when the Talaings were conquered by Anawrata, Buddhist monks and copies of the Tipitaka were found there.  But we know little about the country in the preceding centuries.  The Kalyani inscription says that before Anawrata’s conquest it was divided and decadent and during this period there is no proof of intercourse with Ceylon but also no disproof.  One result of Anawrata’s conquest of Thaton was that he exchanged religious embassies with the king of Ceylon, and it is natural to suppose that the two monarchs were moved to this step by traditions of previous communications.  Intercourse with the east coast of India may be assumed as natural, and is confirmed by the presence of Sanskrit words in old Talaing and the information about southern India in Talaing records, in which the city of Conjevaram, the great commentator Dharmapala and other men of learning are often mentioned.  Analogies have also been traced between the architecture of Pagan and southern India.[135] It will be seen that such communication by sea may have brought not only Hinayanist Buddhism but also Mahayanist and Tantric Buddhism as well as Brahmanism from Bengal and Orissa, so that it is not surprising if all these influences can be detected in the ancient buildings and sculptures of the country.[136] Still the most important evidence as to the character of early Burmese Buddhism is Hinayanist and furnished by inscriptions on thin golden plates and tiles, found near the ancient site of Prome and deciphered by Finot.[137] They consist of Hinayanist religious formulae:  the language is Pali:  the alphabet is of a south Indian type and is said to resemble closely that used in the inscriptions of the Kadamba dynasty which ruled in Kanara from the third to the sixth century.  It is to the latter part of this period that the inscriptions are to be attributed.  They show that a form of the Hinayana, comparable, so far as the brief documents permit us to judge, with the church of Ceylon, was then known in lower Burma and was probably the state church.  The character of the writing, taken together with the knowledge of southern India shown by the Talaing chronicles and the opinion of the Dipavamsa that Burma was a Buddhist country, is good evidence that lower Burma had accepted Hinayanism before the sixth century and had intercourse with southern India.  More than that it would perhaps be rash to say.

The Burmese tradition that Buddhaghosa was a native of Thaton and returned thither from Ceylon merits more attention than it has received.  It can be easily explained away as patriotic fancy.  On the other hand, if Buddhaghosa’s object was to invigorate Hinayanism in India, the result of his really stupendous labours was singularly small, for in India his name is connected with no religious movement.  But if we suppose that he went to Ceylon by way of the holy places in Magadha and returned from the Coromandel Coast to Burma where Hinayanism afterwards nourished, we have at least a coherent narrative.[138]