likely introduced new water management methods, especially the canal building techniques which became the prevailing method of irrigation in the Pagan era.)City planning
The Pyu city plans, consisted of square/rectangles and circles, were a mix of indigenous and Indian designs. It is believed that circular patterns inside the cities were Pyu while the rectangle or square shape of the outer walls and the use of 12 gates were Indian in origin. According to historian Cooler, "the adoption of Indian concepts of city planning incorporated a belief in the efficacy of the world axis that connects the centermost point in a properly constructed Mandala city with the city of the Gods above (Tavatimsa heaven) in order to assure prosperity throughout the kingdom below". Pyu-era city practices were the forefathers of the latter-day Burmese city and palace designs down to the 19th century Mandalay.Temple design
From the 4th century onward, the Pyu built many Buddhist stupaStupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....
s and other religious buildings. The styles, ground plans, even the brick size and construction techniques of these buildings point to the Andhra region, particularly Amaravati
Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh
Amaravathi is a small town situated on the banks of the River Krishna in the Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is famous for its Amareswara temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temple is one of the famous Pancharamas. Amaravati, also known as Dhanyakataka/Dharanikota was the site of a...
and Nagarjunakonda in present-day southeastern India. Some evidence of Ceylonese contact is seen by the presence of Anuradhapura style "moonstones" discovered at Beikthano and Halin. By perhaps the 7th century, tall cylindrical stupas such as the Bawbawgyi, Payagyi and Payama had emerged at Sri Ksetra.
The Pyu architecture greatly influced later Burmese Buddhist temple designs. For example, temples at Sri Ksetra such as the Bebe and Lemyethna were prototypes for the later hollow (gu) temples of Pagan. The floor plan of the 13th century Somingyi Monastery at Pagan was largely identical to that of a 4-th century monastery at Beikthano. The solid stupas of Sri Ksetra were in turn prototypes for Pagan's such as the Shwezigon
Shwezigon Pagoda
The Shwezigon Pagoda or Shwezigon Paya is a Buddhist temple located in Nyaung-U, a town near Bagan, in Burma . It is a prototype of Burmese stupas, and consists of a circular gold leaf-gilded stupa surrounded by smaller temples and shrines...
, Shwehsandaw
Shwesandaw Pagoda
The Shwesandaw Pagoda is a Buddhist pagoda located in Bagan, Burma. The pagoda contains a series of five terraces, topped with a cylindrical stupa, which has a bejewelled umbrella . The pagoda was built by King Anawrahta in 1057, and once contained terra cotta tiles depicting scenes from the Jataka...
, and Mingalazedi
Mingalazedi Pagoda
Mingalazedi Pagoda is a Buddhist stupa located in Bagan, Burma. It was built in 1284 during the reign of King Narathihapate. The pagoda is one of few temples in Bagan with a full set of glazed terra cotta tiles depicting the Jataka. The pagoda was built in brick and contains several terraces...
, and ultimately, the Shwedagon in modern Yangon.
Demography
The city-states were mainly populated by the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu people, who like their cousins Burmans are believed to have migrated from present-day north central China, speculated as modern GansuGansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
via Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
. Extensive external trade attracted sizable communities of Indians and the Mon
Mon people
The Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...
, especially in the south. In the north, trickles of Burmans may have entered the Pyu realm from Yunnan as early as the 7th century. (Modern scholarship however holds that Burmans did not arrive in large numbers until mid-to-late 9th century, and perhaps as late as the 10th century, according to radiocarbon dating of Pagan's walls.)
The size of population of the Pyu realm was probably a few hundred thousand, given that the 17th and 18th century Burma (about the size of present-day Myanmar) only had about 2 million people.
Administration
The Pyu settlements were ruled by independent chiefs. The chiefs at larger city-states later styled themselves as kings, and established courts largely modeled after the Indian (Hindu) concepts of monarchy. Not all Hindu concepts such as divine kingship were fully adopted due to the presence of Theravada Buddhism. It is not clear if a vassalage-overlord relationship existed between the larger city-states and smaller towns. The Burmese chronicles mention alliances between the states such as one between Beikthano and Sri Ksetra. By and large, each Pyu city-state appeared to have controlled just the city itself. The large size of the Pyu cities (660 to 1400 hectares) vis-a-vis Pagan (only 140 hectares) suggests that much of the population resided within the walls, as corroborated by the Chinese records.Decline of Pyu city-states
It was a long-lasting civilization that lasted nearly a millennium to early 9th century until a new group of "swift horsemen" from the north, the (MranmaBamar
The Bamar are the dominant ethnic group of Burma , constituting approximately two-thirds of the population. The Bamar live primarily in the Irrawaddy basin, and speak the Burmese language, which is also the official language of Burma. Bamar customs and identity are closely intertwined with general...
) (Burmans) of the Nanzhao Kingdom entered the upper Irrawaddy valley through a series of raids. According to the Tang Dynasty chronicles, the Nanzhao began their raids of Upper Burma starting as early as 754 or 760. Nanzhao raids intensified in the 9th century, with the Nanzhao raiding in 800-802, and again in 808-809. Finally, according to the Chinese, in 832, the Nanzhao warriors overran the Pyu country, and took away 3000 Pyu prisoners from Halin. (In 835, the Chinese records say the Nanzhao also raided a state, generally identified by some but not universally accepted to be a Pyu state.)
To be sure, the Pyu and their culture did not disappear just because 3000 of them were taken away. The size of the Pyu realm and its many walled cities throughout the land indicates a population many times over. Indeed, no firm indications at Sri Ksetra or at any other Pyu site exist to suggest a violent overthrow. It is more likely that these raids significantly weakened the Pyu states, enabling the Burmans to move into Pyu territories. At any rate, evidence shows that the actual pace of Burman migration into the Pyu realm was gradual. Radiocarbon dating shows that human activity existed until c. 870 at Halin, the subject of the 832 Nanzhao raid. The Burmese chronicles claim the Burmans founded the fortified city of Pagan
Bagan
Bagan , formerly Pagan, is an ancient city in the Mandalay Region of Burma. Formally titled Arimaddanapura or Arimaddana and also known as Tambadipa or Tassadessa , it was the capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma...
(Bagan) in 849 but the oldest radiocarbon dated evidence at Pagan (old walls) points to 980 CE while the main walls point to circa 1020 CE, just 24 years earlier than the beginning of the reign of Anawrahta
Anawrahta
Anawrahta Minsaw was the founder of the Pagan Empire. Considered the father of the Burmese nation, Anawrahta turned a small principality in the dry zone of Upper Burma into the first Burmese Empire that formed the basis of modern-day Burma...
, the founder of Pagan Empire.
At any rate, the Burmans had overtaken the leadership of the Pyu realm by the late 10th century, and went on to found the Pagan Empire in the middle of the 11th century, unifying the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery for the first time. Nonetheless, the Pyu had left an indelible mark on Pagan whose Burman rulers would incorporate the histories and legends of the Pyu as their own. The Burman kings of Pagan claimed descent from the kings of Sri Ksetra and Tagaung as far back as 850 BCE—a claim dismissed by most modern scholars. Pyu settlements remained in Upper Burma for the next three centuries but the Pyu gradually were absorbed and assimilated into the expanding Pagan Empire. The Pyu language still existed until the late 12th century but by the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed the Burman ethnicity and disappeared into history.
Current status of the finds
Aside from Sri Ksetra and Beikthano, the rest of the Pyu sites have not been extensively excavated. The care of the sites falls under the purview of the Ministry of Culture's Department of Archaeology. In November 2011, the Department reportedly was planning a museum at Sri Ksetra, and working with the UNESCOUNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
to gain recognition for Sri Ksetra, Beikthano and Halin as World Heritage sites.