TO THE COURT OF AY A. 
27 5 
In the sixty-eighth year of that epoch, Gautama 
is said to have been born. The Burmese and 
other Budd’hists pretend to be very minute and 
circumstantial in all that relates to the nativity 
of the founder of their religion. He was con¬ 
ceived, say they, in the full moon of the month 
of July, in the year 67, and born in the May 
following. In his sixteenth year he ascended 
the throne; in his twenty-ninth he abdicated, 
and retired into the forest as an ascetic; in 
his thirty-fifth year he obtained deification, or 
became a Budd’ha; and he died, or became ex¬ 
tinct, in his eightieth year, corresponding with 
the year before Christ 544,* The country of 
Gautama is commonly called by the Burmese 
Kapilawot (Capila-varta), but also Makata; and 
there is no doubt but it is the same with the 
Magad’ha of the Hindus, the modern Berar. The 
dynasty of Kapilawot became extinct with the 
abdication of Gautama. This was followed by 
a race of six kings, every one of whom had the 
evil habit of killing his own father. These 
reigned in a country called, by the Burmese, 
Kaja-gaya (Budd’ha Gy a ?) This parricidal family 
was destroyed, seventy-two years after the death 
of Gautama, by the first minister of the last of 
them, named Susanaga (Sisunaga), a native of 
* For an explanation of the term applied to the condition of 
Gautama after death, see App\ No. XI. 
T 2 
