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346
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1893.
There is in the courtyard of the Shwêzayan Pagoda at Thaton, and again at Martaban,60 near the point where the Government Telegraph cable crosses the Salween from Maolmain, & 80called enamelled pagoda, locally presumed to be of great age. The t'fs, as well as the upper rings of the pagoda spire itself, is covered with glazed ware in several colors. The pagoda at Martaban, which is quite small, has a peculiarly venerable appearance from having been split from the crest downwards by a young pípal tree, which has taken root in the t.
The enamelled appearance is produced by nailing on to the brick and plaster work small plates of lead covered over with a silica glaze in various colors; brown, grey, yellow, gold and green. The antiquity of the work may be well doubted, as the plates at Martaban, at any rate, were fastened on with European nails.6! The Great Kyaikkauk Pagoda near Syriam is similarly "glazed." (B. B. Gazetteer, II. p. 283 f.)
9. Remarks on Pagodas. The form of the Mulek Pagoda at Thaton has been already commented on, being that of a Sinhalese dagaba.62. That is, it consists of three square terraces surmounted by what was a stúpa, and is now, after restoration, a modernized pagoda with the usual conventional t'f:. These terraces represent the three procession paths found round all Sinhalese dágabas. The style is repeated at Borobudur in Java, but with five procession paths in place of three. That the Thatôn sample was not an isolated instance in Râmaññadêsa has been already noted,64 and that the mere form itself does not argue antiquity can be seen from the Sibyo Pagoda at Myingun, which was built under Bodòp'aya in 1816 A. D., where precisely the same arrangement occurs.
This leads to the reflection that form alone can never be relied on for estimating the age of a pagoda in Burma, because of the tendency to go back to the old types: e. g., the great Kaung'ın ûdò6 (royal work of merit) Pagoda near Sagaing, 66 the date of which is known to be about 1650 A. D.87 and which is a stúpa with stone railing after the Bhilsâ type : e. g., also, the great pagoda of Bodòp'aya (1781 to 1823 A. D.) at Myingun, which, had it been finished, would have been a stúpa raised upon a square base in most approved ancient form, as may be seen from the model still existing at Myingun. In the village of Syriam, on the high road to the Kyaikkauk Pagoda, just facing what must have been the old east gate of the city walls, is a small ruined pagode of the true stúpa type. It is one of thirteen small pagodas, also mostly in ruins, but not of ancient form. To these I would add the remains of the Maháchêtî Pagoda at Pegu, the date of which lies between 1551 A. D., and 1581, and the resemblance of which to a true stúpa is most remarkable.
That the elongated pagods of Burma at the present day is the lineal descendant of the dagoba of Buddhist India there can be little doubt, but, owing to the recurrence of ancient types in modern times, all that can be predicated of any particular sample from form alone is that the greatly elongated spiral form is not likely to date beyond a century or so
* Portuguese, through (P) Arabic, form of the Talaing Måttama Burmese Moktama (see also Crawfurd, op. cit.) P.Ali, Mattime. In Wilson's Burmese War, 1827, it appears 43 Mautama.
1 A devout myk, or subordinate magistrate, caused the pagoda at Thaton to be white-washed in honor of new year's day, 1254 (B. E.=14th April 1892). There is no greater destroyer of ancient monuments in the world than the devout Burmese "restorer" of sacred buildings. His doings at Buddha Gay& in 1876 caused the deputation thither of Rajendralela Mitra on behalf of the Bengal Government, and resulted in the now well-known volume, Buddha Gayd.
61 Sinhalese visitors have recognized this. B. B. Gazetteer, Vol. II. p. 717.
· Ferguisson, Ind. Archit. Ch, viij. and pp. 624, 643 ff. Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, 18: Strettell, Fianu Elastica, 4, 49: Yule, Ava, 172.
"There is a minor instance at Martaban of obviously no great age in the S-X. corner of the courtyard of the Myábendin Pagoda.. This digaba, for one can hardly call it anything else, is a cylindrical structure ten feet high and ten feet in diameter, surmonnted by the usual Burmese pagoda spire and t't. It rises out of three eqnare terraces, which have been evidently anperimposed on an old base. All the ornamentation is modern Burmere ; four niches at the base of the cylinder, and four manualhas at the corners of the uppermost terrace.
4 PAli namo. Challmaņi, Rjachf&maņi, Rajamanichļa. · Spelt Chachkoni=pron. Sitkaing and Sagaing : PAli Jayapura,
There is an inscription of great historical importance in the courtyard-wide Yule, Ava, p. 66 and Appx. B. of this I have lately prooured a hand oopy.
* See Yule, op. cit. p. 169.
