As reconstructed by Michael Aung-Thwin, G.H. 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. (Both religious lands and cultivators were permanently tax exempt.) Although it ultimately became a major burden on the economy, the practice initially helped expand the economy for some two centuries. First, the monastery-temple complexes, typically located some distances away from the capital, helped anchor new population centres for the throne. Such institutions in turn stimulated associated artisan, commercial, and agricultural activities critical to the general economy.