36 On the History of Arakan. [No. 145. 



At the end of this time Ma-ha-toing Tsan-da-ya, the lineal descend- 

 ant of Kan-Ra-dza-gyi ascended the throne. The astrologers declar- 

 ed that the destinies of the city Dhi-ngya-wa-ti were accomplished ; 

 the king therefore went forth from it in the second year of his reign, 

 in the month Ta-tshoung-mon of the year 151,* and finally settled on 

 the former site of We- Tha-li, called also Khyouk-hle-ga, which city 

 was re-established in the month Ra-tohon of the year 152. This king 

 died after a reign of twenty-two years. In his time it is stated that 

 several Ku-la, or foreign ships, were wrecked upon the Island of Ran- 

 byi, and the people in them, said to be Musulmans, were sent to 

 Arakan proper, where they were settled in villages. This king is 

 reckoned the founder of a new dynasty. 



He was succeeded by his son in the year 172, who being born when 

 the full-moon was rising, the sun being still above the western hori- 

 zon, was called Thu-ri-ya-Taing Tsan-da-ya. The ninth sovereign 

 of this race is named Tsu-la-taing Tsan-daya, who succeeded to the 

 throne in the year 313. In the year 315 he went on an expedition to 

 Bengal (called Thu-ra-Tan,) and set up a stone pillar as a trophy at 

 the place since called Tset-ta-goung, or as commonly written Chitta. 

 gong, alluding, this history states, to a remark of the king's, (who 

 abandoned his conquest at the request of his nobles) that to make war 

 was improper. 



The king returned to Arakan, and being troubled with headache he 

 consulted his wise men, who informed him, that in a former birth he 

 existed as a dog in a country bordering on China ; that dying, his skull 

 fell into the forked branch of a tree, which when agitated by the wind 

 pressed upon the skull, and so influenced the living head of him, now 

 born as a man. The only certain cure was to have the skull removed 



* This is tbe first date that occurs in this history and is equivalent to a. d. 789. 

 As Gautama is said to have visited Arakan during the reign of Tsanda Thure-ya, 

 who ascended the throne 642 years before this sovereign, it follows that Gautama was 

 alive according to this history in a. d. 147. Now the Arakanese state that this present 

 year 1843 a. d. is the year of Gautama's attainment of Pa-ri-nib-ban '2387 ; they ac- 

 knowledge that this era is derived from sacred books deposited in Burmese monas- 

 teries, and appear to admit its correctness, though it militates against their own histori- 

 cal chronology. It is probable that the Budhist religion was first introduced during 

 the reign of Tsan-da Thu-ri-ya, and that the figment of Gautama's visit, invented to 

 gratify national vanity, has been ignorantly assigned to the period of that monarch's 

 reign. 



