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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1905.
Mr. Taw Sein-Ko and Sir Richard Temple, in the course of their tours, have certainly failed to trace any early epigraphic indication of the alleged Abokan mission. No records in the script used in Asoka's time have been discovered either in Ramanadeśa, or at Pagán, " wbither it is supposed that Burmese conquerors removed their spoils of war"; and if Asoka really had any dealings with the country such records might be expected to exist.
Closer examination of the Burmese Buddhist literature and antiquities confirmed the impressions made on the observers during a preliminary survey of the ground, and showed that the technical terms of Burmese Buddhism to a large extent are derived from Sanskrit, not from Pali, and that the oldest known soulptures represent a pantheon, which at first sight seems to belong to Brahmanical Hinduism, but is really that of Hinduised Buddhism.
The detailed evidence, so far as it has been published, will be found in the papers cited, and need not be recapitulated here. It will suffice to quote the definite propositions formulated by Mr. Taw Sein-Ko, and to say that they seem to me to be well supported by the facts. He holds (I) that “the form of Buddhism first introduced into Burma Proper was that of the Mahayana or Northern School; (II) that the Buddhist scriptures when first introduced were written in Sanskrit, which is the language of the Northern School; (III) that the Southern School, or Hinayana, the language of which is Ali, subsequently absorbed and assimilated, by its stronger vitality, the Northern School, which, through the cessation of intercourse with Northern India, had fallen into corruption and decay.” 10 If these propositions are valid, the story of the Asokan mission to Suvannabhumi must be rejected.
The questions concerning the date and mode of the introduction of Buddhism into Burms are only one part of the larger enquiry into the influence of India on the Malay Peninsula, Cambodia, Java, and the other islands of the Archipelago. Much has been done by French and Dutch scholars to elucidate the facts of the transference of Indian ideas and civilization to the transmarine regions named, but, so far as I know, no general review of the evidence has been published, and the subject remains obscure, except perhaps to some few specialists. The oldest Sanskrit inscriptions discovered on the east coast of Java and in West Borneo are of the fifth century A. D.,11 and the most ancient known Indian king of Cambodia was Srutavarman, who lived in the same age. Professor Kern, who has devoted himself specially to the subject, holds that the Indian influence in Cambodia was at its height in the sixth century ; 12 and the late Dr. Rost, when discussing the inscriptions from Keddah and Province Wellesley in the Malay Peninsula, expressed the opinion that "these inscriptions confirm in & remarkable manner the conclusions to which the recent deciphermente, by Barth, Bergaigne, Senart, and Kern. of the Cambodian inscriptions, inevitably tend- viz., that Buddhism came to the peninsula and Camboja, not from Ceylon, but from regions on the coasts of India where the so-called northern type of the religion was current.” 13
I guspect that, when further advance in the study of Burmese antiquities shall have been made, proof will be obtained that the effective propagation of Buddhism in its Mahayang form in Burma occurred chiefly during the same period - the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era and that that event was merely an incident in the diffusion of Indian culture in the countries to the east beyond the sea. At present, definite proofs of the truth of this suggestion do not seem to be available, but apparently it would be difficult to show thet
Ante, Vol. XXI. (1892), p. 388. 10 Ante, Vol. XXII. (1898), p. 165; and Sir B. Temple's remarks, ibid. p. 358.
11 Miscellaneous Papers relating to Indo-China (Trübner's Or. Ser.), Vol. I. p. 56, noto by Dr. Rost. A lis of references on the general questions of Indian influence on the Archipelago is given in that note, which was published in 1885.
12 Kern, Gedenktekenen der Oride Indiache Beschauung in Kambodja. Reprint from Once Eouw, 1904, p. 47. 18 Miscellaneous Paperi, Vol. I. p. 284, note.
