1836.] Discovery of Buddhist Images, $c. 157 



the unanimous voice of the nation succeeded his uncle in the govern- 

 ment of the Church of Armenia. The progress of the religious union 

 of the two nations, which was unfortunately impeded by the Church 

 of Armenia's being deprived of its head, was renewed by the commu- 

 nications of the emperor with the pontiff Gregory, who, emulating 

 the laudable example of his immediate predecessor, manifested equal 

 zeal and inclination in the restoration of peace to the bosom of the 

 Church of Christ. Before, however, the question of the long wished- 

 for union was happily decided, Greece was deprived of her most illus- 

 trious, pious, and virtuous ruler, in the year of our Lord 1 1 80, which 

 melancholy catastrophe proved a death-blow to the nearly-finished 

 structure of peace, and blasted in the bosoms of every Armenian and 

 Greek the hopes of their future union ! 



II. — Discovery of Buddhist Images with Deva-ndgari Inscriptions at 



Tagoung, the Ancient Capital of the Burmese Empire. By Colonel 



H. Burney, Resident at Ava. 



[Read before the Society, 6th April, 1836.] 



I have the pleaure to forward to you a couple of images of Gaudama 

 in Terracotta, which Captain Hannay has just sent down to me from 

 Tagoung. On both there is an inscription, apparently in the same old 

 Deva-nagari character, as in the inscription No. 2, of the Allahabad 

 column, and probably consisting of the same words as those on the 

 image of Buddha found in Tirhut, and in the other ancient inscriptions 

 described in No. 39 of the Journal of the Asiatic Society*. 



Tagoung, written Takoung, (or according to Sir W. Jones's system, 

 Takaung, but pronounced by the Burmese Tagoung,) you will find 

 placed in our maps a little above the 23rd degree of north latitude, 

 and on the eastern or left bank of the Erawadi river. Captain Han- 

 nay, however, has ascertained its latitude by an observation of the 

 sun to be 23° 30' N., and several Burmese itineraries in my posses- 

 sion make its distance from Ava 52 taings, or about 100 miles. The 

 Burmese consider Tagoung to have been the original seat of their 

 empire, and the site of an ancient city, which was founded before the 

 time of Gaudama, by a colony that emigrated from Central India. 

 Some faint remains of an old city are still to be seen on this spot, 

 where among the ruins of some pagodas, Captain Hannay found the 

 images I now send you. No one here can decypher the character of 

 the inscriptions, but on showing to some of the learned, the account 



* This is precisely the case : — even to the form of the letters — the dialect how- 

 ever seems to be Magadhi or Pali, dhammd and pabhava for dharma and pra- 

 bhavd, &c. See the accompanying plate. — Ed, 



