riesthood who in some ways imitated what they knew of Brahmanic
and Buddhist institutions. They wore black robes, let their hair grow,
worshipped serpents, hung up in their temples the heads of animals
that had been sacrificed, and once a year they assisted the king to
immolate a victim to the Nats on a mountain top. They claimed power to
expiate all sins, even parricide. They lived in convents (which is
their only real resemblance to Buddhist monks) but were not
celibate.[143] Anawrata is said to have suppressed the Aris but he
certainly did not extirpate them for an inscription dated 1468 records
their existence in the Myingyan district. Also in a village near Pagan
are preserved Tantric frescoes representing Bodhisattvas with their
Saktis. In one temple is an inscription dated 1248 and requiring
the people to supply the priests morning and evening with rice, beef,
betel, and a jar of spirits.[144] It is not clear whether these
priests were Aris or not, but they evidently professed an extreme form
of Buddhist Saktism.

Chinese influences in Upper Burma must also be taken into account.
Burmese kings were perhaps among the many potentates who sent
religious embassies to the Emperor Wu-ti about 525 A.D. and the
T'ang[145] annals show an acquaintance with Burma. They describe the
inhabitants as devout Buddhists, reluctant to take life or even to
wear silk, since its manufacture involves the death of the silk worms.
There were a hundred monasteries into which the youth entered at the
age of seven, leaving at the age of twenty, if they did not intend to
become monks. The Chinese writer does not seem to have regarded the
religion of Burma as differing materially from Buddhism as he knew it
and some similarities in ecclesiastical terminology shown by Chinese
and Burmese may indicate the presence of Chinese influence.[146]
But this influence, though possibly strong between the sixth and tenth
centuries A.D., and again about the time of the Chinese invasion of
1284,[147] cannot be held to exclude Indian influence.

Thus when Anawrata came to the throne[148] several forms of religion
probably co-existed at Pagan, and probably most of them were corrupt,
though it is a mistake to think of his dominions as barbarous. The
reformation which followed is described by Burmese authors in
considerable detail and as usual in such accounts is ascribed to the
activity of one personality, the Thera Arahanta who came from Thaton
and enjoyed