Arakan, Burma's Forgotten Kingdom by Pamela Gutman

For more a millennium the policy we know as Arakan existed as a culturally strategic
border state, the only state in Southeast Asia to be connected to India by both land and
sea routes. The study of its culture is of particular interest as it reveals which elements of
Indian cultural were adopted in Arakan and in the land to its east. We can then ask why
some elements and not others were adopted, and attempted to relate this to the political,
social and religious developments of the wider region.

In the periods when Arakan was at its most powerful the most important cultural
influences came from the west, most immediately from the area today known as
Bangladesh. When the Burmese and Mon kingdoms to the east prospered, and from time
to time gained sovereignty over Arakan, the major influences came from there. Positioned
as it was on the sea route around the Bay of Bengal, Arakan was also subjected to the
influence of the cultures of southern and western India, and in particular to Sri Lanka,
which as the most important Buddhist polity in the region has a significant impact on the
religious development of the state. From the earliest urban sites we have the seal of the
south Indian merchant dating to around the third century AD and an intaglio which
appears to have originated in the middle east of the same period.

The archaeological remains are limited in what they can tell us, but the art and
architecture which survives today suggests that the impetus for the adaptation of Indian
and other influences was power. As contact with the wider region increased in the early
centuries of the first millennium AD the economy diversified, urban centres developed and
a more complex social structure developed. The ruler was invested, through Indian
Brahmanic ritual, with superhuman qualities through which the fertility and therefore the
prosperity of the state were not introduced, the caste system, for instance, although a
fluid sort of class system. Not as dependent on birth as in India, did evolve.

It is also the site of one of the most famous Buddhist

shrines in Southeast Asia, the Mahamuni. It is here, legend
has it, that the Buddha himself came and allowed a statue
to be made in his own image. The object of veneration for
centuries, the image was seen as the palladium of the
state and coveted by the kings of neighbouring countries.

The earliest site known to us is the walled and moated city of Dinnyawadi, "Grain-blessed".
This is possibly the site of a pre-Indian cult of the earth goddess, and lying on the route
from the hills to the sea would have been a trading centre. It is also the site of one of the
most famous Buddhist shrines in Southeast Asia, the Mahamuni. It is here, legend has it,
that the Buddha himself came and allowed a statue to be made in his own image. The
object of veneration for centuries, the image was seen as the palladium of the state and
coveted by the kings of neighbouring countries. While the legend as we know it probably
dates from a time later than the building of the shrine, the images which survive suggest
that the earliest form of Buddhism was Mahayanist, for we can identify bodhisattvas,
guardians of the directions and other images which relate, surprisingly, to the Buddhism
practised in China at the time. The style, however, is closely connected with the Gupta,
although there are no direct connections with any Indian schools. It is possible that the
sculptors used Indian texts, from which they made their own interpretation of the
iconography.

Sometime around the sixth century the centre of power moved to Vesali, where we find
evidence of a Brahmanised royal cult, in the form of a massive recumbent bull discovered
in the centre of a brick structure used for royal ritual. The bull also appears on the obverse
of a series of coins, together with the name of the king in Sankrit. On the reverse of the
coins is a motif known as the srivatsa, symbolising the king's function to guarantee the
prosperity of the land. This symbol is also found on coins from the same period elsewhere
in Burma and in Thailand and south Vietnam, indicating a shared culture which, as Robert
Brown indicates in his paper, must have existed in mainland Southeast Asia until the
seventh century. The architecture of this period also has strong links with the countries

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further east. Two lintels in the style known as Sambor Prei Kuk, from the seventh century
site in Cambodia, architecture fragments indicate contact with central and southern India.

Also found at Vesali are a great number of Vishnu images, indicating that his worship was
widespread from perhaps the sixth to at least the ninth centuries. Vishnu was known too at
the Pyu sites in central Burma. The iconography of the Arakanese examples is closely
related to that of east Bengal at the time. There is evidence, too, of a popular form of
Buddhism, with images inscribed in Sanskrit.

After a period of turmoil, probably the result of the coming of Tibeto-Burmans to Arakan
from the north, Vesali was succeeded by a serious of smaller cities which came under the
sovereignty of Pagan. The Buddhist art of the 11th and 12th centuries is strongly influenced
by pagan, as can be seen by Buddha image in stucco, and a rare Vishnu and Laksmi from
this period follows the heavy physiognomy of the late Pagan period. As the power of Pagan
waned, however, Arakan was able to expand its authority to Bengal in the west and to
Cape Nagrais in the south. By the beginning of the 15th century the Burmese invaded and
the Arakanese king fled to the Sultanate of Gaur in east Bengal. He returned, with the
assistance of the Sultan, to found the last of the great cities, Mrauk-U.

Mrauk-U at the height of its power controlled Bengal up to

Dacca and Pegu in the Mon country to the south. The great
originality of its art was in its architecture. Its builders
used a technique of facing a brick core with stone slabs
bound by mortar, and made extensive use of dark gray
sandstone brought upriver from the coast. This use of
stone was the great difference between the architecture of
Arakan and that of Pagan and Bengal, where stone was
scarcer.

Mrauk-U at the height of its power controlled Bengal up to Dacca and Pegu in the Mon
country to the south. The great originality of its art was in its architecture. Its builders
used a technique of facing a brick core with stone slabs bound by mortar, and made
extensive use of dark gray sandstone brought upriver from the coast. This use of stone
was the great difference between the architecture of Arakan and that of Pagan and Bengal,
where stone was scarcer. The architects combined the lessons of Pagan with the Muslim
experience in building arches, domes and vaults, in which mortar played the dominant part
of keeping the masonry together. They were thus able to conceive massive hollow
pagodas, whose central shrines were entered through long vaulted passages.

The Shitthaung shrine, built be King Mong Ben after he conquered Bengal in 1536, was the
magnificent statement of a cakravartin Buddhist king who had conquered Islam. An arched
screen on the western side and the arrangement of stupas on the roof recall the mosque
architecture of 16th century Gaur in east Bengal. Surrounding the central image are
circumambulatory passages, on the outer of which the king is depicted as a god with the
attributes of a cakravatin king, some derived from the iconography of Vishnu the
Preserver. He is flanked by his Bengali and Arakanese wives, distinguished by their dress,
and by depictions of his power and the prosperity he has brought to his country.

Other Mrauk-U shrines are decorated with glazed tiles, some decorated with middle
eastern motifs, others have reliefs depicting the three worlds of Buddhism, some are
guarded by figures reminiscent of the 5th-6th century images founded at the Mahamuni
shrine. The sculpture of the period is similarly diverse. Crowned Buddha images are
derived from the style of the late Ming, seated Buddhas from the art of northern Thailand.
Some extraordinary Sri Lankan bronzes have been discovered, recalling the time when the
Dutch rulers of Sri Lanka, wanting to overcome the influence of Catholicism brought there
by the Portuguese, sent to Arakan for monks to perform the Buddhist ordination ceremony
to purify the religion.

Gradually, however, the power of Mrauk-U waned. In its last century Arakan survived only
because it had no aggressive neighbour. In 1784 it was conquered by the Burmese ruler
Bodawpaya and the revered Mahamuni image was taken to Mandalay. With its loss, the

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Arakanese people seemed to lose heart, and its shrines and images were largely neglected
for the next 200 years. it is only recently, with the emergence of Mrauk-U as a tourist
destination, that the Burmese government has begun to restore some of the monuments.
Ausheritage is in the process of bringing together a group of experts to assist in the
restoration, and I hope that TAASA members will be able to participate in various ways.

ACKNOWELEGEMENTS

I would like to thank U Kyaw Kyaw Hla, Chairman of the Trustees of Shitthaung pagoda; U
Kyaw Htun Aung, Assistant Director. Archaeological Department; U Aung Kyaw Zan of
Mrauk-U Travels and Tours and photographer Zaw Min Yu.

( TAASA Vice-President Dr. Pamela Gutman obtained her doctorate in Burmese art and
architecture from the Australian National University and is the author of many publications
including a forthcoming book on Arakan)