*\ 



18 



On the history of the JBurmah Mace. 



[No. 1, 



were both born blind and named Mahd-Tham-ba-wd and Tsoo-la-tham- 

 ba-wd. The king from shame ordered them to be killed ; but the 

 queen loving the children of her own bosom concealed them, until 

 they were nineteen years of age. The king then having discovered 

 that they were alive, again ordered them to be killed ; but the queen 

 had them put into a boat, with many days' provisions, and set them 

 afloat on the Irrawaddy river. As they floated down the river, the boat 

 struck against the branch of a Tseet tree. At that spot in after times 

 was built the city of Tseet Kaing. As they proceeded down thev met 

 with a Bee-loo-ma, who gave them some medicine to restore their eye- 

 sight. The cure was effected, and looking up and seeing the sky for 

 the first time they said, " The sky is as a cover ; the earth is under- 

 neath," and hence the place they were passing was called Mye-dai. 

 At length they reached the place at Prome* where their uncle the 

 hermit dwelt. There they beheld the hermit's daughter Me-da-ree 

 drawing water from the stream, with a gourd. As the water would 

 not flow readily into the gourd they opened it. Bhe-da-ree then filled 

 it and returned to her father's cell. She told him the cause of her 

 quick return, and the young Princes being called, they told their story, 

 and the hermit learned then, that they were the sons of his sister the 

 Queen Kein-naree-de-wee. After this the elder brother Prince Mahd- 

 Tham-ba-wd was married to the hermit's daughter Bhe-da-ree. This 

 was in the year 60 of religion according to the Mahd Radza Weng> 

 or, by the Burmese reckoning of the period of Gautama's death, 483 

 years before Christ. From this time commences the history of the 

 monarchy established at Thare-Met-ta-ya, and no further notice is 

 taken of Tagoung and the upper country of the Irrawaddy until some 

 centuries later. 



Note on the etymology of the word My cm-ma or Mran-md. 

 In the Journal of the Asiatic Society No. I. of 1853, is an interest- 

 ing paper by Mr. B. H, Hodgson, on the languages of the Indo- 

 Chinese borderers, compared with the Thibetan and Himalayan tongues, 

 In that paper Mr. Hodgson appears to conclude that the term Burma 

 or Burmese, which is the Europeanized form of the name by which 



