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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1892.
capable of restoration. Their average dimensions are about 12 feet high, 4 feet 2 inches wide, and 1 foot and 3 inches thick. They were set up by King Dhammacheti after he had founded the Kalyan simâ in 1476 A. D. The language of the inscriptions is partly Pali and partly Talaing. (See plate No. 2.) Numerous copies of the Paļi portion on palm-leaf are extant, and from two of them I have prepared a text transcribed in the Roman character. The great value of the Kalyani Inscriptions rests on the detailed information they give of the manner in which simús (bêngs) should be consecrated in order to secure their validity, of the intercourse of Pegu and Burma with Ceylon and Southern India in the 15th century A.D., and of the Burmese view of the apostolic succession of the Buddhist priesthood.
The Mandcheti Pagoda is a huge pile of brick and laterite, built by Hanbawadi Sinbyuyin about the middle of the 20th century A. D. Only the square basement now remains, measuring about 320 feet wide at the base, and about 170 feet high.
Nothing definite is known about the rains of Yabêmyo, Kyaikpun, and Shwêgügyi. In the neighbourhood of the last-named Pagoda, glazed terra cotta tablets exhibiting, in relief, figures of human beings and animals were found lying scattered about. A number of such tablets have been collected in Mr. Jackson's garden near the Kalyanisima. All these should be acquired by Government and sent to the Pbayre Museum at Rangoon. They appear to have been manufactured by colonists from India."
The religious buildings at Pegu suffered greatly at the hands of the Portuguese adventurer, Philip de Brito y Nicote, alias Maung Zinge, who held his Court at Syriam at the beginning of the 17th century, and also at the hands of Alompra's soldiery, who, being incensed at the acts of sacrilege committed by the Talaings during their ephemeral conquest of Burma Proper, wreaked their vengeance when their turn came. It is said that Maung Zinga, who was originally a ship-boy, and was stationed at Syriam to watch events and to represent his master, the King of Arakan, entertained ambitious designs of holding Pegu as a dependency of the Crown of Portugal and of converting the Peguans to Christianity. For the attainment of this object, he allied himself with Byinnya Dald, the Governor of Martaban, who was tributary to Siam, and opened communications with the Viceroy of Goa. He failed in his object and met with his death, because he had alienated the sympathy of the people by breaking down their religious buildings and shipping off to Goa the treasures obtained therefrom in "five ships." In the plaintive words of the bamaing or history of the Shwêmddd Pagoda : "Maung Zingå was a heretic, who, for ten years, searched for pagodas to destroy them. Religion perished in Râmañña, and good works were no longer performed."
The Sbw@gagalo Pagoda is in a good state of preservation. Its basement consists of a gallery containing 64 images of Buddha, each 4 feet 8 inches high, which were apparently constructed by Siamese architecte. It is octagonal in shape, and is a remarkable structure. On each side is an entrance, 6 feet high by 3 feet 2 inches wide, and 7 feet 2 inches long; these entrances lead to an interior gallery, 5 feet 2 inches wide and 7 feet 3 inches high ; the entire gallery, passing round the central portion, measures 246 feet.
Close to the Mazinchaung, is the Shwênaba Pagoda. It contains an image sonlptured in relief on a tablet of sandstone measuring 5 feet by 4 feet. The image has an Indian cast of features, and is fabled to be shackled with fetters owing to its having once fled from Pega. It is said that this image, as well as a similar one of the same name on the eastern face of the
. (To be published later in this Journal. With help from the Government, generously scoorded, I am making an effort to restore these invaluable documents to their original condition and to preserve them from further injury.ED.)
19 [Through Mr. Jackson's kindness and as a result of a visit by myself to the spot, over 100 of these tablets have been secured for the Phayre Museum. Foar are in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford and two in the British Museum. They represent the march, battle and defeat of a foreign (ogre) army. Those found at the other spot mentioned in this article, represent what I take to be Cambodian figures of nobles, and perhaps, ancient Sirih se also. A few are inscribed in the KyauksA (Kiousa) character. Personally, I should doubt their Indian origin-Er]
