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BIBMAH. 19
and the Birmans are evidently of Hindoo extraction
and are only different tribes of the same stock, a
branch, it is supposed, of the Palli or Palays, whose
overthrow and dispersion form one of the most remarkable
events in the history of India. Their sacred
language, the Pali, their religious faith, the title of
Mogo, and every other circumstance, connect them
with the country of Magadha or Southern Bahar.
The Pali, which is, in fact, a dialect of the Sanscrit,
is the vernacular dialect of Magadha or Southern
Bahar. Magadha was the kingdom of the great
Mago Rajah. Now Gayah, the birth-place of Buddha,
is in this province, fifty-five miles S. of Patna, and is
still a place of pilgrimage for his votaries, though
among the resident inhabitants remarkably few Buddhists
are to be found, the Brahminical being the
prevailing religion. That the history of the Birmans,
mythological and civil, is the same as that of the
vHindoos, Colonel Francklin says, he has abundant
proof in various tracts which he has collected, parti-
cularly the Maha Bogdha-whein, or the great history
of their duties, and the Maha Rqj-whien, the great
history of their kings. A remarkable passage is cited
by Sir William Jones, from the Institutes of Menu,
respecting the origin of the Chinese and other eastern
" "
nations. Many families," it is said, of the military
class (Cshatriya) , having gradually abandoned
the ordinances of the Veda and the company of Brah-
forms the northern part.
See HAMILTON'S Gazetteer, art. Keen-
duem. The Chinese call Arracan, Yee-kien, or Yo-kien ; and the
Kains, Canaranes, and Rak-kaings (the same word as Ya-kaings),
are evidently the same people. Kiayn-duem, therefore, is literally
the Arracan river, although it must not be confounded with the
Mayoon or Myoo river, which flows through Arracan into the Bay
of Bengal.