The battle of Talas & Chinese expansionism

China is a great enemy and we necessarily need to seek means to
counter it and overcome it in battle. The Chinese have always been
inveterate and ruthless expansionists who, like the Moslems,
understand only learn through the language of blows and punches.
Hence, reviewing the battle of Talas one of the most defining moments
in Asiatic history is worthwhile. We have to learn many military
lessons from the battle of Talas for a scenario like that is still
likely to be useful to unravel Chinese war machine.

In the space of 740-750 AD a numbers of events of importance
transpired in Central Asia. The Moslems from Merv and Khorasan grouped
under Abu Muslim and marched on the Umayyad Kalif and having routed
him placed the Abbasid Kalif as the head of the Moslem world. Shortly
after that Abu Muslim was commissioned to conduct Jihad in Central
Asia to exterminate the Kaffirs once and for all. It was a great low
point for the Western Turks. Their great Khan Su’lu, who was a bulwark
against the Moslems and the Chinese, in the wars of 720 and 723, was
assassinated by the Arabs. The pagan Turkic rulers of Samarqand and
Bokhara came under a heavy assault from the ghazis after the fall of
Su’lu when the Arabs with 300 giant trebuchets stormed the cities and
forcibly imposed Islam with the destruction of the pagan places of
worship. Archaeological evidence shows that these Turkic cities were
cosmopolitan with Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and the Tengri
cults of the Altaics being practiced. The Chinese in the meantime
eliminated a major rival of the Moslems, the Tibetans in a combined
operation with the Indians by smashing them in a 749 and reducing them
to vassalage. The pagan Turkic ruler of Tashkent, known as the Tudun,
was repeatedly pressured by the Chinese to pay tributes to the T’ang
emperor of China. The Uighurs in the mean time became the most
powerful Turko-Mongol group in the east and pushed the Qarluq turks
westwards. The Qarluqs remained the masters of the territory just west
of the Balkash lake. The Chinese appointed the Korean general Kao
Sien-chih to enforce the Chinese rule in central Asia and if possible
seize Baltistan, Gilgit and Wakhan from the emperors of Kashmir. Kao
marched right across the Pamirs and then took the Baroghil pass to
assault Gilgit and take its chief hostage. Thus he reduced Gilgit to
Chinese vassalage. Shri Mangala, the king of Kunduz was battling a
Tibetan invading force, when Kao promised him aid but betrayed him
once the former had beaten the Tibetans. Kao arrested him after
pretending to come to sign a treaty with his large Chinese army. Kao
to show his might as the Chinese viceroy of Central Asia, marched
suddenly on Tashkent and seized the city in 750 AD. He beheaded the
Tudun and appropriated the treasury of Tashkent, marking the pinnacle
of Chinese imperialist hegemony. The Turkic Tudun’s son shaken by the
Chinese advance, fled to his cousins, the Qarluqs, and sought their
aid against the imperial T’ang army. The Qarluq Yagbhu having built
his cavalry over the end of 750 started moving his horde towards the
Talas river from the northern bank. The Arabs under Abu Muslim
savagely crushed, the last attempt made by the populations of
Samarqand and Bokhara to rid themselves of Islam. Abu Muslim sent his
victorious commander of these wars, Ziyad ibn Salih, with a band of
40000 ghazis, to wage a Jihad on the Chinese. The Arab army marched
from the south towards Talas. Kao, itching to prove his might took
the cue and marched towards Aulie-Ata on the Talas with 100000 Chinese
troops in cavalry and infantry divisions. He totally underestimated
the strength of the Qarluq horde closing in from the north. On July
10th 751 AD the Qarluq, Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in
Aulie-Ata. The Chinese cavalry seemed to initially overwhelm the Arab
cavalry, but the Qarluqs forded the river and encircled a part of the
Chinese infantry butchering it to man. The Qarluq archers then shot
down Kao, shaking the Chinese center, which was rapidly assaulted by
the Arab heavy cavalry and destroyed. The infallible Chinese war
machine gave way under combined assault and they faced a heavy rout.
The Qarluqs fell upon their animals, baggage trains and supplies
carrying away all they could and receded back into the steppe. The
Arabs rounded up tens of thousands of Chinese and took them to
Samarqand from where Abu Muslim sent them to Baghdad and Damascus to
be sold as slaves, each worth a dirham. One Chinese survivor mentions
being kept as cattle in the Arab prison camps. Abu Muslim and Ziyad
made a huge buck out of this slave trade to pay their armies. More
importantly the Arabs forced the Chinese prisoners to teach them paper
making this allowed them the spread the ghazi manual, the Q’uran, with
even greater effectiveness. The same year the Southern division of the
Chinese Army faced a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Thais,
opening the once mighty empire for invasion by the Uighur Kha’Khans of
Mongolia.

The lesson to be learnt is that probably like the Moslem-Qarluq
combined assault, India, should draw China into Central Asia and then
combine with Japan, Russia and USA inflict a crushing blow on it and
split it up. Once communism goes away the Chinese will return to
normalcy on their own.

The Northern Alliance and history repeating itself

Following was written in Nov. 2001:

The current events in A’stan have an uncanny resemblance to some very
less known events in Central Asia that affected India’s history in a
significant way. I just felt that I must post this as there may be
lessons to be learnt from this in today’s context. After having
smashed many Indian rulers, Shihab-ad-Din Muhammad Ghori, the Afghan
Sultan, decided to settle scores with his Northern neighbor Muhammad
Shah of Khwarizm. In 1204 AD Ghori marched on Muhmamad Shah with a
large force to seize territory north of the Amu Darya. His forces
were strengthened by the mercenaries and cannon-fodder (there were no
cannons then) he had acquired from the Ghaznavid territory of Punjab
after he had taken over that. Compare this with the struggle between
TaliPaks and the NA of today (Literally the descendents of these
respective parties). Ghori routed Shah on the banks of the Amu Darya
and marched into Khwarizm. The great Mongol ruler, the Ghur-Khan of
the Qara-Kitai, had excuses to open hostilities with the Moslem Ghori
as his troops had executed buddhist merchants (In return the Ghur-Khan
had some Mullahs nailed to their mosque doors). The Khwarizm Shah
Muhammad who was his vassal saw a great opportunity in this, and
humbly approached his suzerain, the Ghur-Khan, to make common cause
against the Afghan Sultan Ghori who was now marching straight into
Central Asia (A superpower, and the NA make an alliance!). The
Qara-Kitaian Mongol cavalry was sent forth under their able commander
Tayanku-Taraz who defeated Mhd. Ghori near Hezarasp and Shah got to
occupy the territory. Then, the Mongol cavalry trashed Ghori in a big
way in Andkhoi, west of Balkh and sent him fleeing into India with all
his entourage. Here, he was of course killed by the the Khokars in
1206. Soon aided by the Mongol suzerain of his, Muhammad Shah seized
most of A’tan starting from Herat, then Ghor and finally Ghazni. This
ironically drove the whole Ghorid clique into India to take shelter in
Delhi with their agent Qutub-ad-Din, who invited them with open hands
and used them extensively in India in war against the infidels. The
most prominent of the hordes that migrated in this event was the
Khalji horde- one of the biggest nightmares we have ever seen in our
history.

The fleeing TaliPaks of today being redirected to India is a real
dangeras the Ghorid agents in Delhi. Also note the western press until
a few days ago was waxing eloquently about the Afghani invincibility.
The true superpowers of the past ages- the Mongols on two occassions
and Timur-i-lang, have thrashed them badly. So after all history is
repeating itself- is it not ironical that even the USA has to follow
the footsteps of the Kha’Khans of yore (from Baghdad to Balkh)!

Amir Khusroo the sUfi’s Jihadist prose

Some of Amir Khusroo’s florid prose describing the deeds of his patron Alla-ad-din of vile memory from khazain-ul-futuh . To be more precise his commander Maliq Naib Barbeq (from the Hindustani translation using E&D of course as a template):

 

“The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islam, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustan by the illumination of its guidance. And on one side an iron wall of royal swords has been raised before the infidel Magog-like Mongols, so that entire Allah-deserted people drew their feet within their skirts amongst the hills of Ghazni, and even their frontline-arrows did not have strength enough to reach into Sind. On the other hand so much dust arose from the battered temple of Somnath that even the sea was not able to lay it, and on the right hand and on the left hand the army of the most exhalted Alla-ad-din Khalji has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus, in which the worship of Shaitan has prevailed since the time of the Djinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of the Kaffrs have been cleansed by the exhalted Sultan’s destruction of idols and temples, beginning with his first jihad against Devagiri, so that the flames of the light of the Shariat illumine all these filthy Kaffr lands, and places for the callers of Namaz are exalted on high, and prayers are read in Masjids. Allah be praised!”

 

Points to note:

-The Mongols were as Kaffr as the Hindus

-Amir Khusroo imagines a great favor being done to India by the Islamists in cleaning the land of Shaitanism. This exactly what Mohammed Habib, whose clansmen are adored by some, was trying to state. The Islamists were curing India of its satanic practices and replacing it with the much welcome brotherhood and peace.

-The “flames of Shariat illuminating the land”: This is exactly what the Maulana in the madrassa sees as an ideal- not the Indian constitution.

 

Another excerpt on Maliq Kafar’s sack of rAmeshvaraM in TN.

 

“The canopy was covered with gems and it was the holy place of the Hindus, which the Maliq dug up completely from its foundations, and the heads of the Brahmins and Kaffrs danced from their necks and met the ground at their feet, and blood flowed in rivers. The stone idols called Linga Mahadeva, that been established at that place at for a long time were copulating sex organs of kaffrs. There were 12 of these, up to this time, which the kick of the horse of Islam had not yet broken. The Momins destroyed all the Lingas, and the Hindu king Deva Narayana was struck down. The other gods who had fixed their seats were thrown so far that they reached the fort of Lanka. So much was the terror that idols of sex organs themselves would have fled had they had any legs to stand on. Much gold and valuable jewels fell into the hands of the Musalmans, who returned to the royal canopy, after executing their holy Jihad (April, 1311 A.D.)”

 

Point to note: The trivilization of Hindu Iconography is not recent phenomenon of the missionaries but was also carried out by the Islamist. We all know what the origin of the Linga symbol is, but note how the Islamist delights in specifically vulgarizing it.

Greco-Semitic cuture?

I read with interest Mr. Malhotra’s essay on the travails of Hinduism
in USA in which he uses the term Greco-Semitic to contrast the Indic
traditions. While I agree with his well worked out analysis in that
essay I think the term Greco-Semitic deserves some inspection.

Primarily it should be ackowledged that ancient Greek culture was
close to ancient Hindu culture both in terms of approach to life and
religious practice. The modern European who considers the Greco-Roman
tradition as the fount of his civilization and tries to pour the
metaphorical Greco-Roman cultural wine into a Semitic bottle resulting
a grotesque view of Greco-roman culture. In its exterme form this
results in the following images: The highly philosophical and
scientific Greek who is rational and completely divested of his pagan
context. The glorious Roman art on one side is separated from the
Roman religion which is instead associated with a blood thirsty and
decadent Roman despot. The average Indian nowadays with an increasing
sense of historical cultural isolation of bhAratavarsha views the
Greek and Roman as a barbaric foreigner more like his recent British,
French or Portuguese tormentors. As a result the underlying unity of
prehistoric and early historical Indo-European culture is dissolving
in the minds of both Indians and Europeans alike. The yavanas of
Gandhara were able to quickly identify with the Indians in the past:
Whether you read the Milinda panha or see the Garuda stambha of
Heliodorus, the deeper dialogue of the yavana and Indian thought can
be seen. So in the interaction with the modern “greco-semitic”
culture the Indian needs to strike a connection with the Greek aspect
thereof that lies beneath the patina of semitic exclusivism. The only
solution to this is a proper historical education in both India and
the Mlecchadeshas and a religious education in India. This has to
start at home, for once an entire generation becomes Hindu (or returns
to the Hindu dharma) the forces of democracy would restore the Hindu
dharma to the rashTra. Outside bhArata the return to the dharma could
also serve a more important purpose of preventing a Fiji like
situation from happening again.

> There is someting of an abused child sydnrome or deep disaffection
> when describing nature.
> thus uranus has his genitals chopped off by his son just before
> copulation with gaea. Such morbid themes of patricide rape abound in
> the literature in sharp contrast to the indian versions. I had
> earlier pointed out the differences bewtween the greek and indian
> oedipus.

There is a clear substratum effect in the case of both the Greeks and
the Indians. The above tale of theogony that you mention is of
Mediterranean origin that was horizontal transferred to the greeks
and thus cannot be traced back to PIE ancestors. A person like Wendy
Doniger may tell us that it is the Indians who supressed their sexual
urges and sanitized their literature but nothing can be farther from
the truth. In fact the cycle of father kilings is a very middle
eastern concept making rounds in the civilizations in that region in
various forms.

Finally as far as their closeness to nature goes we will have to
look at their original religious poetry: we have lost the Greek
counterparts of the Vedas. But defnitely they existed. You must take a
look at the surviving fragments called the Homeric hymns where you can
see the more pristine form of IE thought. For example the Hymn to the
Dioscuri uses terms like sons of Zeus that match with Divo napAta used
in the hymns to the ashvins.

Again we have to view the Greeks from a different perspective rather
than the one offered by the Western psychoanalysts.

> Even then we should remember that greek chroniclers of alexanders
> time were able to make some connections between hinduism and the
> greek cult of dionysius.

Most importantly all early Indian authors clearly state that the
yavanas, mlecchas, shakas and hUnas are descendents of the druhyus,
anus etc who in turn descend from yayAti along with the bhAratas. Also
we must keep in mind that the Indians easily accepted the Zoroasterian
priests in shaka/pahAlavan period and assimilated them as sauras- this
was purely out of knowledge of the cultural kinship with the
inhabitants of shAkadesha. Also note much later the parsi dastur (I
think in the 12th century) Nairyosangha translated the avesta into
vedic clearly aware of the similarities.

The greek-Indian clash of cultures was so much less traumatic for the
Indians and the Greeks as well (as compared with the clash with the
Moslem) simply because of the cultural unity. In general one may say
that all pagan cultures instinctively recognize some inherent unity
amidst themselves (note the pre-muslim turks in Afghanistan) but the
greek-Indian interactions were deeper than that.

> > The greek-Indian clash of cultures was so much less traumatic for
the
>Indians and the Greeks as well (as compared with the clash with the

> > Moslem) simply because of the cultural unity.
> Does this mean that the ~300 million Muslim South Asians are
>non-Aryan.

It is question of definitions; My original sentence had nothing to do
with the status of South Asian Moslems or Aryans for that matter.

If you define Aryan as people with the original IE speakers of India
as direct ancestors then definitely some Moslems of India, Iran and
Pakistan had Aryan ancestors.

However, if you define Aryan in purely cultural terms: the Hindu
elite= Aryan or cultural descendents of the the vedic peoples= Aryan
then Moslems are obviously not Aryans.

The point I have repeatedly made is that the ancient pagan cultures
saw the world very differently. Only the modern Hindus preserve this
view in any significant numbers. These ancient pagan civilization did
not really have constructs like racial conciousness and the Abrahamic
concept of holy war. So the civilizational clashes, which did occur
abundantly amidst these pagan cultures, did not have a long lasting
damaging effect like that witnessed in the case of Christianity and
Islam.

As a thought experiment imagine a clash between the American Native
and India colonists. Even if the latter had subdued and overrun former
you would not have seen a displacement of the native religion or
culture.

Musings on Multan

The kUrma purANa mentions an ancient temple of nR^isiMha in mUlasthAna. The city seems to have been a major center for the worship of mitra and sUrya in the Iranian tradition. Below is the paurANic tale from the bhavishyata (chapter 139), recollecting the same :

kR^ishNa vAsudeva, the hero of the yadus, married jAMbavati, the daughter of the bear-king jAmbavAn. Their son was the valiant sAmba. He crossed the salty sea from dwAravati and went to the banks of the river chandrabhAga. Here, he founded the city of mUlasthAna constructed temple in the honor of sUrya. No local brAhmaNa knew of the mysteries of his worship and hence could not take up priesthood at the temple. So sAmba sought
help of gauramukha, the adviser of the yadu chief, ugrasena. gauramukha asked him to go to shakadvipa and obtain a special class of priests called magAchAryas to worship sUrya. saMba said: ” pray, tell me Oh brAhmaNa what are the antecedents of these worshippers of the sun. ” gauramukha narrated: “The first of the brahmins amidst the shakhas was called sujihva. He founded a gotra termed the mihira gotra. He had a daughter of the name nikShubhA. sUrya was enamoured by her and impregnated her. Thus she gave birth to jarashabda who was the founding father of all the magachAryas. They are distinguished by the sacred thread called the avyanga that they wear around their waist”.
saMba there upon called on kR^ishNa to send him garuDa and flying on his back he landed in shaka dvIpa. He collected the magAchAryas, brought them back to bhArata and installed them as priests of his sUrya temple.

The Idol of sUrya should be constructed thusly:
He should have a human form with a solar corona placed behind him. He should be on a chariot with the horses standing for the seven solar rays. He should hold a chakra and trishula in two arms, and lotuses in the other two. His feet should be covered by boots upto the knees. His waist should bear the avyanga.

This temple in mUlasthAna was situated in what is now the terrorist state of Pakistan. It was ravaged by early Mohammedan invaders, including the Karmathians, (refered to by Al beruni too) and finally completely demolished by Awrangzeb.

The magAcharyas were the Indian remnants of the shakas. From the pauraNic tale one may infer that they were concentrated around mUlasthAna and were absorbed into the older lore about the city involving sAmba.

The main lineages of the Sakas were: The Saka Tyaiya Paradraya (the far away Sakas, also called Scythians) whose kingdom lay to the north of the Black Sea and stretched out into the steppes of Ukraine. The Saka Tigra Khauda (the pointed capped Sakas) occupied the territory to the north of the Aral and Caspian Seas. The Saka Haumavarga (the soma pressing Sakas) occupied the Central Asian Steppes south east of the Aral and North West of bAhlika (Balkh) and mUjavAnt. To their East there was also a Saka lineage in Khotan and Tumushq. Additionally the North Iranian group included the Sairima (Sarmatians) who were between the Saka Tyaiya Paradraya and the Saka Tigra Khauda. Elements of the Alyani (Alans) speaking a North Iranian tongue existed in the Caucasus.

The Sakas of Western India were the Saka Haumavarga. In many ways their priesthood was recognizably similar to the brahmins allowing assimilation in India. These Sakas migrated into India after they met with a disastrous defeat in central Asia, where their King spalagadama was killed by the Huns under Motun-Tegin. Their priesthood also appear to have coopted the Zarathushtran cult after a struggle during the Achaemenid period giving rise to the Magas of Iran. They restored the polytheistic spirit of the old Aryans by incorporating their hymns, the yashts into the Avesta.

Note that the Indian sanskritize zarathuShTra as jaraShabda rather than the etymologically harituShTra, suggesting that this tale was coined well after Zarathushtra’s time.

The Mongol conquest of Myanmar

In 1044, rAja aniruddha the chief of the Mramma tribe was brought to the fold of the sangha by the brAhmaNa paNDita, dharmadarshi from bhAratavarsha. He ascended the throne in Pagan and Sanskritized it as arimardanapura. He first moved against the Mon kingdom of Thaton and conquered it after a 3 month war. Next he annexed the city of Shrikshetra of the Pyu who were the other dominant force in Myanmar and carried away the bauddha relics from the city. Next he advanced against the North Arakan and conquered it after a swift campaign. The Shan tribes were then subdued and their chiefdoms were invested. aniruddha next marched into Yunnan with a large army and ousted the Thais in a keenly contested battle. With this he had completed the conquest of Myanmar and crowned himself as rAjAdhirAja. This increased prestige allowed him to gain a kshatriya princess from India. He formed an alliance with the Simhalas against the Cholas, but was crushed in a naval battle by the Chola navy. In 1077, he was succeed by his half-Indian son tribhuvanAditya dharmarAja, who Indianized Myanmar further by settling Buddhists and Hindus from India. He was involved in a tripartite struggle with the Cholas from South India and the Chinese, however, he finally formed a alliance with the former by marrying a Chola princess. The Chinese tried to interfere in Myanmar by setting up their agents in south Arakan, but tribhuvanAditya conducted a successful campaign against them and succeeded in maintaining the unity of Myanmar. He made a trip to India to renovate buddha gayA and was great builder who raised the might Myanmar to its pinnacle. The impetus of the aniruddhan dynasty lasted 1270 keeping Myanmar intact and very much in the Indian cultural sphere. However, its last ruler, Narasimhapati, who boasted of impregnating a new woman every day and eating 365 curries, had neglected the threats from his surroundings.

On his deathbed Chingiz Kha’Khan had laid out the vast lines of action that his successors were to follow. One these include the conquest of Myanmar. The two small Chinese states in Yunnan, namely Lai Liu and Yung Chang had been made vassals of Myanmar by tribhuvanAditya and remained so till the reign of Narasimhapati. Kublai Kha’Khan sent his greatest generals, Baghatur Uriangkhadai, son of Subedai, of one of the greatest warriors of Chingiz, to annex these territories. Uriangkhadai was assisted by an advance raiding party under the Mongol warrior Soegetue Noyan, and an auxiliary force led two Chechnyan generals Ali Haiya and Nassireddin. Soegetue’s advance force seized Lai Liu and Yung Chang and beheaded its rulers. Then he sent a messenger to Narasimhapati to humbly surrender to the Mongols and hand over his kingdom to Kublai Kha’Khan. Proud over his strength the Burman king refused and declared his intentions to seize back the provinces of Yunnan. Then Soegetue made a move with Nasser towards Myanmar from Yunnan in the North West. This drew the Burman army in that direction, as Uriangkhadai marched in from the North and seized the relatively undefended Northern Mynamar through a swift campaign and moved in to occupy Bhamo. The conquest of Bhamo opened the path to the Iravati (Ayerayawaddy) valley and gave them a straight route to arimardanapura (Pagan). Uriang then secured a forest in the vicinity of Bhamo and planned his attack on the Burman interior. Shaken by move Narasimhapati sent a force of 60,000 men to take on Uriang. Of this around 10000 made the elite Burman cavalry and the frontline was made of a large elephant force with archers borne on howdas. Uriang led a charge but his horses seeing the elephants fled in terror and for some minutes the Mongols failed to check the beasts under them. This made the Burmans bolder and they advanced forward boldly. However, Uriang noticed that the elephants lacked armor and ordered his men to dismount and shower arrows on the elephants. The Mongol archers, with strong armor and being able to hit targets with their iron-tipped arrows from a much greater distance than the Burmans who only shot bone arrows, held the upper hand in such a confrontation. The elephants wounded all over by the arrows fled backwards into the forest and their howdas broke and sent the archers crashing down. With the elephants out of the way the Mongols remounted and covered the Burmans with swarms of arrows. When they were weakened, Uriang led a direct charge with the cavalry to cut the poorly armored Burmans to pieces with their swords and axes. The Mongols captured 200 elephants in the campaign and incorporated them as draught beasts. Having destroyed the Burman army, Uriang marched along to the Iravati valley to conquer the entire northern Burma but did not move further due to their horses not standing the oppressive heat.

In winter of 1283 Kublai Kha’Khan sent his general Siankur Noyan to slay Narasimhapati and put and end to the Burman kingdom once and for all. A fierce Mongol army with spread through the Iravati valley to destroy all the major Burman cities and grind down the Burma economy. A division of engineers of the Mongol army appeared near the city of Katha on the Iravati and set up huge engines hurl enormous stone missiles on it. In November of that year the assault began with Mongols hurling a hail of ballistas crushing everything in the city that they fell on. The Burmans having never encountered anything of this kind gave up all hopes of defense and fled in terror. Narasihapati sent a strong Burman fleet on the Iravati to relieve his northern defense from the Mongols. However, Sianchur sent his cavalry and infantry on either side of Iravati river to hurl storms of stone ballistas and fireworks on the Burman fleet. Several of their barges were sunk and the river was said to be reddened by their blood. Narasimhapati fearing a total route fled his capital. However, the Mongols paused their campaign against Myanmar to move east and devastate the mahArAjas of Thailand and Indo-China who were bravely defending their independence. In this context the valiant struggle of mahArAja indravarman the 4th of Cambodia, with his guerrilla troops, was particularly noteworthy.

Once this flank clearing operation was done with the Mongols decided to trap Myanmar in a pincer grip, in 1287. One Mongol army under Sianchur advanced from the north, which had already been conquered, while Uriangkhadai marched from the east to intersect at Pagan. First the Mongol raiding parties destroyed major cities and blockaded the ports of Myanmar to cause an economic paralysis. This resulted in the total breakdown of the central authority of the aniruddhan dynasty and local tribal rebellions of the Shan tribes broke out. The chaos prevented any concerted action by the Burman army which splintered up rapidly. At this point the two Mongol generals marched straight on arimardanapura (Pagan) to deliver the coup de grace, even as Narasimhapati was assassinated by agents of the Mongols. The ramshackle Burman army led by the general Ramya was overwhelmed by the Mongol armies and butchered completely. He made his final stand in Pagan, which was besieged by the Mongol generals and assaulted with trebuchets which hurled rocks over a ton on the fortifications. When the cities defenses were broken the Mongol army stormed it and massacred the population and burnt it down. With that the conquest of Myanmar had been achieved and it became a vassal of the Mongols. Kublai Kha’khan was pleased with his generals and rewarded them richly for the great task. Puppet agents from the Shan tribe were placed for administrative purposes in the captured territory. An important consequence of this event was that Burma moved out of the Indian sphere of influence and was appended to the Mongol (to be inherited by the Chinese) sphere. This was especially so because it also corresponded to a low-point in India’s history: its fall under Moslem occupation was underway. The other important issue with the Mongol invasion of Burma was the devastation of its economy, that never allowed its unity to recover completely to the pre-Mongol period.