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TRANSLATION OF A BURMESE 



learned Burmese at Rangoon, to give my brother the following translation 

 with explanatory notes of this inscription. The letters do not appear ori- 

 ginally to have been neatly or quite correctly cut, and some of them, as 

 well as two of the numeral figures, are not formed according to any of the 

 Kyouk-tsa known at Rangoon. Still as no word contains so many of these 

 unknown letters as to render it impossible to be made out, the learned at 

 Rangoon have had no difficulty in decyphering the whole inscription. The 

 paper marked B. (Plate II.) contains a copy of it in the stone character, with 

 all the letters made perfect and complete, as well as a copy in the common 

 Burmese writing, and the following translation is as literal as the idioms 

 of the two languages will admit. Not a single word of the Burmese is 

 omitted, but it will be seen that several words in English have been added 

 in order to preserve a grammatical construction. All such additional words 

 are included within brackets : 



" (The temple of) Pdyatha-bhat, Q) place of (Gaudama's) eating cha- 

 ritable offerings, (which was one) among the 84,000 temples of the great 

 king named Theeri Dhamma Thauka, (^) who ruled over Zahoodipa 

 island, subsequently to (the year) 218 (*) of the Lord God's religion, having 



some account of tlie kings of Magadlia and Central India, and of the life of Gaudama, relates 

 a history of the kings of Tagoung, Prome, Pagan, Pegu and Ava, coming down to the year 

 1821. The ground work of this compilation is taken from other histories written at various 

 times, and principally from two works, copies of which I also possess. One is a very popular 

 history in 20 volumes, comprising a period from the creation of the world down to the Burmese 

 year 1073, (A. D. 1721) written by a private individual named MouNG KuLA, who is said to 

 have died about the time that the Peguers took Ava in 1751. The other is a continuation of 

 this history, compiled by an officer named Pana Mengyee or Moutta Mengyee, and 

 comprises a period from 1711 to 1819, to the death of the late king, in 13 volumes. What Mr. 

 Crawford reported as to the account of the late war written by the royal historiographer 

 at Ava, is a very good story, but I have the best reason for believing that he was incorrectly 

 informed. There is no such officer at Ava as a special historiographer, and the portion con- 

 tinuing the history from 1821 to 1830 in 8 or 9 volumes, has only lately been completed by a 

 committee of officers and learned men, whose labours have not yet been published. An abstract 

 of the large history was prepared for me in 1830, by order of the king of Ava, and I then made, 

 a translation of it. 



