OCCASIONAL NOTES. A419 
occupying sparse settlements in Pegu (though also far beyond 
its limits eastward), of whom so many have in our own time 
become Christians under American teaching. They were 
notable, even before this closer claim on our interest arose, 
for their remarkable traditions, both religious and historical. 
The latter related how, on their migration from the north, 
they found the Shans in possession of the territory to which 
they themselves were bound—perhaps the Upper Menam 
basin. And the Karens cursed them, saying, ‘ Dwell ye in 
the dividing of countries ;’ the applicability of which is inter- 
preted by what has already been said of the Shans. 
We spoke above of the early traces of Hindoo influence. 
How and when this began we have no real knowledge. But 
that it was flowing out in pulses eastward from an early date, 
and apparently long before our era, there can be no question. 
Buddhism undoubtedly, with its zealous propaganda, was 
a most powerful agent in the spread of Indian influence among 
the Indo-Chinese nations ; but possibly that influence had been 
felt at a much earlier date. If we go back to the oldest record 
we possess of geographical detail in this region—the course, as 
tabulated in Ptolemy, of a coasting-voyage from Argyré to the 
Sine, that is, from Aracan to the beginning of China—we 
shall find the continent and islands studded with names of 
which nearly a score are of manifest or probable Indian origin. 
Still, it is possible, that these names were given subsequently 
to the first movement of Buddhism in this direction; for it is 
recorded, that after the third Buddhist synod, held at the city 
of Pataliputra (or Palibothra), now Patna, as early as B.c. 241, 
Sena and Uttara were despatched on a mission to propagate 
the doctrine in the Suvarna Bhumi, or Golden Land, that is, 
Thahtun, near Martaban. Probably a later and larger wave 
of influence, and even of migration, took place in the first 
centuries of the Christian era ; for it is remakable that most of 
the nations of the further East, that have been tinged by Indian 
civilization, recognize the Indian era of Salivahana, which 
begins with the year 78 of our reckoning. 
Later still, about the fifth century, we recognize in the 
coincident traditions of the nations a new efflux of action in 
