of Arracan laws, from which the Barman Dherma Sastra is compiled. It should be observed, that all the various law tracts in use amongst the Hindus, whether sectaries of Buddha, or of Brahma, are but so many commentaries on the laws of Menu, the great and acknowledged founder of Hindū jurisprudence, whose original work has been translated with so much elegancy by Sir William Jones."

The language used by the Siamese is called Thay, which is also the name they assume as a nation. By the Barmas the country is called Syan, from whence probably the Portugueze Siam or Siaom.*

* "La Loubiere, who visited Siam in 1687-8, as Envoy Extraordinary from the French monarch, has given incomparably the most accurate account, that has ever been exhibited, of this nation, formerly reckoned the most polished of Eastern India. He divides them into two races, the Tai and the Tai Yai. The latter nation, he adds, are reckoned savages, though the most ancient. Their name signifies literally the great Tai, and, in order to distinguish themselves from this nation, the ruling race, in modern Siam, assume the name of Tai-noë, the little Tai. Doctor Fr. Buchanan, how

Doctor Leyden has given catalogues of some of the principal literary compositions in the Rukheng, Barma, and Siamese languages. He observes that "the Rama-Kien of the Siamese seems to be a version of the Ramayan, and relates the adventures of Pra'm or Pra Ram, and his brother PraLa'k or Lakshmana, and their wars with Totsa-kan or Dusha-kantha (which is one of the names of Ravana,) who carried off Nang Séda or Si'ta. This narrative corresponds, as far as I have been able to learn,

ever, on the authority of the information he received in the Barma dominions, divides the Siamese race into many states; and gives a specimen of the vocables of three dialects. This brief vocabulary, with La Loubiere's observations on the Siamese language, and The maxims of the Talapoins, translated out of Siamese by the Catholic missionaries, which he has published in his Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam, constitute all that has been published respecting the language or literature of this nation, in any European tongue. The result of my own inquiries certainly coincides more directly with La Loubiere's information, than with that received by Doctor F. Buchanan.”—Dr. Leyden, Asiat. Res. vol. x. p. 241.

with the Sanscrit poem, and almost all its incidents have been converted into Natakas for representation by the Siamese, in the same manner as the Barmas have employed the incidents of the Yama-meng or Barma-Ramayan. The Maha Chinok in the same language appears equally to have been taken from that celebrated Sanscrit poem."

The K'hohmén is a language used by a nation of that name on the Me-kon, or river of Kam-bu-chat, or Camboja. The Siamese from whom Doctor Leyden received his information in regard to it, assured him that it was entirely different from either the Thay language used in Siam, or the Juan used in Cochin-China. The K'homens are reckoned an ancient and learned people; who at a remote period, were subdued by the Thay-J'hay or Siamese race. They are believed to derive their origin from a warlike race of mountaineers named Khô, called by the early Portugueze writers Gueos, and who are represented as still practising the eating of human

flesh, and painting and tattooing or punctuating their bodies.

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It

The Law language is used by an inland nation of that name, called by the Portugueze Lâo, and in plural Laos. From specimens of the language which Doctor Leyden procured from some Siamese and Barmas, it appeared to him to bear about the same affinity to the Thay or Siamese, as the Barma bears to the Rukheng; but that, in the adoption of Bali terms, it adheres more accurately to the orthography of the Bali than either of these two. is from this nation that both Siamese and Barmas allege that they derive their religion, laws, and institutions. It is in the country of Law, that all the celebrated founders of the religion of Buddha are represented to have left their most remarkable vestiges. Ceylon boasts the sacred traces of the left foot of Buddha on the top of the mountain Amala-Sri-padi, or by Europeans Adam's Peak, Siam exhibits the traces of the right foot, on the top of the golden mountain Swa-na-bapato. Other traces

of the sacred steps are sparingly scattered over Pegu, Ava, and Arakan; but it is among the Lâos, that all the vestiges of the founders of this religion seem to be concentered, and whither devotees repair to worship at the traces of the sacred steps of Pra-Ku-ku-sôn, Pra-Kon-na-kon, PraPut-t'ha-Kat-sop and Pra-Sa-mut-ta-kodom. These Siamese names of the four Budd'has seem to correspond to the Barma Kaukasan, Gonagom, Kasyapa, and Gotama, and the Singhala,* Kakusanda, Konagam, Kasyapa, and Gautama. There can be no doubt, however, from the order of the names, but that they are the four last Buddhas in the list given by Hemachandra Acharya in the Abhid’hana Chintameni, under the following Sanscrit appellations, from which all these Siamese. Barma, and Singhala names, seem to be only Bali corruptions. The Sanscrit names are, Krukruck'hunda, Kanchana, Kasyapa, and Sakyasinha."

*The language used in Ceylon.