Video · 2022-11-03 · 2h 7m · 6 moments

16. Bagan - City of Temples

✦ AI generated

GUEST Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting Marco Polo)GUEST Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting King Alaungsithu)GUEST Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting historian Michael Aung-Thwin)GUEST Paul Cooper (narrator)

timeline · colored by role

Mechanism

King Anawrahta converted Bagan to Theravada Buddhism not only from genuine spiritual conviction but also to weaken the powerful and corrupt Ari Buddhist monks, bringing the church under royal control.

The podcast explains that King Anawrahta used the austere Theravada Buddhism brought from Sri Lanka as a tool to break the power of the Ari monks, who owned vast estates, practiced martial arts, and were said to demand first-night rights with brides.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator): Perhaps King Anawrahta was genuinely moved by the sage's teachings, but it's clear he also spotted an opportunity. If he brought this new branch of Buddhism to his kingdom, he could weaken the hold of the Ari monks. So, King Anawrahta went to war with the church.

Definition

The temple-building boom in Bagan was an act of devotion and a form of accumulating merit, with one king envisioning the temples as a 'causeway across the river of Samsara' to help all beings reach enlightenment.

The podcast presents King Alaungsithu's prayer at the consecration of the Shwegugyi pagoda, where he expresses that temple-building is not for personal glory but to build a spiritual bridge across the endless cycle of rebirth for all people.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting King Alaungsithu): By this abundant merit, I desire here nor hereafter no angelic pomp of Brahmas, Suras, Maras, nor the state and splendors of a monarch, nay not even to be the pupil of the conqueror. But I would build a causeway sheer across the river of Samsara, and all folk would speed across thereby until they reached the Blessed City.

Data◆

By the late 13th century, as much as 63 percent of the kingdom's land that had once belonged to the crown, along with the majority of its gold and silver, was in the hands of the tax-exempt Buddhist church, crippling the state's ability to fund itself.

The podcast describes how donations of land, labor, and gold to the Buddhist church, which was exempt from taxation, steadily transferred the kingdom's wealth out of the royal treasury, mirroring modern tax-haven dynamics.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator): In Bagan, by the late 13th century, as much as 63 percent of the kingdom's land that had once belonged to the crown, as well as the majority of its gold and silver, was in the hands of the tax-exempt church. For successive kings of Bagan, this resulted in something of a bind. Their entire legitimacy rested on the system of belief that began and ended with the Buddhist church.

explains mechanism · 1

Anecdote

The Mongols defeated the Bagan army at the Battle of Vochang Valley by using archery to panic the Burmese war elephants, which then turned and trampled their own forces.

Marco Polo's account describes how Mongol archers shot the Bagan war elephants, causing them to flee in panic and trample their own soldiers, which turned the battle decisively in favor of the Mongols.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting Marco Polo): When the elephants felt the smart of those arrows that pelted them like rain, they turned tail and fled, and nothing on Earth would have induced them to turn and face the Tartars. Then, too, they plunged into the wood and rushed this way and that, dashing their castles against the trees, bursting their harness, and smashing and destroying everything that was on them.

Claim◆

The Bagan Empire's decline was caused by the same forces that had enabled its rise: the immense wealth and land accumulation by the tax-exempt Buddhist church, which gradually impoverished the state.

The historian Michael Aung-Thwin argues that the institutions that made Bagan prosperous—especially the donation of tax-exempt land to the Buddhist church—eventually became destructive forces, draining the royal treasury and leaving the kingdom vulnerable to collapse.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting historian Michael Aung-Thwin): The kingdom of Bagan declined because the factors that had nurtured it in the first place became in time forces that contradicted and destroyed it. The seeds that sowed the destruction of Bagan are what earlier made its success possible, and the institutions that led to prosperity and power eventually involuted and impoverished the state. What had been a blessing became a curse.

Context

The sight of the ruined temples of Bagan filled the Western traveler with a profound sense of the impermanence of even the mightiest empires, a reminder of 'the mutability of human things.'

The podcast concludes with Somerset Maugham's reflections on visiting Bagan in 1923, where the crumbling pagodas and overgrown ruins prompted him to confront the unsettling thought that his own modern civilization might one day meet the same fate.

transcript

Paul Cooper (narrator, quoting and summarizing W. Somerset Maugham): It is a somber reminding of the mutability of human things. For Maugham, the sight of these ruins reminded him that the empire he lived at the heart of might also one day be consigned to history.

Highlight slides

Bagan's Wealth Shift to the Church✦ from: By the late 13th century, as much as 63 percent of the kingdom's land that had once belonged to the crown, along with the majority of its gold and silver, was in the hands of the tax-exempt Buddhist church, crippling the state's ability to fund itself.The King's Dilemma✦ from: By the late 13th century, as much as 63 percent of the kingdom's land that had once belonged to the crown, along with the majority of its gold and silver, was in the hands of the tax-exempt Buddhist church, crippling the state's ability to fund itself.Bagan: Built by Faith, Bankrupted by Faith✦ from: The Bagan Empire's decline was caused by the same forces that had enabled its rise: the immense wealth and land accumulation by the tax-exempt Buddhist church, which gradually impoverished the state.

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King Anawrahta converted Bagan to Theravada Buddhism not only from genuine spiritual conviction but also to weaken the powerful and corrupt Ari Buddhist monks, bringing the church under royal control.

The temple-building boom in Bagan was an act of devotion and a form of accumulating merit, with one king envisioning the temples as a 'causeway across the river of Samsara' to help all beings reach enlightenment.

By the late 13th century, as much as 63 percent of the kingdom's land that had once belonged to the crown, along with the majority of its gold and silver, was in the hands of the tax-exempt Buddhist church, crippling the state's ability to fund itself.

The Mongols defeated the Bagan army at the Battle of Vochang Valley by using archery to panic the Burmese war elephants, which then turned and trampled their own forces.

The Bagan Empire's decline was caused by the same forces that had enabled its rise: the immense wealth and land accumulation by the tax-exempt Buddhist church, which gradually impoverished the state.

The sight of the ruined temples of Bagan filled the Western traveler with a profound sense of the impermanence of even the mightiest empires, a reminder of 'the mutability of human things.'

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