462 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [July, 1907. 



Siamese are so fond. There is a tradition among educated Siamese 

 that these tablets were placed in their present position in the 

 caves by the armies which raided the peninsula in the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, and there is nothinj^ improbable in 

 this tradition* It is quite evident that these tablets are mucli 

 more modern than those from Trang, although both are popularly 

 believed to be the work of spirits, no tradition persisting among 

 the peasantry as to their true origin. 



In connection with the Trang tablets I should mention the 

 peculiar people known in Sjam as Kong Phram or Pram, a phrase 

 which is usually translated *' Brahmins." These people have their 

 headquarters in the State of Lakon or Nakawn Sitamarat, which 



Trang 



liram 



erreat 



regarded as a sacred caste. They have, moreover, certain peculiar 

 customs ; for instance, they do not burn their dead as the majority of 

 the Siamese do in normal circumstances, but bury them in a kneeling 

 or squatting attitude. Kot the least interesting fact ascertained 

 regarding them is their possession of books of leo-end and ritual 

 written in some Sanscritic lai 



^ — ^v. ^.«v-* than Pali. Copies of 

 ►9 bv Mr. W. W. Skeat » who tell^ 



me that he hopes to make arran^jements regarding their publica- 

 tion. Until this is done it will be impossible to say whether 

 there is any i^al connection between the tablets found in caves 

 in Trang (in which state it is commonly believed that there were 

 formerly a few of thft Phram) and this mysterious people. Mr. 

 A. Steffen {Man, 1902, No. 25) states that several tribes of Phram 



are 



Wa 



eighth century A.D.. giving as his evidence a somewhat vague 

 reference to palm-leaf MSS. I understand that his information 

 was derived from a vernacular periodical published in Siam for 

 the preservation of historical information contained in the lib- 

 raries of those monasteries whose MSS. were not destroyed in the 

 Burmese invasion at the end of the eighteenth century, in which 

 the royal archives atAyuthia were burned. 



The history of the Malay Peninsula, as will be clear from 

 what has been already said, is a most obscure subject. It was 

 only after the coming of the Portuguese at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century a.d. that authentic records began to be kept ; 

 every event before that date is problematical and can only be dis- 

 cerned dimly and without the satisfaction of a date. Such relics 



rather 



paper 



they are of great interest in the study not only of Malay 

 but also of Indian history. We in India are perhaps too apt 



regard 



race 



His- 



m 



TT 



^ Sde SkeAt, Report BritUh d»f^oc., l^QO, p/393 ; alsf> in Man, 1902, No. 125- 



