686 Account of Arakan. [^No. 117. 



of the ten brothers becomes the second, or inferior wife of the Punna. 

 Why this long story of the ten brothers and their sister was given 

 does not appear ; they are not of any importance to the after-history, 

 for according to it none of their descendants fill the throne, or exercise 

 any authority ; but in this account we may recognize the first en- 

 trance of the Myam-ma race into Arakan^ which we may infer, by the 

 story of the town of Than-dwe, took place rather by the delta of 

 the Arawati, where communication is easy, than by the mountain 

 passes farther north.* Yet the Ra-khoing-thas of the present day be- 

 lieve themselves to be descendents from a western people. They con- 

 found those who were their religious instructors with their progenitors, 

 and fancy themselves of the same stock as the Hindus. The above 

 abstract of their history contains evident marks of a mixture of ge- 

 nuine national tradition, and the invention of later times, when they 

 had been taught the use of letters, and had been instructed in religion 

 by Budhist Missionaries from India. 



To proceed with the historical abstract, the descendants of the 

 Pun-na long governed the country,! but supernatural monsters again 

 prevailed, and the whole population was destroyed. All these events 

 occurred after the manifestation of the Boodh Ka-tha-ba^ and before 

 the advent of the Boodh of the present period, Gau-ta-ma. As this 

 latter person is supposed to have lived B. c. 543, the Arakan. annals 

 vie with those of India in antiquity ! 



Arakan then was again made desolate by Bhi-lus ; at this time 

 Ang-dza-ndi the son of the king of Kapi-la-wot, (or Ma-ga-dha,) having 

 left his country and wandered through forests and mountains, arrived 

 at the source of the river Kola-dan; there he had intercourse 

 with a doe, which big with young, was carried down the stream in a 

 flood, and cast ashore at the mouth of the Mee-khyoung, a mountain 

 stream which joins the Kola-dan from the eastward ; there the doe 

 brought forth a son. A hill chief, of the Toung-mru tribe, was out 

 hunting, when his dog pursuing the scent of the doe led him to the 

 spot where she lay, and he saw the body of a beautiful child *' shining," 



* 1 refer here to the entrance of the people who now inhabit the plains, not to that 

 of the hill tribes, who though I suppose them to be of the same stock, had come much 

 eai-lier, and were more rude than the new comers. 



f Cities on the east, and ninety-nine on the west of the Ga-tsfta-hha river are 

 said to have flourished. 



