Pagan Kingdom in the context of "First Mongol invasion of Burma"

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, while its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

Early civilisations in the area included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Myanmar and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Myanmar. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley, and following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell to Mongol invasions, and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo dynasty, the country became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a short period. The early 19th-century Konbaung dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Assam, the Lushai Hills, and Manipur as well. The British East India Company seized control of the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. After a brief Japanese occupation, Myanmar was reconquered by the Allies. On 4 January 1948, Myanmar declared independence under the terms of the Burma Independence Act 1947.

The Royal Armed Forces (Burmese: တပ်မတော်, [taʔmədɔ̀]) were the armed forces of the Burmese monarchy from the 9th to 19th centuries. It refers to the military forces of the Pagan Kingdom, the Kingdom of Ava, the Hanthawaddy kingdom, the Toungoo dynasty and the Konbaung dynasty in chronological order. It was one of the major armed forces of Southeast Asia until it was defeated by the British over a six-decade span in the 19th century.

The army was organised into a small standing army of a few thousand, which defended the capital and the palace, and a much larger conscript-based wartime army. Conscription was based on the ahmudan system, which required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war. The wartime army also consisted of elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval units.

The term mandala (Sanskrit: मंडल, romanized: maṇḍala, lit. 'circle') is used to describe a model of decentralized political systems in the early historical era of medieval Southeast Asia. At that time, authority radiated from a core centre rather than being defined by fixed territorial boundaries. This model emphasizes the fluid distribution of power among the networks of Mueang and Kedatuan city-states or principalities, in contrast to modern concepts of centralized nation-states.

The mandala model was adopted by 20th-century historians as a way to analyse traditional structures (such as federations of kingdoms or tributary states) without imposing preconceived notions of statehood. Unlike Chinese and European models of a state, with fixed borders and centralized bureaucracies, most Southeast Asian polities operated by means of overlapping spheres of influence. Their sovereignty was derived from an ability to attract allegiance using cultural, economic, or military prestige, rather than by means of land control. These dynamic systems could incorporate multiple subordinate centres, while maintaining a symbolic "centre of domination". The centre was often embodied by a ruler's court or sacred site.

The Toungoo dynasty (Burmese: တောင်ငူမင်းဆက်, [tàʊɰ̃ŋù mɪ́ɰ̃ zɛʔ]; also spelt Taungoo dynasty, and also known as the Nyaungyan dynasty after 1599, was the ruling dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) from the mid-16th century to 1752. At its peak, Toungoo "exercised suzerainty from present-day Assam, Manipur to the Cambodian marches and from the borders of Arakan to Yunnan" and was the largest empire and the only great power country in the history of Southeast Asia." The dynasty ruled in two periods: the First Toungoo Empire (1510–1599) and the Nyaungyan Restoration (1599–1752).

Its early kings Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung succeeded in reunifying the territories of the Pagan Kingdom for the first time since 1287 and in incorporating the Shan States for the first time, in addition to including Manipur, Chinese Shan States, Siam and Lan Xang. The empire collapsed in the 18 years following Bayinnaung's death in 1581. The dynasty quickly regrouped under the leadership of Nyaungyan Min and his son, Anaukpetlun, who succeeded in restoring a smaller, more manageable kingdom, encompassing Lower Burma, Upper Burma, Shan States and Lan Na by 1622. The Restored Toungoo kings, now based in Ava (Inwa), created a legal and political system whose basic features would continue under the Konbaung dynasty well into the 19th century. The crown completely replaced the hereditary chieftainships with appointed governorships in the entire Irrawaddy valley and greatly reduced the hereditary rights of Shan chiefs. Its trade and secular administrative reforms built a prosperous economy for more than 80 years.

The 9th century was a period from 801 (represented by the Roman numerals DCCCI) through 900 (CM) in accordance with the Julian calendar.

The Carolingian Renaissance and the Viking raids occurred within this period. In the Middle East, the House of Wisdom was founded in Abbasid Baghdad, attracting many scholars to the city. The field of algebra was founded by the Muslim polymath al-Khwarizmi. The most famous Islamic scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal was tortured and imprisoned by Abbasid official Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad during the reign of Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim and caliph al-Wathiq. In Southeast Asia, the Mataram kingdom reached its zenith, while Burma would see the establishment of the major kingdom of Pagan. Tang China started the century with the effective rule of Emperor Xianzong and ended it with the Huang Chao Rebellion. In America, the Maya experienced widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities, and a northward shift of population.

The Pyu city-states (Burmese: ပျူ မြို့ပြ နိုင်ငံများ [pjù mjo̼.pjɑ̼ nàɪɴŋàɴ mjá]) were a group of city-states that existed from about the 2nd century BCE to the mid-11th century in present-day Upper Myanmar. These city-states were founded as part of the migration of the Pyu people from Tibet to Mainland Southeast Asia by the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu settlers, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant. The thousand-year period, often referred to as the Pyu millennium, linked the Bronze Age to the beginning of the classical states period when the Pagan Kingdom emerged in the late 9th century.

The major Pyu city-states were all located in the three main irrigated regions of Upper Burma: the Mu River Valley, the Kyaukse plains and Minbu region, around the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin Rivers. Five major walled cities- Beikthano, Maingmaw, Binnaka, Hanlin, and Sri Ksetra- and several smaller towns have been excavated throughout the Irrawaddy River basin. Halin, founded in the 1st century AD, was the largest and most important city until around the 7th or 8th century when it was superseded by Sri Ksetra (near modern Pyay) at the southern edge of the Pyu Realm. Twice as large as Halin, Sri Ksetra was eventually the largest and most influential Pyu centre. Only the city-states of Halin, Beikthano and Sri Ksetra are designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, where the other sites can be added in the future for an extension nomination.