282 INSCRIPTION OF THE 



express it, alluding to the expansion of the buds. The stalk, by natural pro- 

 cess, formed the great central mountain Myenma, on which are situated the 

 happy regions of the Nats. The four branches and their leaves were trans- 

 formed into the four great islands, severally surrounded with five hundred 

 small ones. Gautama appeared about five hundred and forty years before 

 Christ. He was the son of Thoddaudana, king of a country in Hindostan, 

 called Kappilawoi, and was heir to the throne. But at the age of thirty-five 

 years, relinquishing all his worldly prospects, he, by the practice of self-de- 

 nial and religious austerities, during forty-five years, but more on account of 

 the fund of religious merit, which he had accumulated during his previous 

 states of existence, attained his destined perfection at the age of eighty years, 

 and expired in the certain hope of annihilation. When he was near his death, 

 two brothers, Tapaktha and Palika, merchants from the kingdom of Yamanyaf 

 (now Pegu) and the city of UkJcalaba (the site of which was near the place 

 on which Rangoon now stands) being on a journey, for the purposes of trade, 

 happened to be near the place where Gautama then was, and being in- 

 formed, in a miraculous manner, of his having arrived to the state of 

 Bud'h, and of his having fasted during forty-nine days, they went to make 

 him a religious offering of food, and pay him homage. When the god 

 had satisfied his appetite, they desired him to give them some relic of 

 himself, that their countrymen might enjoy the benefit of paying it ador- 

 ation. He accordingly extracted eight hairs from his head, and, giving 

 them to the merchants, directed that they should be deposited with the 

 relics of his three divine predecessors, in the place where they should be 

 found. Having received from him the intimations necessary for the ac- 

 complishment of their object, they left him, and although they were deprived 

 of four of the hairs at two different places, they arrived at Ukkalaba, and 

 found to their great joy, that they had still the full number of eight! Traces 

 of the moat of this ancient city are still visible near Rangoon^ called Ukka- 

 laba moat. After searching with due assiduity, and receiving many extraor- 



