Author affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
摘要
Buddhism was of great importance in Burma and appeared there earlier than elsewhere in South-east Asia, in the early centuries CE. Burma shares a border with India, a proximity that might help explain Buddhism's predominance, although connections with India probably occurred via ships traveling across the Bay of Bengal and along river systems rather than via land routes. Oddly, Hinduism was of equal or greater importance than Buddhism in India, as it was in much of ancient South-east Asia, yet it appears only rarely in the culture and art of Burma.
