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DECEMBER, 1893.] NOTES ON ANTIQUITIES IN RAMANNADESA.
Transcribed the inscription runs thus:- nalah matau nè sané ka p'on balaḥ-kyu(k). The pronounciation and meaning of each word runs thus: Nge Leḥ metò ngè sani ka p'àn pale-kyaik20 'Nge Leh parents' field curry-stuff fish property offer-(to)-pagoda." In addition to the above, there are traces of another inscription in modern documentary Burmese characters.
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These impressed tablets usually represent Gautama Buddha seated on a canopied throne, the canopy forming the back-ground of the tablet. Gautama Buddha is commonly thus represented in Burma in figures of all sizes and of all materials-vide Plates IV., V., VI. and VII. In the D'ammaba Cave a large full-sized seated figure has an inscription, white letters on a black ground, on the canopy, above either shoulder. As it is on plaster which is fast peeling off, no impression can be taken of it, but it should not present any difficulties in reading, if. read before it is too far destroyed, as it is in the ordinary square lapidary Burmese character in vogue in the last and the beginning of the present Century (vide the Pô:û: daung Inscription near Prome, ante, p. 1 ff.).
About two and a half miles distant from the Cave just described there are hot springs and another Cave (so local information on the spot says),21 The hot springs are well known to the natives of the country, and now also to immigrants from India, who repair to them annually to get rid of skin diseases. There are several such places in the Amherst District, notably the At'aran Yebû (Hot-waters) on the At'arùn River, the medicinal qualities of which have been attested by Dr. Helfer.22
The way to reach D'ammaba is by special launch from Maulmain, in which case the journey takes about three hours each way, or by ferry launch to Zaðabyin on the Salween, and thence by country boat to D'ammabi, a slow process. The former method of approach is very expensive.
4. The Pagàt and Kògun Caves.
The P'Agàt Cave on the Salween23 River is distant from Maulmain 26 miles, and is situated in an isolated limestone rock by the river-bank. It is not now of much interest, as it is very dark, and so offensive, owing to the presence of an enormous number of bats,24 that it is practically not explorable.
Seated Gautama Buddhas can, however, be made out in the darkness, and no doubt at one time the Cave was decorated and ornamented in the style of its neighbour at Kògun. Wilson, Burmese War (1827), quotes, p. lxvi., a Government Gazette notification, dated 20th April 1826, of a journey up the Saluen (Salween), where Pagat appears as Sagat, apparently by mistake. At that time the images were distinct and the ornamentation was evidently the same as that of Kògun. The bats are also mentioned. It is further noted that the ornamentation on the rock face, which is in the style of that already mentioned at D'ammabâ, looks from the river like the letters of a huge inscription. This accounts for the persistence of a local idea that there is a large prominent inscription on the face of this Cave.
As far as I can make out, the following description from Low's travels in these parts in 1833 (Asiatic Researches, Vol. xviii. p. 128 ff.; Miscell. Papers on Indo-China, Vol. I. p. 197) refers to P'agàt. "In rowing up the Sanlûn (= Salween, by misreading the final for the dental n, instead of the guttural n) or main river, the first objects which attracted my attention were the Krûklataung rocks, being a continuation of the great lime formation. The river at one spot is hemmed in betwixt two rocks, and, being thus narrowed, rushes through with considerable impetuosity. The rock on the north-west bank overhangs its base, the latter being
20 Pale-kyaik is a compound meaning to make an offering to a pagoda.'
This was not borne out, however, as regards the Cave, on further enquiries from local officers.
22 B. B. Gazetteer, Vol. II. p. 38 and note. The only reference, besides those quoted from the Gazetteer, I have yet found to the D'ammabâ Cave is in that intelligent little book, Six Months in Burma, p. 41, by Mr. Christopher Winter, who visited it in 1858. It is there called Dhamathat, as it is usually still called by Europeans in Maulmain This is an instance of striving after a 'meaning, because Dhammathat' is a word well-knowu to most Anglo. Barmans, being the Burmese form of the name of a locally celebrated work, the Dharmasastra.
25 Salween Bur. spelling Samlwan, pron. balwin.
24 See ante, Vol. XXI. p. 378: and Malcom, Travels, ii. 61. It is a well established fact that it takes these bats 25 to 30 minutes to fly out of the Cave to their food every evening.
