Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/691

Rh A M A A M A 653 and even the eleventh, have also been assigned, on the sup position that the Vikramaditya spoken of was not the first but a later monarch of the name. Amara seems to have been a Buddhist; and an early tradition asserts that his works, with one exception, were destroyed during the per secution carried on by the orthodox Brahmins in the fifth century. The exception is the celebrated Amara-Kosha (Treasury of Amara), a vocabulary of Sanscrit roots, in three books, and hence sometimes called Trikanda, or the &quot;Tripartite.&quot; It contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory. The first chapter of the Kosha was printed at Rome in Tamil character, in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by Colebrooke, appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanscrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by Loiseleur- Dcslongchamps was published at Paris in 1839. AMARANTH, or AMARANT (from the Greek d/xapavT09, unwitheriug), a name chiefly used in poetry, and applied to certain plants which, from not soon fading, typified immortality. Thus Milton (Paradise Lost, iii. 353) : &quot; Immortal amarant, a flower which once In paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man s offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o er elysian flowers her amber stream: With these that never fade the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks.&quot; The famous flowers, however, still live upon earth, and are known in our gardens as love-lies-bleeding, prince s feather, cockscomb, and the globe amaranth. As we wreathe our churches in winter with holly and ivy, the churches in Portugal and other southern countries are adorned with the pixrple tints of the globe amaranth, which is said to retain its colour for years. It should be noted that the proper spelling of the word is amarant; the more common spelling seems to have come from a hazy notion that the final syllable is the Greek word for flower, which enters into a vast number of botanical names. AMARAPURA, literally &quot; the City of the Gods,&quot; a town of independent Burmah, situated on the east bank of the Irawadl river, in 21 57 N. lat., and 73 4 E. long. The town was founded in 1783, and made the capital of the Burmese kingdom. It increased rapidly in size and popu lation, and in 1810 was estimated to contain 170,000 inhabitants; but in that year the town was destroyed by fire, and this disaster, together with the removal of the native court in 1819, caused a decline in the prosperity of the place. In 1827 its popiilation was estimated at only 30,000. Since then it has suffered another severe calamity from an earthquake, which in 1839 destroyed the greater part of the city. It is regularly laid out, but, with the exception of some temples, is built only of bamboos, although several of the buildings, being richly gilt, have a showy appearance. The most remarkable edifice is a cele brated temple, adorned with 250 lofty pillars of gilt wood, and containing a colossal bronze statue of Buddha. The remains of the ancient palace of the Burmese monarchs still survive in the centre of the town. During the time of its prosperity Amarapura was defended by a rampart and a large square citadel, with a broad moat, the walls being 7000 feet long and 20 feet high, with a bastion at each corner. AMASIA, or AMASIAYAH, a town in Anatolia, Turkey, situated on both sides of the Yeshil-Irmak, or Iris, in a narrow gorge about 80 miles from the mouth of the river. The houses being ill-built and the streets narrow, the town would have a mean appearance but for its situation and the splendid remains of antiquity in its neighbourhood. The most remarkable of these are the Acropolis, which 13 built on a lofty rock overhanging the town; the tombs of the kings of Pontus, described by Strabo the geographer, a native of Amasia; and a handsome mosque, erected in 1490 by the Sultan Bajazet II. The chief productions of Amasia and the surrounding districts are silk, salt, wheat, wine, and cotton. Population of the town, 25,000. AMASIS, King of Egypt, ascended the throne 569 B.C. From the rank of a common soldier he gradually rose to be one of the principal officers in the court of Apries, the last king of the line of Psammetichus. Being commissioned by Apries to quell an insurrection, he went over to the rebels, who proclaimed him king. Apries, whose tyranny had caused nearly all his subjects to desert him, took the field with an army of mercenaries, and meeting Amasis near Memphis, was defeated and taken prisoner. The usurper treated the captive prince with great lenity; but so violent was the popular hatred, that he was compelled to deliver him into the hands of his enraged countrymen, who in stantly put him to death by strangling. Under the pru dent administration of Amasis, Egypt enjoyed the greatest prosperity. He adorned it with numerous and splendid buildings, among which were a portico to the temple of Minerva at Sais, and the great temple of Isis at Mem phis. He also erected a colossus before the temple of Vulcan, 75 feet in length, resting on its back; and on the basis stood two statues, each 20 feet high, cut out of the same stone. To gain the alliance of the Greeks, he allotted settlements for them on the sea-coast, permitting them to build temples, and to observe all the rites of their religion unmolested; and when the temple of the Delphians was burnt he presented them with 1000 talents to assist them in rebuilding it. He also married a Grecian lady, named Ladice, the daughter of Battus of Cyrene, and had a bodyguard of Greeks in his pay. Solon, the celebrated lawgiver, is reported to have visited Amasis. The close of his reign was disturbed by the threatened invasion of Cambyses, king of Persia, and by the rupture of the alliance between Amasis and Polycrates of Samos. (See POLYCRATES.) Amasis, however, did not live to see the conquest of Egypt, for he died in 525, before the Persians had entered the country. AMAT, FELIX, a Spanish ecclesiastical historian, was born at Sabadell, in the diocese of Barcelona, 10th August 1750. He entered the church in 1767, and after taking his doctor s degree at Grenada in 1770, was made professor of philosophy and librarian in the episcopal seminary at Barcelona. In these offices, and in that of director of the seminary, which he subsequently held, his talents and energy did much to advance the efficiency of the institu tion. In 1803 he was made archbishop of Palmyra by the pope, and in the same year the king, Charles IV., created him abbot of St Ildefonso. When the war with France broke out in 1794, Amat was at first looked upon as an undoubted patriot, but latterly he was suspected, and with some reason, of favouring the French cause. He was compelled to leave Madrid on the entry of the British in 1812; and was subsequently, in 1814, banished to Cata lonia. He died in a Franciscan convent near Salent on 28th September 1824. Amat s chief work is his Ecclesias tical History, from the birth of Christ to the end of the 18th century, originally published in twelve volumes (1793-1803). It was condemned by the Inquisition, but rather on political than on religious grounds. His other works are numerous, the most important being his Observations on Ecclesiastical Poiver and his Six Letters to Irenicus, in which he attacked the theory that consent of. the subjects is the necessary foundation of sovereignty. Amat was a man of gigantic stature, being, it is said, at the age of seventeen, 7 feet 2 inches in height