18 A TRANSLATION OF THE KEDDAII ANNALS. 
early a 9 B. C. 307 as we learn from the Mahawanso, how does 
it happen that none of the numerous ruins of Buddhist temples at 
this ancient city, where there are, as the above writer tells us, the 
most interesting and remarkable remains of antiquity in the Burmau 
dominions,—itself the seat of Government for twelve centuries— 
have a date anterior to A D. 846 to 864? But the dynasties in the 
Burman chronicle up to king Sumindri, at least B. C. 79, would 
appear to be Indian ones. It is certain that many of the kings 
named in it belonged to India—thus Ajatasattu, Dhammasoka 
Raja, Mahinda. But the date of the third convocation to settle the 
Buddhistical tenets, which was held in India at Patilipura, when 
Dhammasoka reigned, is correctly given in the list, as it corresponds 
pretty exactly with that assigned to it in the Mahawanso, and the 
same may be said in regard to the date of Mahindha’s (Mahindo’s) 
mission to Ceylon—the first of these dates being B. C. 309 and the 
second B. C, 307. The only sacred book of the Burmese priests, 
Mr Crawfurd observes, which is written in the Pali character, is the 
short one called Kamawa, commonly found on sheets of ivory. 
I have one of the same in my possession in the square Pali. 
The only evidences at Pugan of Hinduism, were a small oval tile 
with a figure of Buddha on it; an inscription in the Deva Nagari 
character; and a temple with some Hindu images, of a date about 
A. D. 997 to A. D. 1030. ( T ) Hence Mr Crawfurd thinks, that if 
these were principal images, and not warders, of the temple, 
Brahmanism and Hinduism may have been intermixed, as is sus¬ 
pected to have been the case in Java.( 2 ) Besides this, the form of 
the temples at Pugan is more a Hindu than a Buddhist one. But 
such Buddhism as that which existed in Ceylon must have been 
spread over Ava soon after A. D 410 to A D. 432, when Buddha 
Ghosa left Ceylon on his mission to the eastward. “ The Shan 
country contains many relics of antiquity, which may lead to a 
supposition that Buddhism prevailed in the Laos countries perhaps 
earlier than it did in what is now Ava. But it is not stated in 
what character the Shan inscriptions exist/’ 
Prome according to Crawfurd ( 3 ) was “ the first seat of Burman 
“ Government to which any allusion is made, and is said to have 
u been founded B. C. 433." But as a prince of Rum, B. C. 301, 
is called by the Burmese a son of Dhamasanka king of Wethali—the 
Dhammasoka Raja, who was Emperor of India, and consequently 
ruler of Wesali, the capital of Waji, the country of the Lichchawi 
Rajas, ( 4 ) it thence appears that the Burmese have confounded 
their own kings in many instances with those of Central India. But 
if the Burmese descended the Irrawady from thefnorth t |how does it 
0) lb. p. 6y. 
( 2 ) They co-exist without opposition in BAU at the present day, and appear 
always to have done so.—En. 
( 3 ) lb. p, 490 et seq, 
( 4 ) Mahawanso, Introduction p, 39, 
