50 the
Sinhalese school, led by Sariputta and others, began to make conquests
in Lower Burma at the expense of the Talaing school. (_e_) Two
centuries later, about 1460, Dhammaceti of Pegu boasts that he has
purified religion and made the school of the Mahavihara, that is the
most orthodox form of the Sinhalese school, the only sect.

In connection with these data must be taken the important statement
that the celebrated Tantrist Atisa studied in Lower Burma about
1000 A.D. Up to a certain point the conclusion seems clear. Pali
Hinayanism in Burma was old: intercourse with southern India and
Ceylon tended to keep it pure, whereas intercourse with Bengal and
Orissa, which must have been equally frequent, tended to import
Mahayanism. In the time of Anawrata the religion of Upper Burma
probably did not deserve the name of Buddhism. He introduced in its
place the Buddhism of Lower Burma, tempered by reference to Ceylon.
After 1200 if not earlier the idea prevailed that the Mahavihara was
the standard of orthodoxy and that the Talaing church (which probably
retained some Mahayanist features) fell below it. In the fifteenth
century this view was universally accepted, the opposition and indeed
the separate existence of the Talaing church having come to an end.

But it still remains uncertain whether the earliest Burmese Buddhism
came direct from Magadha or from the south. The story of Asoka's
missionaries cannot be summarily rejected but it also cannot be
accepted without hesitation.[160] It is the Ceylon chronicle which
knows of them and communication between Burma and southern India was
old and persistent. It may have existed even before the Christian era.

After the fall of Pagan, Upper Burma, of which we must now speak,
passed through troubled times and we hear little of religion or
literature. Though Ava was founded in 1364 it did not become an
intellectual centre for another century. But the reign of Narapati
(1442-1468) was ornamented by several writers of eminence among whom
may be mentioned the monk poet Silavamsa and Ariyavamsa, an
exponent of the Abhidhamma. They are noticeable as being the first
writers to publish religious works, either original or translated, in
the vernacular and this practice steadily increased. In the early part
of the sixteenth century[161] occurred the only persecution of
Buddhism known in Burma. Thohanbwa, a Shan who had become king of Ava,
endeavoured to exterminate the order by deliber