1857.] The Remains at Pagdn. 21 



" So strongly unlike all other Burman buildings, can these have 

 owed their origin to the skill of a western Christian or Missionary, 

 who may have adopted largely the ornamentation of the Burmese, 

 and ingrafted much of their detail and their arrangements on his 

 own idea of a temple ? May not the true cross-like plan of the 

 Ananda be thus symbolical, and may he not, in the long-trusting 

 hope of a zealous worshipper of Christ, have looked forward to the 

 time when this noble pile might be turned from the worship of an 

 unknown God to the service of the Most High." " I can't think 

 any Burman ever designed or planned such buildings. They are 

 opposed to the general plan of their construction. The Shwe Koo 

 [one of the minor temples] might possibly be the work of Burman 

 mind, but I fancy not the others ; or, if they did design them, the 

 Burmans of those days were very different from the Burmans of 

 the present day." 



Such an impression, I know, was almost irresistible at times when 

 on the spot. But, without going much into argument on the sub- 

 ject, I cannot think it probably founded in truth. There is not, 

 I believe, reason to believe that any missionaries, or Europeans 

 of any kind, found their way to these trans-gangetic regions in 

 the days when these temples were founded/" If there had been 



* At the suggestion of a friend I annex an abstract of the chronology of 

 Burmese intercourse with the west. However imperfect, this abstract, which has 

 been compiled with considerable labour, will be, I trust, interesting, indepen- 

 dently of the question of the origin of these temples. 



Ptolemy is, I believe, the only ancient geographer who gives any particulars of 

 these countries. He quotes his predecessor Marinus of Tyre (who lived about 

 A. D. 100) as referring to the log of one Alexander, who had voyaged along 

 these shores as far as Thinae and Cattigara. Great difference of opinion has ex- 

 isted as to the identification of these and the hitherward localities which he names . 

 Some, considering that the Aurea Chersonesus, which was passed in reaching the two 

 places above mentioned, can only answer to the Peninsula of M alacca, have carried 

 their locality as far eastward as the southern extremity of Camboja. But Gos- 

 selin* has shewn a strong reason to believe that the Aurea Chersonesus really 

 ^presents the protuberant Delta of the Irawadee, and that Thinae is rather to be 



* Recherches sur la Geographie des anciens, Par P. F. J, Gosselin, Paris, 

 1813. Vol. in. 



