 Luce and Than Tun, the main driver for this agriculture-based economic expansion was the practice of donating tax-free lands to the Buddhist clergy.For some two hundred years between 1050 and 1250, wealthy and powerful segments of the Pagan society—members of the royalty, senior court officials, and wealthy laymen—donated to the clergy enormous acreages of agricultural land, along with hereditary tied cultivators to attain religious merit.