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DECEMBER, 1893.]
NOTES ON ANTIQUITIES IN RAMANNADESA.
338
brick and plaster, and now very much ruined. There is a general idea among those who have visited this Cave, which is repeated in the British Burma Gazetteer, Vol. II. p. 138, that the rain has been caused by some enemy of the Talaings. However, unless direct historical evidence is forthcoming to sapport that argument, it may be put forward, as the more likely theory, that the destruction now visible is that which is inevitable in Burma. When a pagoda or image is once built or made, and the kúbo, (spelt kusól = PAļi kusalan, a 'good work) or religious merit, gained thereby has accrued, no more interest is taken in its preservation; and as every pagoda contains a treasure chamber of sorts, and as each large image is supposed to have valuables buried somewhere inside it, they are sooner or later dug into in search for treasure. This is sure to happen after any political disturbance, when anarchy, for a time at any rate, always supervenes. Plates IV. and V. shew pagodas thus treated in the Kogun Cave, and it may be said that, in the Cave remains in Ramaññadêsa generally, it is the role for pagodas and large images to have suffered thus. This fact alone is sufficient to account for the ruin observable at D'ammaba.
The Eastern Pagoda is utterly ruined and is now a mere mass of bricks, plaster and broken images, some of which may still possess great archeological value. Immediately above it there is a hole in the roof, now boarded-over. This leads to an upper chamber or cave, in which are still stored sadaiks, or book-coffers, containing Talaing M88., no doubt of unique value, if still legible and fit to take to pieces. The British Burma Gazetteer, Vol. II., p. 37, suggests that there are such documents to be found in the other caves. It hardly needs argument to shew that they should be removed as soon as possible to places, where they can be preserved until they can be properly utilized.16
Outside the eastern entrance there is a funnel leading upwards in the rock, but whether this ceases abruptly or leads to the boarded-in chamber could not be ascertained on the spot.
There is a very large number of images of all sizes and in all stages of preservation, lying in utter confusion about the floor and the sides of this Cave. Plate II. relating to the B'inji Cave, gives some idea of the state of the floor at D'ammabâ. These images evidently belong to all dates, from that of the first use of the Cave for religious purposes up to quite modern times. They are made of many materials :- wood, alabaster, limestone, plaster and terra-cotta, amongst others. The wooden images are probably the most valuable for antiquarian purposes. They are mostly now coated over with a black preparation which looks like Burmese resin (pron. Disst, spelt sachché: = (sach) bit, wood, + (chés) si, oil). It is either the under-coating of former coloring or gilding, or was meant as such and never covered over. This coating has preserved the outer surface as originally designed, whereas the wood under it has utterly decayed in many instances. The state of the wood, which is apparently teak in all cases, combined with the outer form and ornamentation of the images will go a long way, on careful investigation, towards determining when they were deposited ; because teak ander certain conditions may be assumed to take not less than a certain number of centuries to reach a certain stage of decay. It may farther be fairly argued that, when once the caves became established as recognized places for religious ceremonies, the great mass of images now found in them were deposited by successive generations of worshippers and pilgrims.
The images and similar remains are generally of the same character in all the Caves, and are well worth study, for the reason that they explain the forms of many of the old and small images deposited about the greater Pagodas in Lower Burms still used by the populace as places of Worship. (See Plates I., Ia, VI. and VII.) Exactly similar images are yet to be seen round the Kyaikbanlàn and the Kyaikpatàn - Pagodas at Maulmain, the Myabendan Pagoda at Martaban, the Shwêzayàn and Mulék (or Dajâp'aya) Pagodas at Thatôn, the great Shwedagon itself and the Sule Pagoda at Rangoon, the Kyaikkauk
* The Talaing language, thongh still spoken to a considerable extent, is cessing to be a literary mediam very rapidly, so much so that it is already extremely difficult to find an educated Talaing able to read even modern documents in his native language, and the epigraphie and old palm-leaf documents in that tongue, which are of supremo value to the history of Lower Burma will even now have to await the labours of the export student of the futare.
