182 EXTRACTS from the JOURNAL of the BURMESE VUKEEL 



Your Majesty's slaves thus showed by producing and reciting an ap- 

 posite quotation, that Arracan and all the Kula countries had formed a 

 part of the dominions of the Burmese kings.* 



On this occasion, agreeably to the Pali text, " he who takes care of 

 religion, religion takes care of him," and agreeably to the phrase, "by ful- 

 filling religious duties secular duties also will be fulfilled, the time having 

 arrived when a reward for your Majesty's having attended so much to cha- 

 rity, religious duties and all the virtues, was to appear, " good works bring 

 reward in the present world" (a Pali text), all the good and excellent Nats 

 duly directing your Majesty's slaves, a stone inscription and ancient record, 

 which is most curious and which had not been found before during the 

 reigns of so many kings, was brought to light. 



The meaning of the inscription is — that near the temple of Maha 

 Baudhi Paribauga, your Majesty's ancestor Theeri Dhamma-thauka had 

 first built the monastery of Tsliwon-tsa (eating charitable food) : — that after- 

 wards the priest, the great Penthagoo, had repaired it : — that afterwards 

 king Thado had repaired it : — and that afterwards the master of the White 

 Elephant and lord of righteousness repaired it. During the whole line of 

 the fifty-five kings of Pagan, the race of Thado, kings of Tagoung, was not 

 extinct ; and accordingly, it was a Thado-men-bya, son of a Thado-tshen- 

 TjHEEN, who founded the city of Ava. The king Thado mentioned in the 

 inscription (your slaves) take to be the king reigning in Tagoung at that 

 time. With respect to the term " master of the White Elephant and lord 

 of righteousness," referring to the date 467, (your slaves) suppose king 

 Aloung-tsee-thoo to have been so called. That king was born in the 

 year 440, and he ascended the throne in 455. Deducting 455 from the date 

 mentioned in the inscription 467, gives the 12th year of king Aloung-tsee- 



* It is difficult to understand how the vukeels made out that all the Kula countries were 

 once a part of the Burmese dominions, unless they gave to the words in the second line of the 

 Arracan song a very extended meaning* 



