In the chronicles the Ari are the clergy that held the country before Anawrahta: monks who, on the chronicle's account, ate after noon, drank liquor, presided over animal sacrifices and kept the images of Mahayana and Brahmanical gods (English Wikipedia, Burmese Buddhism).
Anawrahta is said to have stopped the custom of yielding children to them, and banished many to Mount Popa and the Shan Hills (Harvey 1925, via English Wikipedia). The page on Shin Arahan says their descendants, the forest-dwelling monks, were royal patrons into the sixteenth-century Ava period. Who exactly the Ari were, and how much of the chronicle's picture is the winners' story, is argued by modern historians; we did not read them.
For 1 January 1200 the safe statement is that a clergy of this kind exists at the edges of the court's religion, with its centres at Popa and in the hills, and that the nat cult it kept is inside the king's religion rather than outside it.
Who holds it
- Title
- Heads of the Ari houses
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
English Wikipedia (Burmese Buddhism, Shin Arahan), citing Harvey 1925; we found nothing dated to 1199 or 1200.
What it holds
- Village shrines and hill sanctuaries (not itemised)
- The loyalty of villages that keep the nat cult
Allies and rivals
Enemy of both orders of the Sangha in the chronicle; its nat cult is absorbed by the court (see the Popa record).
How things stand that morning
A reduced and scattered clergy, not an organised order; its hold is on the villages and the hills.
Threats
- The two orders' competition for the villages
Places of note
- Mount Popa: Refuge of banished Ari monks (chronicle).
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board does not name the Ari. The brief asks for them as a power; we could find only the chronicle picture and one modern line on their survival.
Evidence: The chronicle picture is a late account of an eleventh-century reform; the survival to 1200 rests on one line of a modern page.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
Primary sources for Kingdom of Pagan
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, The Royal Historical Commission of King Bagyidaw (Monywe Sayadaw and others), drawing on U Kala's Maha Yazawin (about 1724) and earlier chronicles (1829 to 1832). The standard Burmese court chronicle, compiled six centuries after 1200 from older chronicles now lost. Read online
- The later Tai, Lao and Mon chronicles of the north, Ratanapanna (Jinakalamali); Bodhiramsi (Chamadevivamsa); anonymous monks and court scribes (the Chamadevivamsa about 1410; the Jinakalamali 1516 to 1528; the Chiang Mai Chronicle in its surviving form 1827; the Nithan Khun Borom 16th to 17th century). There is no text of 1200 for the Mon kingdom of Haripunjaya, the Tai muang of Ngoenyang (Chiang Saen), Chiang Rung, the Yom and Nan valleys, or the Lao middle Mekong.
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
- Epigraphia Birmanica, being lithic and other inscriptions of Burma, Various, edited by Taw Sein Ko, C. Duroiselle and C. O. Blagden (inscriptions of the 11th to 15th centuries; the series ran from 1919 to 1936). The Archaeological Survey of Burma's series of edited inscriptions with full translations. Read online
- Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Ava; Inscriptions of Burma, Various (the Pagan kings, queens, ministers and donors), edited by Tun Nyein, Taw Sein Ko, G. H. Luce and Pe Maung Tin (inscriptions of the 11th to 14th centuries; editions 1899 and 1933 to 1956). The dedicatory inscriptions of Pagan are the only contemporary texts for the kingdom of Narapatisithu (reigning 1174 to 1211). Read online
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.