[Sidenote: 53. Pagan.] [Sidenote: 54. The Ananda Temple, Pagan.] [Sidenote: 55. The Ananda Temple, nearer view of the west side.] [Sidenote: 56. Buddha Image at Pagan.] To realise the antiquity and the splendour of early Burmese civilisation, we must descend the Irawaddy below Mandalay to a place called Pagan. There, for some ten miles beside the river, and for three miles back from its bank, are the ruins of a great capital which flourished about the time of the Norman Conquest of England. From the centre of the ruined city it is impossible to point in any direction in which a pagoda or a temple is not visible. We have here a general view of the remains, and then the Ananda Temple, seen in the midst of a bank of vegetation, from which at various points rise other smaller red and white ruins. The Ananda Temple was built more than eight hundred years ago by the Thatons, the original inhabitants of the country, who were overcome by the invading Burmans. Some thirty thousand of these Thatons were brought to Pagan as slaves, and set to build the pagodas and temples, just as during the captivity in Egypt the Israelites were employed in building the pyramids. Here is the Ananda Temple close at hand, white and glittering in the sunshine, as though built of sugar. If we enter the great portal—there are three other portals similar, for the plan of the building is that of a cross—we find facing us a huge image of the Buddha, over ten yards in height. Buddhism was developed from Hinduism. It originated as a revolt from the excessive ritualism of the Brahmans. We have seen that Hinduism became an all-embracing system of religious ritual and social organisation, but that alongside, as it were, of this process there was evolved a philosophical system based upon two theories: the belief in a Universal Soul as the centre of reality, and the belief in the ultimate identity of the Individual and the Universal Soul. In the sixth century before Christ India was seething and fermenting with spiritual thought. A great teacher was called for, and such a one was given to the world in Gautama, the Buddha, that is to say, the Enlightened or Awakened One.