^{page 560 note 1} My field-work, sponsored by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, was done in Burma between June 1958 and November 1959. This article is based on observation and several long conversations held with members of the association and recorded in their building. Some little knowledge of Burmese enabled me to control these conversations though interpreters were used in all cases except when conversing with one member, the woman of the couple mentioned in p. 570, n. 1, who spoke good English. Translations of Burmese terms, in parentheses in the text, made with Burmese informants in Burma and London, are meant only as approximations and are based on my knowledge of members' ideas. Some Burmese references have been checked in dictionaries, as indicated in the footnotes. Most Pali references and all Sanskrit references, intended only as comparisons, have also been obtained from dictionaries. For the most part, I have used Pali as the language for standard forms such as Nibbāna, Metteya, etc.

The term ‘Messianic Buddhism’ is provisional, as will be explained in part II of the text.

^{page 564 note 1} Setkya: cf. Skt. Cakrá, Monier-Williams, , Skt.-Eng. dict. [SED], 381Google Scholar; Pali Cakka, Davids, Rhys and Stede, , Pali-Eng. dict. [PED], II, 89Google Scholar. See Judson, , Burm.-Eng. dict., rev. ed. [BED], 346Google Scholar, two forms, Set and Setkya. We can here take the meaning ‘celestial or supernatural wheel’ possessed by a Setkyamin (cf. Skt. Cakravartin; Pali Cakkavattin), a king or prince of great power and faith. PED (II, 90) gives a Cakkavāla cakkavattin as a Universal ruler over four continents. I accept here the definition of Cakravartin as given in Mus, Paul, Barabuḍur [Bar.], Hanoi, 1935, introduction, 86, 109Google Scholar. On the Cakrá as a royal symbol, see Auboyer, J., Le trône et son symbolisme dans l'Inde ancienne [TSIA], Paris, 1949, 84Google Scholar.

Thagya, : cf. Śakrá, SED, 1045Google Scholar; and Sakka, under Inda, PED, I, 121. See BED, 1022, 1079 for the ruler of the second Devaloka Tawatimsa. In Burma, Thagyamin is the ruler of the 37 nats and is always placed at the head of their list; more generally he is king of all nats. See also Malalasekera, , Dictionary of Pali proper names [DPPN], II, 957Google Scholar. On Indra and royalty, see TSIA, 173 and, for his role in Burma, , Tin, Pe Maung and Luce, G., The Glass Palace Chronicle [GPC], London, 1923Google Scholar, passim.

This little pantheon should be compared to that in the payakozu ritual, see Aung, Htin, ‘The nine gods’, Journal of the Burma Research Society [JBRS], XXXVII, 2, 1954, 3Google Scholar. Also, the ‘seven exalted ones’in GPC, 14.

On Nāga, see TSIA, 124; GPC, 5, 68, 99, 114, 157; and p. 576, n. 2, here. To obtain the highest initiation of a curing gaing—the Win gaing—it is necessary to grind medicine on a sandbank where the hintha, bird of Thuyathadi, alights. Seven pieces of fish, wrapped in a plantain leaf, are offered three nights running to a Nāgamin on an ant hill. The Nāgamin grants initiation by signs on the plantain leaves. Some informants spoke of the alchemical stone as ‘nāga’. A Nāgamin was listed as head of the outtazaungs; see p. 567, n. 1, here.

^{page 564 note 2} Weikza: cf. Vijjā (and Vijja), PED, iv, 75, especially in the sense of secret science, magical knowledge, charm. Vijjādhara is a knower of charms or sorcerer, corresponding to Burm. Weikzado. BED is unsatisfactory on p. 967.

^{page 565 note 1} Zawgyi. Hermit magicians or yogins in Burma appear to use synonyms from various linguistic sources, as in the formula Shithaung tapathi zawgyi takatho weikzadharato ‘the concourse of 80,000 magicians’ (note Pali form weikzadhara plus Burm. plural). These terms are: (i) zawgyi (see BED, 430, ascription to Bengali derivative, and Aung, Htin, ‘Alchemy and alchemists in Burma’, Folk-lore, XLIV, 1933)Google Scholar; (ii) yathe (cf. PED, I, 123, under Isi for Skt. derivation from Ṛṣi, and BED, 838); (iii) tapathi (cf. PED, II, 133, under Tāpasa, and Luce, G. H., ‘Old Kyaukse and the coming of the Burmans’, JBSS, XLII, 1, 1959, 101Google Scholar; BED appears silent on this).

No information was forthcoming on figures (f), (g), (h), (i).

On U Eizagona, see Aung, Htin: Burmese folk tales, Calcutta, 1948, 155–9Google Scholar. Sayagyi said that Paganyama was sometimes prefixed to the gaing'a name to denote its roots in the Pagan period. On a pagoda of 80 hermits, see Enriquez, C. M., ‘Capitals of the Alaungpaya dynasty’, JBRS, V, 3, 1915, 123Google Scholar. On hermits with weikza-like powers, conquered by a founding-hero, see Furnivall, J. S., ‘History of Syriam III’, JBRS, V, 3, 1915, 139–41Google Scholar.

^{page 565 note 2} A possible alternative meaning is suggested by Burm. eggiyat ‘alchemy’, thus: raft of alchemy. On nga, cf. references in TSIA, 146.

^{page 566 note 1} Maheikdi (cf. PED, I, 121, under Iddhi as psychic powers, ten of which are listed. In view of p. 580, n. 1 here, see also Siddhi, PED, IV, 168). See BED, 148.

No informant could give a satisfactory explanation of Mahagandare, which may be compared to Pali gandhārī, a magical charm belonging to Gandhāra, (cf. PED, II, 74, and DPPN, I, 750)Google Scholar. Note that Gandhāra in Burma often stood for Yunnan: Pelliot, , BEFEO, IV, 1904, 158Google Scholar. For gaing see BED, 318. Apwè ‘association’. The gaing's documents show other names also.

^{page 566 note 2} ‘Religion and authority in modern Burma’, The World Today, XVI, 3, 1960, 115Google Scholar.

^{page 565 note 3} cf. Stewart, and Dunn, , New Burm.-Eng. dict., I, p. 17Google Scholar, sect. 5.

^{page 567 note 1} On the rich theme of jewels, especially rubies, and their magic, see GPC, 125, 147; TSIA, 172. They are variously associated with a cakravartin. Their burial, often under pillars, should be noted and doubtless related to the theme of outtazaungs who are often said to hide treasures to be used by Metteya; cf. Enriquez, C. M., ‘The Bodhisattva Maitreya in Burma’, JBRS, IV, 1, 1914, 69Google Scholar.

^{page 567 note 2} On Bo Bo Aung (B.B.A.), see Duroiselle, C., ‘Yathe U Aung’, Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, XXV, 102, 1905, 10–11Google Scholar, and Aung, Shwe Zan, ‘Hypnotism in Burma’, JBRS, II, 1, 1912, 52Google Scholar. If one judges by popular prints alone, B.B.A. is by far the best known weikza in Burma. His present seat is said to be on the Shweminmundaung at Prome and his own alchemy gaing, the Pahtaman, resides there also. Pending an analysis of these prints and rich field material on this and other weikzas, I note that B.B.A. is often shown, dressed in white, holding the philosopher's stone and a magic cane, in the company of the Setkyamin and a princess he is to acquire: the Emerald minthami Mya-Sein-Yaung. Bo Min Gaung (B.M.G.), also seen on prints as a Pahtaman, was a weikza who died some eight years ago at Mt. Popa. Photographs and biographical details are still available.

One often hears in Burma that B.M.G. was the same person as a whole series of others, living at different times, many of them kings and all having the word Aung in their names. One legend makes him King of Ava in conflict with the famous Dhammazedi of Pegu, also a weikza—though note that, in our gaing, Dhammazedi Min Gaung and B.M.G. appear to be synonymous. The confusion may have arisen here from King Bayin Mingaung's conflict with Razadarit of Pegu in the fifteenth century. Some degree of similarity of names and titles may favour the growth of such legends.

^{page 567 note 3} A few days before I left Rangoon, Sayagyi ran up to me in the street and asked me to visit Bodaw, then on an Upper Burma boat after a trip to the Shwedagon. I could not do so.

^{page 568 note 1} A version of the B.B.A. story obtained in Pagan begins with three friends. One, Bodaw U Waing, became Bodawpaya: one, the Taungpila sayadaw (leading monk); and one, B.B.A. Both Duroiselle and Shwe Zan Aung locate B.B.A.'s legend in the time of Bodawpaya, but no referrence is made to a Setkyamin. 1959 minus 148 years places us in 1811, within this king's reign. Data on ‘Prince Tsakyamen’ in Desai, W., History of the British Residency in Burma, 1826–1840, Rangoon, 1939Google Scholar, suggest that the historical Setkyamin episode may be locatetd in the reign of Bagyidaw; see especially p. 335. While we do know exactly why this prince should have been identified with the coming Setkyamin, it is suggestive that an impersonator, Maung Setkya, rebelled in January 1839 and was cruelly crushed in March. Yule, H., Narrative of the mission to the Court of Ava, Calcutta, 1857, 227Google Scholar, refers to a ‘personation which has since been several times renewed’. A Rangoon informant placed the Setkyamin episode in Bagyidaw' reign, but I am grateful to Mr. G. E. Harvey for references to Desai and Yule.

^{page 568 note 2} It is not impossible that reluctance to identify the Bodaw fully with the Setkyamin, in spite of many hints to that effect, arose from the fact that one man who had claimed to be a ‘Buddharājā’ was at that moment in a Rangoon prison. A similar reluctance to discuss the Emerald Princess may have been due to this prisoner's troubles arising in part from his dealings with a succession of all too fleshly ‘Princesses’. To outsiders, the gaing can claim that the Bodaw is merely B.M.G. come again, anonymity as far as possible.

^{page 568 note 3} I cannot tell as yet whether this is related to the custom of making images according to royal persons' measurements discussed in TSIA, 156; Bar., 93, and the works of Cœdès listed in p. 574, n. 1, here. The custom is well attested for Burma in GPC, passim.

^{page 569 note 1} Among the members are some Palaungs. These frequently appear in magical formulae. One explanation is that these ‘very honest simple people can compel the Spirit of Truth to make their mantras work’. Cf. magical powers ascribed to the Yaw people, west of the Chindwin. The whole problem of Burmese-Tribal relations in magic needs exploring.

^{page 569 note 2} Inter alia: small altars of soft lead, gilt, about 6 in. high, of gaing and magical subjects: B.B.A., Thiwali, Shin (cf. DPPN, II, 1163)Google Scholar, Shin Upagoke (cf. Duroiselle, C., ‘Upagupta et Mara’, BEFEO, IV, 1904Google Scholar), Maheikdi and Nagayon pagodas, etc. Made in Rangoon, sold at 9 kyats. For a very incomplete account of some Burmese charms and amulets, see Hildburgh, W. L., ‘Notes on some Burmese amulets and magical objects’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. [JRAI], XXXIX, 1909Google Scholar.

^{page 570 note 1} The association has at least one daughter branch, in a town some 40 miles distant, whose managers—an old couple, the husband an ex-official—come up to do tasks for Bodaw once a month. Sayagyi was, and probably still is, a general trader.

^{page 571 note 1} She did, however, make a concession to inspiration similar to nat kadaws': using some ‘language’, vaguely Hindi and ‘disguised’ English. I have found this elsewhere in gaing life. She denied nat-kadawship, calling herself Mèdaw, an honorific also applied to Thuyathadi, but her story is not dissimilar. Up to 13 years ago, she ran a mill in Lashio, with a broker brother and a manager son in a European firm. She eluded questions about her husband. Work made her physically ill: a brokerage business in Lashio failed: Thuyathadi was taking action. Now she does nothing, except mediumship at the gaing, not at home. She disbelieved before weikzas led her there (a frequent remark of weikza and nat worshippers). She takes cash, with an exchange ‘gift’ from the goddess, in my case a tin of ‘sexually-attractive face powder made from Mèdaw's flowers'.

^{page 572 note 1} In the myth of the guardian nat of Taungalat hill near Mt. Popa, the future nat started meditation at Thiladaung hill, then at Nagapattaung, surrounded by a dragon who devoured false pretenders. Next: Taungalat itself. In days before the staircase, creepers would reach down to help those destined to find Nibbāna on that hill. Popa is the place of the great Mahagiri nats of the list of 37.

It is interesting to speculate on whether, in the Mahamyaing here, we do not have an example of the overlap of royal town and park as described by Przyluski, J., ‘La ville du Cakravartin’, Rocznic Orjentalistyczny, V, 1927Google Scholar.

^{page 573 note 1} Although the informant did not make any specific reference to the points of the compass, it is of interest to observe that the allocation to the directions of these ‘world-guardians’ agrees with the normal distribution in the Pali (and Buddhist Sanskrit) texts: Dhatarattha in the East, Virūḷhaka in the South, Virūpakkha in the West, and Kuvera in the North.

^{page 573 note 2} See The origin and causes of the Burma rebellion (1930–2), Rangoon, 1934Google Scholar. On the Thihathana throne, pp. 9, 11; on the Setkyamin, pp. 9, 11; on magical pagodas, p. 32; on weikzas, pp. 11, 35; on the 37 nats, pp. 3, 11, 21, 29. Note the curious tattoo formula ‘Galon Raza Hpaya Taya’, p. 14. The emphasis, in this organization, appeared to be on the Setkyamin with less or no attention paid to the future Buddha, and this is not unexpected in view of its anti-British aims.

^{page 574 note 1} Inter alia: Senart, E., Essai sur la légende du Buddha, Paris, 1875Google Scholar; Przyluski, J., ‘Le parinirvāna et les funérailles du Buddha’, Journal Asiatique, 1918–1920Google Scholar; idem, La légende de l'empereur Asoka, Paris, 1923, and Le concile de Rājagrha, Paris, 1926; Mus, P., L'Inde vue de l'est, cultes indiens et indigènes au Champa, Hanoi, 1934Google Scholar; idem, Le Buddha paré, Hanoi, 1928, and Bar.; Hocart, A. M., articles in Ceylon Journal of Science, sect. G, vols. I–II, 1924 et seq.Google Scholar; Coedès, G., Pour mieux comprendre Angkor, Hanoi, 1934Google Scholar; idem, Le culte de la royauté divinisée (Serie Orientale Roma, v), 1952, and ‘Le 2,500ème anniversaire du Buddha’, Diogène, XV, 1956Google Scholar; J. Auboyer, TSIA; Geldern, R. Heine, ‘Conceptions of state and kingship in South East Asia’, Far Eastern Quarterly, XII, 1, 1952Google Scholar; Sarkisyanz, E., Russland und der Messianismus des Oriens, Tübingen, 1955Google Scholar.

Many features of our gaing: the underground ‘caves’, the seats of past Buddhas, the three levels of the building, the upward projection of pillars, the ‘flying throne’, the Lion throne, the symbol of the Setkya, the position of Metteya's future throne, remind me of the ascensional theme so richly discussed in TSIA, though detailed consideration here is impossible. The gaing's pillars are clearly related to ‘le yūpa-thrône’ (pp. 74–104) which also goes into the theme of royal control over the cardinal directions, i.e. the provinces of the land. In this connexion, the treatment of the pillars—especially those of the Siṅghāsin—in Kyanzittha's palace-building ritual (our source for religious syncretism in Pagan) needs careful attention: Epigraphia Birmanica, III, 1; cf. the ‘writing of success’ on their base at p. 51, their association with 33 vessels and 37 offerings, and what appears to amount to a worship of the pillars at pp. 49 and 54. If gates (Heine Geldern, op. cit.), towers (TSIA, p. 72, n. 1), and thrones (TSIA, pp. 50–1, n. 3; 92, n. 4) could incorporate ideal-numbers of provinces in South East Asian states, each ruled by a vassal occasionally deified as/or a nat, with the king in the centre on the model of Indra's heaven, perhaps pillars did so too? Mr. H. L. Shorto's forthcoming work on Victory pillars will perhaps resolve this question for Burma.

^{page 574 note 2} See Harvey, G. E., History of Burma [HOB], 243Google Scholar. In GPC both Kyanzittha (p. 69) and Manuha (p. 80) have a ‘radiant wheel mark’ issuing from their mouths, though this is admittedly a late text. In view of Pagan cults of Vishnu, note that the cakrá is an attribute of Vishnu. On the latter as ‘le dieu solaire et royal par excellence’ and ‘cakravartin’, see TSIA, 136, 163.

^{page 574 note 3} On the search for Buddhahood among kings, see the discussion and references in TSIA, 155–65. I do not feel, however, that, in Burma, an identification with Gotama was likely. In Tun, Than, ‘Religion in Burma, 1000–1300 A.D.’ [RIB], JBRS, XLII, 2, 1959, 53Google Scholar, kings style themselves as ‘the future purhā or the living purhā’; kings, great ministers, and scholars pray for Buddhahood. See also p. 42. Cf. Luce, G. H., ‘Prayers of ancient Burma’, JBRS, XXVI, 3, 1936, 133, 138Google Scholar, and GPC, 82, 87, 91, 160, 171; also HOB, 182, 183, 233, 239, 241, 276.

^{page 575 note 1} , T. W. and Davids, C. A. F. Rhys, Dialogues of the Buddha, III, pp. 59–76Google Scholar; cf. Sangermano, , A description of the Burmese empire [DBE], Rangoon, 1924, 87, and RIB, 53Google Scholar.

^{page 575 note 2} For the importance of this 5,000 year span in Burmese thinking, see RIB, 50; GPC, xii, 87; also much epigraphical evidence. In DBE, 61, Bodawpaya argues, against his monks, that the 5,000 years of Gotama are elapsed, ‘and that he himself was the God who was to appear after that period, and to abolish the ancient law in substituting his own’. Pallegoix's, Description du royaume thai, Paris, 1854, I, 440Google Scholar, is suggestive of a similar belief in Siam. Cf. also the explanation of the foundation of Amarapura in Tin, Maung, ‘Manifestation of the King of Kings’, JBRS, IV, 1, 1914Google Scholar.

^{page 575 note 3} On Bodawpaya, , see DBE, 61Google Scholar, where it is clear that Metteya, is meant, and HOB, 276Google Scholar, takes it so. Thaung, , ‘Burmese kingship in theory and practice during the reign of Mindon’, JBRS, XLII, 2, 1959, 175Google Scholar, describes ‘the Burmese acceptance of the idea that their kings were in the direct line of descent from the Khastriya [sic] and that they were also Bodhisattva or incipient Buddhas’. Surprisingly, she goes on, p. 179, ‘the people's identification of their ruler with the future Maitreya Buddha furthered the cause of monarchy’ (my italics). Than Tun, , ‘Mahākassapa and his tradition’ [MHT], JBRS, XLII, 2, 1959, 117Google Scholar, cites an inscription describing Mahākassapa, leader of the Araññavāsi, as one of the ten future Buddhas (cf. GPC, 160, on Thamoddarit, )Google Scholar: Mahākassapa in popular lore to-day is often taken for Metteya; see, however, for the confusion, Bhattacharya, B., Indian Buddhist iconography, Calcutta, 1958, 80Google Scholar, and HOB, 308. A Burmese source, cited in Anon., ‘A letter from the Thagyamin’, Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, xxv, 103, 1905, 21Google Scholar, refers to a ‘Paralaung, that is, the being who is destined in time to come to be the 5th Buddha Arimetteya’. Cf. Stewart, J. A., Kyaukse gazetteer, Rangoon, 1925, p. 44Google Scholar; Duroiselle, C., ‘The Bodhisattva Maitreya in Burma’, JBRS, II, 1, 1912Google Scholar.

It is interesting to note that our gaing Metteya thrones face west, a direction sometimes attributed to Metteya, , see TSIA, p. 167, n. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 576 note 1} Bar., introduction, 88–94, 100–5. His words encourage my approach: ‘Ce sont les rois, en quête d'un appui surhumain pour l'exercise de la religion très positive du pouvoir. Ils ont refait le Buddha à leur image afin de s'autoriser, par un adroit retour, à se poser comme la sienne’ (p. 105). On the retreat of Theravāda from some of its earliest implications, developed in the Mahāyāna, see ch. xii, p. 426.

The ‘logical intermediate stage’ appears in my data on another claimant to Bo Min Gaung's spirit. I quote an informant: ‘Setkyamin is the king who will be the future Buddha. They are not two different persons. After being Setkyamin the Bodaw must go to Tusita and await his coming as Arimadeya’. This lends weight to the story of Bo Bo Aung sending the Setkyamin's spirit to a heaven after his rescue. See my ‘The King of the Weaving Mountain’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, XLVIII, 4, 1961Google Scholar.

^{page 576 note 2} See, inter alia, Duroiselle, C., ‘The Ari of Burma and Tantric Buddhism’, ARASI, 1915–1916, 79–93Google Scholar, and BIB, MHT. Than Tun makes no mention of the jus primae noctis issue described in GPC, 71, though he accepts his Araññavāsis' connexion with sects in Siam which Pelliot, P. (BEFEO, II, 1902, 154)Google Scholar has described as practising this rite: RIB, 68. Further, while one may not agree with Duroiselle that the rite is linked with Tantrism, the evidence of the Minnanthu frescoes cannot be brushed aside as ‘just interior decorations after the fashion of the time’ (RIB, 68). Than Tun refers briefly to ‘many types of Buddhism’ in Pagan, (p. 47)Google Scholar, and accepts the theories of Mahāyāna education from the Pyu and presence of the Mahāyāna in the seals of Aniruddha (‘A history of Burma’, New Burma Weekly (Rangoon), 23 08 1958 and 27 August 1958)Google Scholar: did this influence completely disappear by the thirteenth century and cannot the monks participating in Kyanzittha's palace-building be at least considered as predecessors of the Araññavāsi? It is true that Luce, G. H., ‘Burma down to the fall of Pagan’, JBRS, XXIX, 3, 1939, 273Google Scholar, says ‘it is doubtful if they (the frescoes) have anything do do with the Ari'. But he does not explain this. No mention is made either of Duroiselle's association of Ari with a Nāga cult, following the Chronicle, yet the dragons are mentioned in the Palace Inscription ritual and may be linked both to its Vishnu cult and to local indigenous cults. The connexion of dragons with water and the land's fertility and the many legends of Nāga women marrying kings in the GPC might be remembered before discussing Tantrism. Finally, it should perhaps be noted that Than Tun's bhikkuni seems to belong to the Araññavāsi party: MHT, 100, 115, and ‘History of Burma: A.D. 1300–1400’, JBRS, XLII, 2, 1959, 131Google Scholar. Curious sexual customs are adduced for Hkamti Shans by Duroiselle, 89, and I heard of a case of a monk defrocked for ‘trying to cure a woman by regulating her heartbeat to his in an embrace’. See alson an important note by Brown, R. Grant, ‘On a method of manufacturing charms in Burma’, Man, XVI, No. 67, 1916Google Scholar.

^{page 577 note 1} cf. Finot, L., ‘Un nouveau document sur le bouddhisme briman’, Journal Asiatique, 1912Google Scholar.

^{page 577 note 2} Than Tun's account of the importance of Araññavāsi in the Ava period (MHT, 114–15) coincides with Duroiselle's, account of the ‘Descendants of the Ari’ at that time, op. cit., 93Google Scholar. Stories of the great monks Dhammazedi and Dhammapala as weikzas are very popular in Burma to-day. Cf. too Aung, Htin: ‘Alchemy and alchemists in Burma’, Folk-lore, XLIV, 1933Google Scholar, which unfortunately has no references whatever, the case also of ‘Burmese alchemic beliefs’, JBRS, XXXVI, 2, 1953Google Scholar. It is curious that, of all fleshly enjoyments, only that of sexual congress, with ‘fruit maidens’, is retained by zawgyis. Of the many notes on Ari, Han, Ba, ‘The meaning of Ari’, JBRS, X, 3, 1920Google Scholar, is useful.

^{page 577 note 3} Dr. Than Tun would appear to incline to this view, locating the importation of Hindu lore in the eighteenth century. He did, howecer, place the first reference to weikza-like powers in the fourteenth century, as quoted in MHT, 108 (personal communication, Rangoon, 1959).

^{page 577 note 4} When viewing Burmese culture as a whole, the possibility that late accretions may have been projected back into the past by nineteenth-century authors has its own interest. I refer to may passages in GPC which have, for me, a distinctly gaing flavour: pp. 61–2, 68, 103–4, 110, 143, 167, 169, 176. The myth of the dead ‘fakir’, pp. 75–6, and that of the Pateikkara prince, pp. 105–6, are frequently told among modern gaing people. The extraordinary episodes of Alaungsithu's voyages (pp. 114–15) read as if a royal attempt to obtain cakravartin or even future Buddha status had been frustrated by some power, here symbolized by Sakra; the king wishes to sit on the throne of the Buddhas, to reach Meru, ‘a place that none can reach’, etc. Perhaps this king is not of a sufficiently high grade: I have avoided here discussion of grades of cakravarlin in late literature.

^{page 578 note 1} Especially P.Mus, L'Inde vue de l'est, and Sarkisyanz, , op. cit. (p. 574, n.1)Google Scholar. The problem of nats is merely stated here and will be developed further elsewhere; see my forthcoming ‘The uses of religious scepticism in modern Burma’ in Diogenes.

^{page 579 note 1} This view need not conflict with that developed concerning the ideological passage from pessimism to optimism in Cœdès, G., ‘Le 2,500ème anniversaire du Buddha’ (p. 574, n. 1)Google Scholar: the feeling that ‘bad times’ can be improved by man's will power is not necessarily contradicted by gaing ideology.

For the term ‘nativism’, see Linton, R., ‘Nativistic movements’, American Anthropologist, XLV, 2, 1943Google Scholar.

^{page 579 note 2} For expressions of ‘orthodox views’, see Luce, G. H., ‘Prayers of ancient Burma’, JBRS, XXVI, 3, 1936Google Scholar. In his ‘The Shwegugyi Pagoda inscription’, JBRS, X, 2, 1920Google Scholar, the king wishes to behold Metteya and obtain from him the things needful to Buddhahood. See also RIB, 50–7, where the average donor prays for arhat status in the time of Metteya. The king of GPC, 154, limits his ambition to Silent Buddhahood.

On reincarnated kings, see Luce, G. H., ‘Mons of the Pagan dynasty’, JBRS, XXXVI, 1, 1953, 13Google Scholar, for Kyanzittha first as founder of Srīkṣetra, later as king of Pagan; Stewart, J. A., Kyaukse gazetteer, 1925, 45Google Scholar, on the three Shan kings; HCB, 86, 95, 114, presents curious variants in the time of the Ava-Pegu conflict which can be resolved, however, when we remember how much the two houses were really one family. The richest evidence is in GPC: the Pateikkara prince (of the weikza-like power, p. 105) reappears as Alaungsithu and enshrines ‘his own’ bones in a pagoda, p. 120. The same Alaungsithu's atonement ritual for a sin of pride leaves standing only the images of Pyuminhti, Anawratha, and Kyanzittha (p. 125), the former and latter of which, at p. 160, are the same ‘person’ together with a third king, while Anawratha shares a ‘person’ with Thamoddarit (another future Buddha) and Kyazwa. A third list of three kings is also given. The association of Kyanzittha, Shin Arahan, Mahagiri nat, and general Thekminkaton in a former life reads more like contemporary arguments of the same nature (pp. 106–7) but, at p. 108, a further link through past lives between the king and Shin Arahan enables the latter to cure Kyanzittha through the discovery of ‘his own’ bones. Note that great capitals—Tagaung, p. 1, Prome, p. 19, Pagan, p. 40—are likewise ‘reincarnated’, but here in the time of different Buddhas: this is no doubt associated with the theme of the permanency of the world-centre. Cf. P. Mus's Bar. discussion of successions of Buddhas modelled on successions of kings in chs. xii and xiii.

^{page 580 note 1} Snellgrove, D., Buddhist Himalaya, Oxford, 1957Google Scholar. Does there exist a functional, if not genetic, relation between siddhas and weikzas (pp. 85–6,279)? Note also the argument on pp. 40–1 of his The Hevajra tantra, I, London, 1959Google Scholar. The siddhas appear to be reincarnated in lineages p. 14; on vidyādharas, see p. 11; on the letter E (see p. 566 here), see p. 94, n. 2. See also his ‘The notion of divine kingship in Tantric Buddhism’, in Sacral kingship, Leiden, 1959–especially on Maitreya, , p. 205Google Scholar. This in turn leads to Przyluski's, J. ‘Les Vidyārāja’, BEFEO, XXIII, 1923Google Scholar, with rich material on the two meanings of vidyādhara: mythical being and human magician. Note the association of the latter with sky/amorousness/Himalaya, as opposed to the Lotus family's association with Nāgas.

I am unable to discuss the possible influence of China, though the weikzas often suggest Taoism. Fong's, WenThe Lohans and a bridge to heaven, Washington, 1958Google Scholar, is most suggestive in its account of a Mahāyāna ‘subversion’ of the Hīnayāna legend of the four great śrāvakas, led by Mahākāśyapa (cf. p. 575, n. 3). The theme of waiting for Metteya is well to the fore here at a crucial point in the relations between the two great divisions of Buddhism.