1864.] On the history oftho Burmah Race. 27 



the difficult paths in question might be accepted, the supposed immigra- 

 tion of any of the royal races of Gangetic India to the Irrawadly by tha 

 same route, in the sixth century B. C. or even later, will appear very 

 improbable. Those tribes appear to have regarded Gangetic India as 

 the favoured land of the earth, and would scarcely have emigrated to 

 the savage country east of Bengal. There is indeed no good reason for 

 supposing that any missionaries went to any part of the country now 

 called Burma before the year 231 of religion/ 1 " when sent in the reign 

 of Dham-ma Asolca as related in this history. But is the record of 

 of Yau-na-Jca-dhamma-rek-khee-ta being deputed by the third great 

 council as missionary to Burma true ? It appears not. The Budhist 

 writings preserved in Ceylon inform us that Oot-ta-ra and Thau-na 

 were deputed as missionaries to Thoo-wan-na-bhoomee. By that name 

 no doubt is meant the country inhabited by the Mon or Taking race, 

 and their chief city then was on the site of the present Tlia-tung lying 

 between the mouths of the Salween and Sittang rivers. No doubt the 

 missionaries reached it by sea. That gold was anciently found in that 

 vicinity is testified from the Burmese name of Shwe-gyeen, literally 

 " gold washing," now borne by a town on the Sittang, and gold is still 

 found there, though probably in diminished quantity to what it was 

 anciently. This no doubt was the origin of the name {i Aurea regio" 

 of Ptolemy. This history assumes that the Pali name A-pa-ranta 

 means Burma. There is not the slightest reason for this conclusion. 

 The word means western country and we must look westward from 

 Gangetic India to find it. The fact is the modern Burmese, jealous 

 of the Taking people having beyond all doubt received a Budhist 

 missionary in the time of the great Dhamma AtJiauka, determined to 

 appropriate a great missionary to themselves. Portions of their 

 country were also, after the fashion of all the Indo-Chinese countries, 

 named from the Budhist scriptures, one Province being called Thoo-na- 

 pa-ran-ta, and this name lent a specious support to the modern fraud 

 or delusion of A-pa-ran-ta signifying Burma. But many other cir- 

 cumstances seem to show that the Mon or Taking race, received 

 Budhism before the Burmese did. Although the conversion of the 

 people of Suvanna Bhumi was planned by people in Gangetic India, it 

 is not probable that so essentially a sea-hating people had their own 

 # B. C. 308 or twelve years before Alexander crossed the Indus. 



E 2 



