Cakkravatiy Anuruddha and the Buddhist Oikoumene: Historical narratives of kingship and religious networks in Burma, Northern Thailand, and Sri Lanka (11th--14th centuries)

Anawrahta or Aniruddhadeva reigned in the arid central plains of Burma between 1044 and 1077. Of uncertain origin, Anawrahta was traditionally seen as the king who "founded" Pagan, established Buddhism as the national religion, and initiated the expansion of the Burmese kingdom southward beyond the borders of the modern Burmese nation-state. Yet there is relatively little material evidence of his reign. Why does Anawrahta feature significantly in Burmese, northern Thai, and Sri Lankan chronicles? What compelled these writers (mainly Burmese and northern Thai) to write elaborate narrative accounts of this 11th-century ruler? How did Burmese and northern Thai writers construct narrative accounts of Anawrahta which promoted him as the symbol of a flourishing Buddhist oikoumene? This dissertation analyzes Burmese and Chinese primary sources, and Sri Lankan and northern Thai translations of chronicles, to reveal the motivations of and resources used by Burmese writers of yazawin ("chronicles"). In the textual and intertextual analysis of Burmese and other writings, this work shows how Burmese writers such as U Kala successfully wove an elaborate series of narrative accounts representing Anawrahta as the symbolic cakravartin of the Buddhist oikoumene, which comprised most of the 11th-century Buddhist world. In the eyes of Burmese and northern Thai writers, as Cakkravatiy Anuruddha, Anawrahta assumed the role of balacakravartin of the interconnected Buddhist commonwealth of Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.