While historical data are currently lacking to positively verify the facts of these legends, sufficient archaeological and inscriptional evidence is availabie to indicate with considerable certainty that Buddhism was well established by the filth century AD in the early Mon kingdom centred on the coasral city of Thaton and in the Pyu kingdoms of Sri-ketra Beik-thano, and Halin-gyi in ral and Upper Burma ie Religious statues and epigraphical fragments in both Pali and Sanskrit strongly suggest that both the Pyu and the Mon cultures had been exposed to Brahmanicai, Theravada, and Manayanist influences from an early date. In all probability, these religions of Indian origin peacefully co isted and gradually coalesced with a pre-existing indigenous animism based on the propitiation of a host of nature spirits and mythical-ancestral guardians called nat