Anawrahta

Lore & Background

When he was about six, his father was deposed by step-brothers Kyiso and Sokkate, who forced Kunhsaw into a monastery. As king, Anawrahta organized his kingdom by grading towns and villages according to levy, and built an irrigation system of weirs and canals on the Panlaung and Zawgyi rivers, turning arid central Burma into a rice granary. He organized Pagan's military with key men including his son Kyansittha, Nyaung-U Hpi, Nga Htwe Yu, and Nga Lon Letpe. By the mid-1050s, Pagan became a regional power, and Anawrahta expanded to found the Pagan Empire, acquiring allegiance from the Shan Hills and establishing 43 forts along the eastern foothills.

Reader's Guide

Anawrahta's significance lies in unifying the entire Irrawaddy valley for the first time in history and placing peripheral regions such as the Shan States and Arakan under Pagan's suzerainty. He successfully stopped the advance of the Khmer Empire into the Tenasserim coastline and Upper Menam valley, making Pagan one of the two great kingdoms in mainland Southeast Asia. His social and religious reforms later developed into modern-day Burmese culture, and his irrigation system gave Upper Burma an enduring economic base. By embracing Theravada Buddhism and halting the Khmer Empire, a Mahayana state, he provided the Buddhist school a safe shelter, enabling its later growth in Lan Na, Siam, Lan Xang, and the Khmer Empire in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Did You Know?

• Anawrahta is the first historically verifiable king of Pagan, with events of his reign confirmed by stone inscriptions.
• He built four weirs and canals on the Panlaung river and three weirs on the Zawgyi river, but failed to control the Myitnge river despite three years of effort.
• His victory terracotta votive tablets have been found along the Tenasserim coastline, Katha, Thazi, and Minbu.
• Anawrahta's life stories are a staple of Burmese folklore and retold in popular literature and theater.