Why go
Pyu sites such as Halin and Sri Ksetra grew along irrigated valleys and trade routes linking India and China. Buddhism and other ideas arrived through those exchanges. By the ninth century, different powers occupied the dry zone, southern coast and western littoral. Bagan began as one settlement within that wider network before becoming dominant.
The full story
The Pyu built a network of walled cities in Upper Myanmar long before Bagan became the best-known capital. Halin stood near the northern edge of that network; Sri Ksetra, near modern Pyay, became a major southern center. Their locations followed fertile, irrigated land and routes through the Ayeyarwady basin. Trade with India carried Buddhist ideas and artistic forms, while links toward China brought other goods and contacts. The Pyu were part of a broader picture. Mon centers developed along the southern coast and Arakanese powers occupied the western littoral. Raids from Nanzhao affected Upper Myanmar in the eighth and ninth centuries, but the change from Pyu centers to later kingdoms was not a single simple break. Bagan emerged among these competing settlements. Seeing Sri Ksetra before Bagan can make that longer urban history visible.