BURMA AND THE THIRD BUDDHIST COUNCIL

       The following is the list, according to the Mabavamsa, of the countries to which missionaries were sent at the conclusion of the Third Buddhist Council.

       The following extract from The Cave Temples of India by Fergusson and Burgess, page 17, will be of value here, as indicating the identification of the countries named in the above list:

       The native writers of Burma, however, both lay and clerical, aver with great seriousness that the Aparantaka referred to is Burma proper, which comprises the upper valley of the Irrawaddy, that Yona is the Shan country about Chiengmai (Zimme), that the scenes of the Milinda Panha were laid in that State, and that, with the exception of Himavanta, which, they say, comprises fivc countries subject to China, of Suvannabhumi and Lankadipa, the remaining countries mentioned are situated in India. Such a flagrantly erroneous identification of classical names has arisen from the national arrogance of the Burmans, who, after their conquest of the Talaing kingdoms on the seaboard, proceeded to invent new stories and new classical names so that they might not be outdone by the Talaings, who, according to their own history and traditions, received the Buddhist religion direct from missionaries from India. The right bank of the Irrawaddy river near Pagan was accordingly re-named Sunaparanta, and was identified with the Aparantaka mentioned in the above list. This is but one of the many instances of the fanciful theories of the native historians, and indicates the extreme care and judicious discrimination that is required in utilizing their writings in the compilation of a history of their country.

       A similar idiosyncracy on the part of Cambodian writers was noticed by Mouhot, who says in his Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Vol. 11, pp. 8 and 9): " All traditions being lost, the natives invent new ones, according to the measure of their capacity."

SUVANNABHUMI: ITS IDENTIFICATION.

(a)

       "The Golden Khersonese denotes usually the Malay Peninsula but more specially the delta of the Irrawaddi, which forms the province of Pegu, the Suvannabhumi (Pali from Suvannabhumi) of ancient times. The Golden Region, which lies beyond the interior, is Burma, the oldest province of which, above Ava, is still as Yule informs us, formally styled in State documents Sonaparanta, i.e. Golden Frontier."—McCrindle's Ancient India describcd by Ptolemy, p. 198.

(b)

       "Why these lands should have been termed the lands of silver and gold (Argentea Regio, Aurca Regio, Chersonesus Aurea) may appear obscure, as they are not now remarkably productive of those metals. There are, however, gold washings on a small scale in many of the rivulets both of Pegu and of the valley of the Upper Irrawadi and of the Kyendwen (Chindwin), which may have been more productive in ancient times. And the Argentea Regio may probably (as suggested by Colonel Hannay) have been the territory includng the Bou Dwen (Bawdwin, really a part of the Shan States), or great silver mine on the Chinese frontier, which is believed to supply a large part of the currency of Burma. Indeed, Aurea Regio may be only a translation of the name Sonaparanta, which is a classic or sacred appellation of the central region of Burma, near the junction of the Irrawadi and the Kyendwen, always used to this day in the enumeration of the king's titles. These regions, may, moreover, have been the channels by which the precious metals were brought from China and the mountains near the source of the Irrawadi, which are said to be very productive of gold and possibly, even at that remote period, the profuse use of gilding in edifices may have characterized the people, as it does now.

       It seems, however, most probable that this practice was introduced with Buddhism. Yet even at the period of the first Buddhistic mission to this region, at the conclusion of the third great Synod, B, C. 241, it was known in India as Suvarnabhumi, the Golden Land.

       According to Mr. Mason, the ancient capital of the Talaings, (according to the tradition of the latter), was Thadaung or Satung, a city whose traces still exist between the mouths of the Salween and the Sittang. " Suvanna-bumme," he adds, but unfortunately stating no authority, is still the classic Pali name of Sataung (meaning thereby? Thaton)" — Yule's Mission to Ava, page 206.

(c)

       "Sono and Uttaro were deputed to Suvarnabhumi, or Golden Land. As this country was on the sea-coast, it may be identified either with Ava, the Aurca Regio, or with Siam, the Aurea Chersonesus. Six millious of people are said to have been converted, of whom twenty-five thousand men became monks, and fifteen hundred women became nuns "-—Cunningham's Bhilsa Topes, page 118.

(d)

       "The identity of the Khryse of Ptolemy, of the Suvarnabhumi of the Buddhist legends and of the city of Thahtun (Thaton) in Pegu, all having the same signification, appears nearly certain "—Phayre's History of Burma, page 26.

(e)

       "Suvannabhumi is the only geographical name, which occurs in the Dipavamsa, the Mahavamsa, and the Samantapasadika in connection with the Buddhist mission to that country. Lassen identifies Suvannabhumi with the present Pegu or the delta of the Irrawaddy; Colonel Yule applies the name to a promontory or place on the coast of the Gulf of Martaban and other writers hold that it means Burma in general or the large islands of the Straits (Settlements). In modern Burmese works, Suvannabhumi is used as the classical designation of British and Upper Burma. Captain Forbes, in his Indo-Chinese Languages, has already forcibly pointed out, and his statement is corroborated by geological evidences and the native records, that the extnsive plains south of the Pegu Yoma and what are now the Irrawaddy and Sittang valleys were covered by the sea till a few centuries after Christ. Even Hiuen Tsiang, who visited India in the 7th century A D., places Prome near a sea harbour. Burmese historians date the retreating of the ocean from Prome from a terrible earth-quake, which took place in the fifth century before Christ. The corrosion of the sea water is still clearly traceable on the numerous boulders which line the base of the hills stretching, now far inland, from Shwegyin to Martaban. Cables and ropes of sea-going vessels have been dug up near Ayetthema, the ancient Takkala, now distant 12 miles from the sea-shore, and but lately remains of foreign ships have been found near Twante buried eight feet beneath the surface of the earth." Forchhammer's Notes on the Early History and Geography of British Burma II. —The First Buddhist Mission to Suvannabhumi, page3.

(f)

       The following extract from the preface to Colquhoun's Across Chryse is from the pen of the late Sir Henry Yule.

       " Chryse is a literal version of the Sanskrit Suvarnabhumi or Golden Land, applied in ancient India to the Indo-Chinese regions. Of course, where there is no accurate knowledge the application of the term must be vague.

       "It would be difficult to define where Ptolemy's Chryse (Chryse Chora aut Chryse Chersonesus) terminated eastward, though he appears to give the names a special application to what we call Burma and Pegu. But Ptolemy, from the nature of his work, which consisted in drawing such maps as he could, and then tabulating the positions from those maps, as if he possessed most accurate data for all, necessarily defined things far beyond what his real materials justified. If we look to the author of the Periplus, who has no call to effect impossible precision, we find that Chryse is the last continental region towards the East. North of it indeed, and farther off, is Thina, i.e., China.

       Chryse then, in the vague apprehension of the ancients —the only appropriate apprehension, where knowledge was so indefinite,—was the region coasted between India and China. It is most correctly rendered by 'Indo-China.' ''

(g)

       The above extracts show that the precise identification of the country known as Suvannabhumi to the ancients is one of the vexed questions of the early geography of the Far East. All Burmese and Talaing writers, however, agree in applying the designation to Thaton, which was formerly a sea-port town, and they assert that the raison d'etre of the name is that auriferous ore was found in the tract of the country in which Thaton is situated.

       Like the term Ramannadesa, the appellation Suvannabhumi appears to have been originally applied to the basin of the Sittang and the Salween rivers, which are noted for gold-washing on their upper reaches. " Gold is certainly found in most of the affluents of the Shwegyin (Gold-washing) river, and has been more than once worked, but the quantity obtained is so small as not to repay the labour. This river and the mountains at its source have been examined by Mr. Theobald of the Geological Survey and by a practical miner, and the reports of both point generally to the same conclusions. Mr. Theobald stated"that the section of the auriferous beds corresponds very closely with that given by Sir R. Murchison, in his Siluria of the Russian gold deposits . . . From the occurrence of coarse grains in the Shuayghecn (Shwegyin) gravels, I should infer the occurrence of the metal in situ in some of the rocks towards the sources of the streams falling into the Sittang (Sittaung), especially the Matuma (Muttama).

       From the marked scarcity of quartz pebbles at the gold washings, I am inclined to believe that quartz is not the matrix, or not the sole matrix, certainly of the Shuaygheen gold."*

       Gold-washing in the Sittang valley was a remunerative industry in ancient times but as, in course of time, gold could not be worked in paying quantities, the energies of the people were diverted to other channels, and evidently to commerce. Still the glamour of the name remained, and its currency was maintained by the fact of the Sittang valley containing seaport towns, namely, Golamattika or Takkala, and subsequently Thaton itself, which were great emporia of trade between India and the Far East till the Middle Ages.

       In the Kalyani Inscription, Suvannabhumi is identified with Ramannadesa. This identification appears to rest on plausible grounds, as gold-washing is still carried on in most of the districts comprising the ancient Talaing Kingdom of Ramannadesa. Gold is still worked at Desampa in the Pegu district, on the banks of most of the streams in the Shwegyin district, at Mewaing in the Bilin township, and at the headwaters of the Tenasserim river. At Thaton, auriferious sands occur in the Shwegyaung San close to the site of the palace of Manuha, the Talaing king, who was conquered and led away captive to Pagan by Anawratazaw in the 11th century.*

       *(British Burma Gazetter, Vol. II, page 649)