Archaeological evidence shows that an extinct species of archaic humans lived in the region formerly known as Burma (now Myanmar) as early as 750,000 years ago. The region is located in South East Asia bordered by India and Bangladesh to its West, Thailand and Laos to its East, and China to its North and North East. To its South, about one third of its total perimeter forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
The Burmese folk religion refers to ancient animistic worship of deities, and the precise origin of their faith is not known, although their worship defer across the different regions and villages. However, there are a handful of beliefs that are universal.
The Burmese cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe, and its existence consists of temporal and spatial. Temporal is said to be the division of existence in 4 discrete moments: creation, duration, dissolution, and state of being dissolved. Spatial is said to consists of: a vertical type cosmology, the various planes of beings, their bodies, characteristics, foods, lifespan, beauty and a horizontal cosmology, and the distribution of these world-systems into an infinite sheet of universes.
The vertical cosmology itself is divided into 31 planes of existence and the planes into 3 realms, each corresponding to a different type of mentality. These 3 realms are: the Arupyad'Hatu (4 Realms), the Rupad'Hatu (16 Realms), and the Kamad'Hatu (15 Realms).
The Arupyad'Hatu or "Formless realm"has no place in a purely physical cosmology, as none of the beings inhabiting it has either shape or location. The realm belongs to the divine beings who attained and remained in the Four Formless Absorptions of the Arupadyanas in a previous life, and now enjoy the fruits of that accomplishment.
The Rupad'Hatu or "Form realm" is the first of the physical realms; its inhabitants all have a location and bodies of a sort, with no sexual distinctions, though those bodies are composed of a subtle substance which is of itself invisible to the inhabitants of the Kamad'Hatu. The beings of the Form realm are not subject to the extremes of pleasure and pain, or governed by desires for things pleasing to the senses, as the being of Kamad'Hatu are. Like the beings of the Arupyad'Hatu, the dwellers in the Rupad'Hatu have minds corresponding to their series of cultivated states of mind, which lead to a state of perfect equanimity and awareness. In their case it is the 4 lower Rupadhyanas, which are further divided for a total of sixteen. Physically, the Rupad'Hatu consists of a series of planes stacked on top of each other, each one in a series of steps half the size of the previous one as one descends. In part, this reflects that the higher planes are broader in extent than the ones lower down, sometimes taken to be about 4,000 times the height of a man, a so approximately 7.31 kilometers (4.54 miles).
The Pure Abodes are distinct from the other worlds of the Rupad'Hatu. They do not house beings who have been born there through ordinary merit or meditative attainments, but only those "Non-returners" (Anagamins) who are already on the path to attain enlightenment directly from the Source without being reborn in a lower plane. Very important to all Pure Abodes is the Souce from which they dwell and which supports them, the "Well-Spring" of myriad fonts as emergent. It may be understood as an interface, portal or epiphany. It is seminal in governing the outer, inner or secret dimensions. it is the opening and consecration of the sacred space which enfolds and supports the expanse of the Pure Abode. It is represented by the six-pointed star, the two interlocking offset equilateral triangles that form a symmetry, the innermost sanctum of a temple.
The picture of these world-systems cannot be taken as a literal description of the shape of the universe, because it is inconsistence and cannot be made consistence with astronomical data. It is an universe seen by a "divine eye" able to perceive a higher knowledge, through virtuous way of living. This included worldly extra-sensory abilities (such as seeing past and future lives) as well as the extinction of all mental intoxicants (mental defilements of sensual pleasures, craving for existence and ignorance).
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