TO THE COURT OF AVA. 371 
These are but clumsily constructed; but, being 
whitewashed, this and their immense extent 
give them a very remarkable appearance. 
On the terrace, which contains the Temple of 
Paung-nya, we found an inscription on a hand¬ 
some slab of sandstone, in very good order. 
The writing is in the ancient character; but the 
language is Burman, with a little intermixture 
of Pali. My Burnian interpreter, with some 
assistance from a priest, who happened to be 
at hand, interpreted it without much difficulty. 
It purported, that the temple was built in the 
year of the Burman vulgar era 674? or five 
hundred and fourteen years ago, by Paung-nya, 
a nobleman of the Court of Si-ha-Su, King of 
Ava, and that he endowed it with one hundred 
Pes of land. No mention is made of slaves, for 
these could only be given by the sovereign. On 
the terrace there has been recently collected a 
large quantity of hewn sandstone, for the pur¬ 
pose of building a “ throne,” as it is called by 
the Bur mans, for an image of Gautama. This 
pious work had been undertaken by the Atwen- 
wun Maung-kyan-nyin-ra, one of the Minis¬ 
ters. This stone, and much of what is used 
for similar work, is brought from the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Pugan-gyi. It is soft and easily 
worked, which is probably the chief motive 
'2 b 2 
