INSCRIPTION FROM BUDDHA GAYA. 



169 



historians, the date TsAN DA-GO UTTA is said to have ascended the throne is 382 years 

 before Christ, and the date of his death 358 B. C, being- sixty-six or sixty-seven years earlier 

 than the periods fixed by Colonel Wilford. This is a sroall error in an Indian date, and it is 

 most pi'obably an error on the part of the Burmese ; for we can scarcely suppose that, in 

 the time of Seleucus, Theeri Dhamma Thauka was known also by the title of his 

 grandfather, as Colonel Wilford has shown that the names given by old authors to the 

 son and grandson of Sandra-coptos, namely, Allitrochates and Sophagesimus, 

 apply to Varisara alias Mitra-gupta, and Asocavarddhana alias Shivaca- 

 sena C'). Theeri Dhamma Thauka then must be the same as the king Sophagesi- 

 mus for renewing the alliance with whom Antiochus the Great went to India ; and the 

 date of his ascending the throne must be 264 years before Christ, and not, as the Burmese 

 have it, 330 years. Theeri is the same as the Sanscrit iSri, excellent — Dhammah law, and 

 religion too — and Thauka, which means care and anxiety, is said to have the privative 

 initial particle a dropt in composition, but being understood, the word here implies /ree- 

 dom from care and anxiety ('). When Theeri Dhamma Thauka's mother was pregnant, 

 she dreamt that she had one foot upon the sun and the other upon the moon, and that she 

 was eating the stars. The dream was interpreted, that her child would bring the whole 

 oi Zahoodipa (^) island, which is equal to the sun and moon in beauty and'splendour, under 

 subjection, and that he would kill all his brothers. The latter part of the interpretation 

 proved correct enough, as Theeri Dhamma Thauka is described as having killed no 

 less than ninety-eight of his brothers, upon the death of the father, when they disputed 

 the crown with him. 



3. < — Zahoodipa or more properly Zamhoodipa(J), the island of the Jamhu or Eugenia 

 fruit, is one of the four great islands, the southern one in the Buddhist system of the 

 universe. It is so named from the circumstance of a tree of that species growing on the 

 extreme north end of the island ; — it is the same as this our earth, and hence, " king of 

 Zahoodipa" means, king of the whole earth. 



4. — This is the Buddhist sacred era commencing, according to the Burmese, 544 

 years before Christ, and our present year 1834 is their 2378th religious year. On the 

 death of Gaudama, a king of Magadha named Aj ata-THAT (*), assisted by one of Gau- 

 dama's disciples Maha Kathaba('), resolved upon establishing a new epoch commenc- 



es) P. 286, vol. 6tli Asiatic Researches. 



(*) Jambudwipa, (^) Ajalasatru, (') Maha Kasyapa. 



2 T 



