Indian Antiquary Vol 22

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 10

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1893
NOTES.
Obverse Face. Line 2.-Pádaggé-sélé is a Paļi translation of the Burmese appellation Pawasa:daung, the “ foot-print hill," which is supposed to have subsequently been corrupted into Po:adaung.
According to a tradition, which is fully recorded in the Maháyázawin, Gautama Buddha, in the fifth year of his Buddhahood, was presented by the two brothers, Mahậpunna and Chủlapuņņa, with a sandal-wood monastery situated at Vanijagama, otherwise called Lègaing, in Sunaparanta.20 The sage accepted the gift, and occupied the monastery for seven days. During his temporary residence there, he left two impressions of his left foot: one, on the top of the Thitsabàn Hill, at the solicitation of the Rishi Sachchhabandha (Thitsabåndà), who had been converted to Buddhism, and the other on the left bank of the Mànchaung at the solicitation of Namantâ, King of the Nagas.
* On his return, from the top of the Po:a:daung Hill, where he turned the soles of his feet, Gautama Buddha saw a piece of cow-dung floating in the sea, which stretched to a range of hills on the east. At the same time, a mole came and paid him homage by offering him some burrowings. On seeing these two omens the Master smiled, and being asked by Ananda the cause of his doing so, he replied: "My beloved Ananda, after I have attained parinirvana, and after the Religion has flourished for 101 years, five great events will happen: (1) there will be a great earthquake; (2) a great lake will appear at the Poa: point; (3) a river, called Samôn Samyek, will appear; (4) the Popa Hill will rise up perpendicularly through the upheaval of the earth; (5) the sea will recede from the land on which Tharekhottara will be built in after times. The mole before us will be incarnated as Duttabaung, King of Tharêkhêttarà, from whose reign will date the establishment of my Religion in the Country of the Mrànmàs.21
The above tradition appears to be pregnant with historical truth. Both historical and geological evidence goes to show that the country up to Prome22 was, at one time, under the sea. A hill, to the south of that town, is called to this day Akauktaung or Customs Hill, from its having been a station, where customs dues were collected from the ships that visited the port.
The following extract from Mr. Blanford's account, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, Vol. XXXI., 1862, fixes the probable age of the Popa Volcano in the Myingyan District of Burma:
“The period during which Pappa (Popa) was in action was therefore, in parts at least, not later than that of the deposition of beds containing remains of Elephas, Mastodon, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, and Ruminants. The geological age of these beds has, with somo doubt, been considered to be Miocene, but from their general fauna, and especially from the abundance of bones of Bos and Cervus, a more recent date may, I think, with at least equal probability, be assigned to them. There can be no question but that the fires of Puppå have long been extinct. Its thick coating of jungle and grass, and the existence upon it of a species of plants and animals, which, for want of a suitable habitat, cannot exist in any neighbouring locality, and the evidence of the effects of sub-aerial denudation on its surface, render it certain that it must long have been in a condition for vegetation to flourish upon it, but it is scarcely possible, even in the dry climate of Upper Burma, that a volcano of Miocene age should have retained its form so perfectly. It is more probably Pliocene. Its bulk is not great, and, from the absence of other vents in the neighbourhood, so far as is known, it is scarcely probable that its volcanic activity can have extended over a lengthened geological period. I could not learn that there was the slightest tradition among the people as to its ever having been in
70 [Both legend and inscription fix Sunparanta as the Minba District of Burma, but see ante, Vol. XXI. p. 121, the word is apparently syuonymous with the Shan Samparalit, "to the S. E." of the Shan Country, which = (*) Champapur, Cambodia. With Sampůralit compare the Sanpåpabet of the Inscription=the Laos country.ED.)
21 Mrånmi= Bam, the spelling and pronunciation by the Burmans of their own name. n Srikshetra Sirikhéttarúma : see inscription.