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BIRMAH. 109
quent on the Tatar conquest, may account for the
superior information and polish ascribed to the people
of Laos. Nor is there any violence in supposing that
Buddhism, which had travelled from Magadha to
Ceylon, and from Ceylon to China, found its way
through Laos, by means of Chinese fugitives or
colonists, to Siam and Pegu, and thus met, as it were,
with the Buddhism already imported into Birmah,
both from Ceylon and from Bengal.*
There are several highly-interesting inquiries con-
nected with the history of Buddhism and its intro-
duction into these regions, to which we hare not
ventured to advert. Whether the religious creed
which it displaced was of a purer kind, as in China,
or only a grosser adolatry, and whether Buddhism
itself be not a corruption of a purer faith, are questions
not of very easy solution. How far any of the
tenets or institutions of the Indo-Chinese nations may
be thought to exhibit traces of a Christian origin, is
also a curious inquiry. When it is recollected, that a
Nestorian mission was introduced into Ceylon in the
fifth or sixth century, it. is certainly possible that the
striking coincidences observable in many parts
of the
* " The Birmans of Ava acknowledge the superior antiquity of
the Cingalese, and the reception of their laws and religion from
that quarter. The king of Ava has, within the last thirty years,
at separate times, sent two messengers, persons of learning and
respectability, to Ceylon, to procure the original books on which
their tenets are founded. In one instance, the Birman minister
made official application to the governor-general of India, to protect
and assist the person charged with the commission." HAMIL-
TON'S Gazetteer, art. Ceylon. On the other hand, we are told,
that "the Birmans entertain the highest reverence for Magadha.
A deputation from his majesty of Ava visited the sacred places in
that vicinity a few years ago." FINLAYSON'B Siam, p. 252, note
(by SirS. Raffles.)
PART I. H