r which they displayed in
conquering the difficulties of Pali grammar. Some treatises on the
Abhidhamma were also produced.

Like Mohammedanism, Hinayanist Buddhism is too simple and definite to
admit much variation in doctrine, but its clergy are prone to violent
disputes about apparently trivial questions. In the thirteenth century
such disputes assumed grave proportions in Burma. About 1175 A.D. a
celebrated elder named Uttarajiva accompanied by his pupil
Chapata left for Ceylon. They spent some years in study at the
Mahavihara and Chapata received ordination there. He returned to
Pagan with four other monks and maintained that valid ordination could
be conferred only through the monks of the Mahavihara, who alone had
kept the succession unbroken. He with his four companions, having
received this ordination, claimed power to transmit it, but he
declined to recognize Burmese orders. This pretension aroused a storm
of opposition, especially from the Talaing monks. They maintained that
Arahanta who had reformed Buddhism under Anawrata was spiritually
descended from the missionaries sent by Asoka, who were as well
qualified to administer ordination as Mahinda. But Chapata was not
only a man of learning and an author[153] but also a vigorous
personality and in favour at Court. He had the best of the contest and
succeeded in making the Talaing school appear as seceders from
orthodoxy. There thus arose a distinction between the Sinhalese or
later school and the old Burmese school, who regarded one another as
schismatics. A scandal was caused in the Sinhalese community by
Rahula, the ablest of Chapata's disciples, who fell in love with an
actress and wished to become a layman. His colleagues induced him to
leave the country for decency's sake and peace was restored but
subsequently, after Chapata's death, the remaining three
disciples[154] fell out on questions of discipline rather than
doctrine and founded three factions, which can hardly be called
schools, although they refused to keep the Uposatha days together. The
light of religion shone brightest at Pagan early in the thirteenth
century while these three brethren were alive and the Sasanavamsa
states that at least three Arhats lived in the city. But the power of
Pagan collapsed under attacks from both Chinese and Shans at the end
of the century and the last king became a monk under the
compulsion of Shan chiefs. The deserted city appears to have lost its
importance a