Vol. IX, No. 10.] The Limestone Caves of Burma. 395 
[V.S.] 
{who had, however, seen only a photograph) attributed one 
from Kedah to the 10th century; but Babu Binod Bihari 
Bidyabinod of the Indian Museum, who has examined this and 
other specimens from Kedah which Dr. R. Hanitsch, Director 
of the Raffles Museum, Singapore, has been kind enough to 
lend us, informs us that they must be considerably older. He 
is of the opinion, on palaeographic grounds, that they belong 
to the 7th century ; his note is printed in the appendix to this 
paper (p. 423). Inany case their script (pl. XVIII) is North 
Indian, as is also that of the Trang tablets. 
are commonly foun caves in Jalor Pahang. These 
tablets probably date from the 18th century a.p. 0) 
them bear the image of a Buddha seated beneath a seven 
headed cobra with expanded hood (pl According to 
India in the use of the protecting many-headed cobra as an 
emblem. : 
Archeological descriptions of limestone caves in_ the 
Amherst district of Tenasserim are given by Taw Sein Ko in 
The Indian Antiquary, vol. XXI, p. 377 (1892), and by Temple 
in vol. XXII, p. 327 (1893), of the same publication. Photo- 
n Tenasserim and Jalor many limestone caves are still 
. used as Buddhist temples, while in Trang and other Siamese 
States, and also in Yiinnan (pl. X XI), they serve the same pur- 
pose for Chinese worship. 
n parts of both the British and the Siamese Malay 
States small caves are occupied temporarily as habitations by 
jungle-tribes (see Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the 
il it desecrated by Chinese 
Single large cavern was, until it was a tuceboecas 
the Orang Laut Kappir or Pagan Sea-Gypsies (Annandale, 
). : 
The folklore of the caves in Burma and neat aa 4 
bably very extensive, as they are universally regarded wi 
