TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
m 
The first seat of Barman Government to which 
any allusion is made, is Pri, or Prome, anciently 
called Sare-k’het-ta-ra, (Cschetra, a sacred field ?) 
and Pase-myo. This is said to have been found¬ 
ed in the year before Christ 443; that is, one 
hundred and forty-six years after the commence¬ 
ment of Gautama’s mission, and a hundred after 
his death. For a period of a hundred and forty- 
two years, or down to the year before Christ, 301, 
the seat of Government is occasionally stated to 
have been at Prome, and occasionally at Wethali, 
or Jaintya, also called Majima. In this last year 
it was permanently fixed at Prome, and no far¬ 
ther mention is made of Majima. The prince 
under whom this event took place, is described as 
a son of D’liama-sauka, King of Wethali, already 
mentioned. From this period I am disposed to 
date the probable native history of the Burmese ; 
and about the same time, in all likelihood, took 
place the first introduction of the Budd’hist re¬ 
ligion among them. The seat of Government 
continued at Prome for three hundred and nine¬ 
ty-five years, during which there reigned twenty- 
four princes, which gives an average for each 
reign of between sixteen and seventeen years. 
After Prome ceased to be the seat of Govern¬ 
ment, and down to the present time, a period 
of one thousand seven hundred and thirty-four 
years, the Burmese appear to have shifted it nine 
