An Old Arakanese Love Poem

Extract

Readers of my The Land of the Great Image will remember how the Portuguese friar, Brother Manrique, came in 1630 over the rainy mountains to Mahāmuni in Arakan, the most celebrated Buddhist shrine at that time in Further India. The King of Arakan, Thiri-thu-dhamma, was visiting the shrine, having travelled by house-boat from his capital, Mrauk-u, the Monkey's Egg, which lay on the Eiver of Jems some 40 miles distant. The friar was received in audience at the foot of the sacred hill, Sirigutta, upon the top of which stood the Mahāmuni, one of the portrait images of the Buddha supposed to have been cast in his lifetime, another being located in Tavatimsa, a paradisal region inhabited by the displaced Hindu gods, who, having been converted to the truth, desired to possess in their territory an image of the Blessed One to worship.