by Pamela Gutman For more a millennium the policy we know as Arakan existed as a culturally strategic border state, the only state in Southeast Asia to be connected to India by both land and sea routes. The study of its culture is of particular interest as it reveals which elements of Indian cultural were adopted in Arakan and in the land to its east. We can then ask why some elements and not others were adopted, and attempted to relate this to the political, social and religious developments of the wider region. In the periods when Arakan was at its most powerful the most important cultural influences came from the west, most immediately from the area today known as Bangladesh. When the Burmese and Mon kingdoms to the east prospered, and from time to time gained sovereignty over Arakan, the major influences came from there. Positioned as it was on the sea route around the Bay of Bengal, Arakan was also subjected to the influence of the cultures of southern and western India, an...

2 April 2015 4:16PM   At a time when there is increasing interest in Australia's developing ties with Burma (Myanmar), the death on 31 March of Pamela Gutman brings to an end the life of the first Australian scholar to complete a doctorate in Asian art and to do so in relation to Burma. The fruits of this research were eventually contained in her highly praised book, Burma's Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan , published in 2001. To record these blunt facts tells little of the effort involved in her carrying out research in Burma in the 1970s, when the government was resistant to foreign scholarship, and travel in Arakan could only take place with the assistance of a military escort. Yet Pamela overcame the difficulties research in Burma posed, which involved translating Sanskrit inscriptions and becoming highly knowledgeable about obscure numismatics. She also played an early part in government-to-government relations. She was invited to dine with...

Dr. Pamela Gutman 12/28/2008 For more a millennium the policy we know as Arakan existed as a culturally strategic border state, the only state in Southeast Asia to be connected to India by both land and sea routes. The study of its culture is of particular interest as it reveals which elements of Indian cultural were adopted in Arakan and in the land to its east. We can then ask why some elements and not others were adopted, and attempted to relate this to the political, social and religious developments of the wider region.     These photo were taken at Mrauk-U in 1975 when she did research for her Ph.D Thesis, "Ancient Arakan, With Special Reference to its Cultural History between the 5th and the 11th Centuries" (Photo: U San Than Aung - Facebook Page) In the periods when Arakan was at its most powerful the most important cultural influences came from the west, most immediately from the area today known as Bangladesh. When the Burmese and Mon kingd...