Page:Niti literature (Gray J, 1886).pdf/9

viii connected with the following works—the Lokanîti, the Dhammanîti, the Râjanîti, and the Suttavaddhananîti: Of these, the first three are original recensions in the Mâgadhese dialect, adapted from Sanskrit works; while the last is a comparatively recent collection of useful maxims from the Buddhist canon itself. The former form a group in themselves, and owe their importance to being of Sanskritic origin. The remarks which follow are in special reference to them alone.

The earliest reference in Burmese literature to the Lokanîti and Râjanîti is, so far as I have been able to ascertain, to be found in the Arakan Râzâwin, or "Chronicles of Arakan," in connection with Prince Kha Maung's visit to Pegu early in the seventeenth century. Mention of the Dhammanîti is rarely met with, as it seems never to have become a handbook for study like the other two. The exact dates of these collections in Burma are not recorded anywhere, nor is their authorship a matter of certainty. That they were compiled between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries is not unlikely, judging from the progress of literature under the patronage of Burmese kings. King Anoratha, in the first half of the eleventh century, organised an expedition to Thaton, and obtained thence a copy of the Buddhist Scriptures. Their interpretation was then only possible through the Mun language. The Mun alphabet was consequently adopted by the Burmese, and the learned among the latter made the literature written in it an important study. Wars between the Muns and Burmese led eventually to a good deal of intercommunication between the two races. Hindu colonists, besides, had settled on the lower valleys of the Irawadi and Sittang rivers, and a religious struggle between Brahmans and Buddhists resulted in evoking the erudition of the learned Puṇṇas. Their services were soon utilised by the Burmese kings in furtherance of the cause of literature, and it was through their invaluable assistance that the study of Sanskrit became a sine quâ non