INTRODUCTION

Any analysis seeking a holistic understanding of the nature of contacts between India and Southeast Asia needs to encompass the interactive dynamics in the larger Indian Ocean region. The Indian Ocean region is geographically divisible into the Western Indian Ocean region consisting of the littoral of Africa, Arabia, Persia and Pakistan and the west coast of India; and the eastern Indian Ocean region covering the east coast of India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia (Fig. 9.1). The Indian subcontinent, due to its central location, acted as an important meeting locus for the south-western and the south-eastern Indian Ocean regions. The Indian subcontinent was also an important region of cultural production that had lasting impact on the Indian Ocean region. People, ideas, goods, and animal and plant species travelled across the Ocean, perhaps from prehistoric times and such interactions have impacted the socio-cultural formations, directly or indirectly (McPherson 1993; Gupta 2002; Ray 2003; Blench et al. 2005; Dick-Read 2006). Why did people look/travel beyond the Ocean? A number of factors, such as the demand for prestige goods – rather than subsistence goods – and the boost in trade induced by the efflorescence of ‘civilisations’ or early states or population pressure in one region or another, interest in material wealth, curiosity, and the adventurous nature of humans to explore far-off lands, probably, gave impetus to the interactions across the Ocean.

In the area of interactions between India and Southeast Asia, the contributions of India have a higher visibility and often it is not clear in what way Southeast Asia influenced India. This paper presents a discussion on the probable Southeast Asian origin of two technological elements – namely, the ‘carved paddle beating’ technique in ceramic tradition and ‘lashed-lug technique’ of securing planks in boat building tradition – that are represented in archaeological and/or ethnographical contexts in India. For the interactions between India and Southeast Asia, textual sources and archaeological evidence such as architecture, pottery and a variety of artefacts are available. The paper primarily focuses on the two technological elements mentioned above, and hence it is not the intention here to present an exhaustive survey of the entire evidence for the contacts between India and Southeast Asia in ceramic and boat building traditions.

INTRODUCTION

This paper summarises the evidence from Ban Don Ta Phet (henceforth BDTP) in the light of recent studies on the site itself as well as of new discoveries in Thailand, and makes special reference to the analyses of metal, glass and hard stone artefacts from the excavations at Khao Sam Kaeo (henceforth KSK) in Chumphon Province, Peninsular Thailand (Fig. 2.1). The latter is the project of a joint French-Thai team with a strong focus on technological analyses of craft productions involved into Trans-Asiatic exchange. Over thirty years ago a series of excavations commenced at BDTP, an Iron Age burial site in Kanchanaburi Province (west-central Thailand) which yielded, what at the time, was the earliest clear and dated evidence for contacts between Southeast Asia and India. A carnelian lion pendant provisionally identified by Glover (1990a) as a representation of Buddha as Sakyasima (Lion of the Sakya Clan) in the late centuries before the Christian Era, was interpreted as a precursor to the introduction of Buddhism into Southeast Asia. New data and analyses enable us to augment and revise previous interpretations of BDTP, to compare and contrast it to KSK, and to raise new issues on the timing and nature of early exchange between South and Southeast Asia and across the South China Sea.

This site was first excavated in 1975 with subsequent investigations up to 2000 by teams from the Archaeological Division of the Fine Arts Department of Thailand (henceforth FAD) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and many reports, booklets, journal and conference articles have been published over the years in Thai and English (Glover 1980, 1983, 1990; Glover et al. 1984 among others). New studies of the site and renewed analyses of the finds (Srinivasan and Glover 1995; Bellina 2007; Woods 2002; Lankton and Dussubieux 2006; Lankton pers. comm. May 2007) and comparisons with the excavations at KSK (Bellina and Silapanth 2006, 2008) both deepen, and to some extent change, our understanding of BDTP and allow us to raise new issues on the timing and nature of early exchange between South and Southeast Asia and across the South China Sea.

The Andaman Coast of the southern region of Thailand displays numerous evidences that reveal the long history of trade and cultural contacts between Thailand and other countries. By the early part of the Common Era these trade routes reached out to bring together the previously rather disparate Southeast Asian exchange systems, linking them into a vast network stretching from Western Europe, via the Mediterranean Basin, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, to India, Southeast Asia and China. This period saw the first appearance of what has been called the World System (Glover 1996: 59). The contacts caused the communities located along the Andaman Coast to rapidly become a significant trading-station in Southeast Asia (Fig. 4.1).

EARLY SEAPORTS ON THE ANDAMAN COAST

The southern region of Thailand is geographically part of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, forming a natural wall stretching into the sea. The area became a meeting point for the ships sailing between the east and the west. This led to the establishment of the early trading-stations on the Andaman Coast. During the uncomfortable journey along the coastline, resting points were essential for tired sailors and crews. Consequently, commercial connections fostered cultural exchange and engendered settlements of foreign sailors and traders, especially Indian people, during early times. The foreigners gradually merged with the local people. Later on Indian merchants established trading-stations at many ports in Southeast Asia. In ancient Indian literature, the area was called Suwannaphumi (Swarnabhumi). The trading stations founded by Indians did not distribute only Indian goods, but also Roman products and items that imitated the original Roman goods. The Roman items came to Southeast Asia because at that time the Romans had already founded many trading stations in India (Phasook Indrawooth 2005: 37). The archaeological site Khuan Luk Pat at Khlong Thom, Krabi Province, is located on the coast of the Andaman Sea. There is archaeological evidence that illustrates the contacts with overseas regions since the beginning of the Common Era. The number of beads found at this site is ample enough to say that this place was once significant bead-making site in Thailand.

INTRODUCTION

One geographical area dealing with transoceanic trade covers the present states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It formed a distinctive linguistic identity and cultural homogeneity, particularly during the early historic period. The Tamil language and Tamil-Brahmi script is found engraved on memorial stones, caves, coins, seals, rings and on ceramics in the above geographical zone with great uniformity. These inscribed objects clearly suggest a common language with its own script, established as a native language well before the third century BCE, one of the prerequisites for trade. This linguistic uniformity would not have been achieved without minimum, continuous cultural interaction. The striking similarity observed in various Iron Age monuments clearly points to the emergence of cultural homogeneity. The available archaeological sites further suggest that human occupation was widespread and transcended different ecological zones (Fig. 8.1). The continuous human occupation led to resource mobilization leading in turn to resource transactions through trade. The long survival of trade centres and port towns located in an economically viable resource zone are fine indicators of its natural growth and expansion (Fig. 8.2). The exploitation of natural resources like iron ore, pearl fishery, gemstone industry, spices, forest products, etc., transformed the cultural matrix of the place through the introduction of new technology in the area of production and in transportation. The state protection and formation of trade guilds had an indirect impact on development of trade. These multiple factors played a crucial role in maintaining these commercial activities over a period. The present study attempts to focus on the trade that existed between fifth century BCE and third century CE. These dynamic trading activities have been discussed in the backdrop of recent archaeological evidence that surfaced in India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the West.

The long survival of Iron Age monuments spanning over one thousand years shows the establishment of settlements in different ecological zones. It shows no cultural break between the Iron Age and early historic phase though there is a marked difference in ways of life. The manifold activities of the Iron Age people have been observed in the late phase of Iron Age.

The original aim of this paper, following from my own work in early medieval Indian history, was to explore the role that South Asian political ideas and practices played in the transformation of early Southeast Asian societies. Partly inspired by Hermann Kulke's work on state-formation, partly by Sheldon Pollock's recent theory of the ‘Sanskrit cosmopolis’, both of which, in different ways, have argued for strong continuities in the cultural and social development of South and Southeast Asia in early medieval times, I sought to correlate the literary, ideological and administrative aspects of early Indonesian inscriptions against their wider social contexts. The research, however, threw up some major analytical problems which have proved very instructive, the most pertinent of which was the difficulty of linking language practice and ideologies on the one hand and state ‘structures’ and social formations on the other. My findings, which seem clearly as relevant for South as for Southeast Asian history, suggest that the relations between ‘cultural practices’ and state structures are highly complex and shifting. While this may seem like a point of almost staggering banality, I hope to show more precisely how such an analytical awareness may add a new perspective on highly-touted theories of linguistic and cultural ‘cosmopolitanism’ inspired by Pollock's work. Before turning to the evidence, this essay will place the discussion within an analytical environment through a brief survey of major approaches to understanding the role of South Asian culture in Southeast Asian history.

SANSKRIT AND STATE FORMATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: FROM EMPIRE TO COSMOPOLIS

The historiography of South and Southeast Asian interactions, and indeed the conceptualization of the conference itself, ‘Early Indian influences in Southeast Asia’, has a well-established pedigree. Since at least the end of the nineteenth century, but more clearly since the rise of nationalist historiography in India, the topic has been of great interest to both scholars of South and Southeast Asian history. While there is no space here for a complete review of this work, it will be useful to present a brief account of the major approaches in order to situate my own concerns. Earlier generations of nationalist scholarship in India forwarded the idea of Hindu colonies in the Far East, of a vast cultural ‘empire’ known as ‘Greater India’.

It is generally accepted that the dissemination of Hindu-Buddhist beliefs and ritual practises in first millennium Southeast Asia were largely the result of initiatives of local rulers to recruit Brahman priests and Buddhist monks able to secure their political and personal welfare. Yet it remains equally selfevident that the medium of transmission of both an awareness of Indian culture, and of its agents and propagators, were the merchant vessels which linked the Indian Ocean diaspora. It follows that a study of early traces of Indian merchant activity in the region should provide clues to the early entry of Indic religious systems into the emerging states and kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

The legacy of these early contacts and engagements are indicated by the scattering of Indic script stone stele inscriptions, both royal and mercantile, and by the regional distribution of the earliest Indic religious imagery, imported and locally produced. The vast majority of the inscriptions identify the patron, usually a local ruler who had assumed the trappings of Hindu culture, often including obeisance to Shiva or Vishnu and a Sanskritised honorific title and name-form. Religious imagery is, after the inscriptions, our single most important source of knowledge of the religious allegiances assumed by these rulers and has, through the study of style and iconography, the potential to clarify the regional origins of the propagators from the subcontinent (Figs. 11.1 and 11.2).

One of the earliest examples of a local ruler with clear Hindu religious affiliations is known from the Purnavarman inscription. This rock-cut inscription was located in a river-bed at Ciaruteun, near Bogor, West Java, and dedicated by a local ruler titled Purnavarman, who declared himself as the famous king of Tarumanagara [kingdom] and a devotee of Vishnu, and represented himself by a pair of footprints (pada), the same device used to evoke a divine presence (Fig. 11.3). This Sanskrit inscription is written in a cursive Tamil Grantha script in a style associated with the period, c. 450. The ruler, presumed to be local, has adopted an Indic name-form, and consistent with most ruler-names appearing in Sanskrit inscriptions of this early period, has the south Indian word-ending ‘varman’, a convention associated with the Pallava-clan of Tamil Nadu.

INTRODUCTION

Excavation and restoration works conducted on ancient sites of Southeast Asia brought to light numerous miscellaneous objects installed at different locations inside the walls or in the foundations of ancient temples. These objects include precious and semi-precious stones, figures cut out of gold leaf, fragments of metals, inscribed metal sheets, grains and seeds, often enclosed in containers, such as jars or boxes. The number of excavated containers and stray objects is very high. In the course of my research I could trace over one hundred such finds originating from the temples of Southeast Asia. But their number is certainly higher as not all finds have been documented.

The excavated objects have been mentioned in a number of publications, mainly in the archaeological reports. Yet, there was, until present, no publication in which all the information about these finds could be gathered and analysed as a group. Consequently, no satisfactory explanation of the function and meaning of these finds could be given. A few scholars (see, for example O'Connor 1966 and Mitra 1981) suggested a connection between one or other specific finds and temple construction ceremonies. But no thorough study on this subject was ever conducted. The hints as to how to interpret the excavated objects cannot unfortunately be found in the very regions where the objects were discovered. In Java, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam, where the majority of the objects were found, the indigenous manuals on temple architecture and temple building rituals either did not exist or did not survive. The surviving textual sources – the literary works of Java or Cambodia and the inscriptions – do not mention such objects or their installation within temples.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS

Among the objects unearthed from ancient monuments of Southeast Asia, at least two types can be distinguished on the basis of shared characteristics. The first type consists of cubical containers divided into a fixed number of regular compartments. Inside these compartments were found numerous small items, such as those listed above, namely semi-precious stones, figures cut out of gold leaf, grains, and so on. The second type consists of four bricks and a number of miscellaneous items. At the moment of discovery, the four bricks formed a square and the small items were lying in the middle of them.

The importance of Gupta-period sculpture to the art of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia has been stressed by many scholars for over a century. The Gupta Period is roughly the fourth-sixth centuries during which the Gupta dynasty controlled much of north India. The Gupta-period artistic style was fairly consistent and emphasised an idealised naturalism that has been praised for its artistic excellence. It is also seen to have relationships with some of the earliest art that developed in Southeast Asia. My paper outlines how these relationships can be defined. It places the Gupta-related art into the context of other Indian art, of Sri Lankan art, of Chinese art, and then each of these with Southeast Asian art. It aims to question several of the standard scholarly assumptions made in regard to the relationship of Gupta-period and Southeast Asian art.

WHAT IS GUPTA-PERIOD ART?

The Gupta dynasty began rule in 320, reached its political zenith around 400, and was losing its strength a century later, by around 500. There is very little art that can be attributed to the fourth century, during the initial decades of Gupta political growth. Indeed there is little art in north India that can be placed in this century, following the end of the Kushan dynastic control and the rise of the Guptas. The Guptas themselves appear not to have been patrons of sculpture or temples, as we have no sculpture and only a few temple remains that were patronized by them. Their interest in visual arts seems limited to coins, with their gold coins reaching a high level of artistic excellence. Members of the Vakataka dynasty, linked through marriage with the Guptas, were, on the other hand, major patrons of both Hindu and Buddhist sculpture and temples. The Buddhist cave temples at Ajanta were done under the Vakatakas in the second half of the fifth century. By the middle of the sixth century we can say the Gupta-period style of art is ending, and during the seventh-century, sculpture in north India will become transformed into a much more formalised, flattened, and conceptual style.

INTRODUCTION

The earliest evidence for medieval Tamil involvement in northern Sumatra currently comes from Lobu Tua near Barus on the west coast of the island. An inscription with a date equivalent to CE 1088 (Sastri 1932) announces the presence of the ticai ayirattu annurruvar – ‘The Five Hundred of a Thousand Directions’ who at Vorōcu, agreed amongst themselves certain dues (Subbarayalu 1998, 2002). Vorōcu, i.e. Barus, also called Fansur, was well known to Arab and Persian traders of the ninth century as a source of valuable forest products, benzoin and camphor, that came from the mountainous forested hinterland of this coast. It seems, however, that the profits to be made from the camphor trade attracted many different groups of traders who made their way to Barus, and these included Tamils as well as Javanese and others (Guillot 1998).

Not only has a Tamil inscription been found at Lobu Tua, but about one hundred years ago a Buddha image was recovered from this site (Anon 1899, 12). The image was destined to be sent to the museum in Batavia but it somehow disappeared en route. Unfortunately no description or illustration of the image has survived, but if one may speculate, based on the archaeological context in which it was found and what has been recovered at Kota Cina, then it was, in all likelihood, a provincial Chola style figure set up by the Tamil trading community. That a Buddha figure was recovered from this site is important in understanding the overall context of Tamil involvement at Barus, for like that at Kota Cina, it was in all probability erected by merchants who were adherents of a form of syncretic mercantile Buddhist/Saiva cult known as Cholappauttam, originally imported from Kerala to Tamilakam (southern India) and Ilam (Sri Lanka). This syncretic form of Buddhist/Saiva religion was practiced in mercantile port communities in southern India and northern Sri Lanka (Schalk 2005, 776, 841). Membership composition of the guilds was of a composite character, mostly being adherents of cults within the fold of Hinduism, but at the same time, eclectic, extending patronage to Saivaite, Vaisnavite and Buddhist institutions.

In North Sumatra, archaeological excavations on settlements dating from the historical era started at the beginning of the 1970s with researches conducted in Kota Cina, a site located on the east coast, between Medan and Belawan. This settlement, dated between the end of the eleventh century CE and the first half of the fourteenth century CE, notably yielded imagery almost certainly of south Indian origin (McKinnon 1984, 1994, 1996, 2003).

Some ten years later, a team of archaeologists at the National Research Centre for Archaeology of Indonesia conducted the first test pits in Barus on the opposite coast. The outcome of this initiative led to the launch in 1995 of a joint French-Indonesian archaeological research programme focused on the coastal site of Lobu Tua. It was completed in 2000 after five stages of excavations on this settlement dated between mid-ninth and the end of the eleventh century (Guillot (ed.) 1998; Guillot et al. 2003).

A new joint research programme was set up the following year involving the École française d'Extrême-Orient and the National Research Centre for Archaeology of Indonesia, in order to study the main ancient settlements of Tapanuli, an area covering roughly the western half of the North Sumatra province. The first phase, between 2001 and 2005, was focused on other settlements in the Barus area, especially the site of Bukit Hasang founded during the twelfth century (Perret & Surachman (eds.) forthcoming). With the knowledge accumulated during these eleven years on the west coast, the team then started a second phase in 2006, moving to the study of inland sites. Padang Lawas, an area well known for its numerous Hindu-Buddhist temple remains, was the logical choice for this phase. From that year, excavations have been conducted twice in the site of Si Pamutung.

When combined with previous discoveries, the finds collected during recent surveys and excavations bring new perspectives on the nature and intensity of the relations between Tapanuli and South Asia, especially south India and Sri Lanka, between mid-ninth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century.

When medieval Khmer artists chiselled into the sandstone lintel, components of the lintel design were entirely of their own making. The sovereign, project superintendent, and team supervisor all possessed the requisite power to tell artisans what to carve, but idiosyncratic differences in every work indicate that the majority of the specific decision-making was left to the artist. Control over every small detail of artistic creation would have been difficult to realise and administer. The patrons of the sculptural and architectural commissions apparently trusted the ability of the artists to produce work with the requisite symbolic and aesthetic power. Most of the time, artists selected and rendered iconography from a repertoire of forms known to them from training and tradition. But the medieval Khmer artistic tradition also facilitated innovation and difference between objects. The most important decorative lintels, situated on the most visible prasat and façades were often a chance for artists to demonstrate their creativity and skill by distinguishing their work. Even lintels that were carved at modest village shrines possess eccentricities in iconography and form. The recognition of the multitude differences in decorative lintels opens the way for a more exuberant and humane perspective of artistic change in the Angkorian world. When variation in the different components of artistic and material culture are assessed, change can be perceived as dynamic and constant, where medieval Khmer artists actively make novel associations of iconography and form.

The monuments of Cambodia abound with Indian derived motifs and deities. The medieval inscriptions likewise reveal a profound familiarity with the corpus of Indian Sanskrit literature. The substantial influence of Indian cultures on Southeast Asia, known as ‘Indianisation’ has framed much research on the Angkorian world. In order to understand medieval Khmer culture, repeated reference has been made to Indian meanings and texts which may have had little association with specific Southeast Asian contexts. This has created a problematic and uneasy dichotomy where the indigenous elements of medieval Khmer culture were determined by subtracting the correspondences with India. There is a body of contemporary scholarship, however, that seeks to emphasise Southeast Asian initiative through recognition of detail in the historical process.

In late 2006, the National Library Board (NLB), in the person of Mrs Pushpa Latha Devi Naidu, approached ISEAS with a proposal for a ‘Conference on Early Indian Influences in Southeast Asia’. The conference was to be held in conjunction with an exhibition that NLB was organising. Professors Mani and Ramasamy were asked to coordinate the conference with funding contributions from the NLB, Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), Asia Research Institute (ARI), and the Chola Mandalam Group in Tamil Nadu. ISEAS on its part provided the logistical support and coordination for the conference with additional funding support. It is important to note the help that Professors Hermann Kulke and Pierre-Yves Manguin, visiting scholars at ARI rendered to the conceptualisation of the conference. A total of 52 regional and international experts presented papers on various aspects of early Indian Influence in Southeast Asia at the three-day conference from 21 to 23 November 2007. The themes of the conference included ‘naval expeditions of the Cholas’, ‘archaeological and inscriptional evidence of early Indian influence’, ‘ancient and medieval commercial activities’ and ‘regional cultures and localization’.

The papers are being published as two separate volumes under the auspices of the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre at ISEAS. Hermann Kulke, K. Kesavapany and Vijay Sakhuja edited the volume on Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia, while Pierre-Yves Manguin, A. Mani and Geoff Wade edited this volume on Early Interactions between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-Cultural Exchange. The papers in both volumes present the reflections of scholars on this important historical period of Southeast Asia and its relations with South Asia.

I wish to thank all the co-sponsors of the project, namely the Directors of NLB, ISAS and ARI for their generous support. I also wish to thank Mr Subbiah of the Chola Mandalam Group in Tamil Nadu for the interest he showed by his active participation in the three-day conference. Finally I extend my appreciation to Professor Manguin, Professor Mani and Dr Wade for their editorial contributions in successfully completing the editing of this large volume.

One of the major imports to early Southeast Asia from India was religion: specifically, Buddhism and Hinduism. In particular, the Hindu religion (Brahminism) established the cosmological and political legitimisation of kingship in the courts of Southeast Asia. The ‘brahmins’ who preside over court rituals in contemporary Cambodia and Thailand are said to be direct descendants of Angkorian ‘brahmins’, but this identification is highly contested. By Indian definition and from a ritual perspective, the term brahmin generally referred to those whose caste and gotras (ritual lineage) go back to the Vedic period. Scholars of ritual and religions have questioned whether the ‘brahmins’ of Southeast Asia were ‘brahmins’ by the Indian definition, and if so, in what sense. Was there a caste system in ancient Cambodia?

This paper will address the debate and ask what information about ritual and what religious criteria are needed in order to evaluate the status of these so-called ‘brahmins’ in ancient Cambodia. My agenda here is not to reveal the illegitimate status of these so-called ‘brahmins’ but to provide alternative explanations for the construction of ritual authority, and to determine who has the power to define and to legitimise the social status of ‘brahmins’ in local contexts.

NATIONAL NARRATIVE ACCORDING TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

A series of narrative paintings was featured in the March 1960 issue of National Geographic Magazine. These paintings accompanied an article written by W. Robert Moore, Chief, Foreign Editorial Staff, entitled, ‘Angkor, Jewel of the Jungle’. The paintings, by Maurice Fiévet, a French artist, provide a visual, chronological narrative of the history of ancient Cambodia from the founding of Angkor in CE 802 to the collapse of the Khmer empire in CE 1431. The most conspicuous aspect of the juxtaposition of text and image is Moore's apparent efforts to present the events depicted in Fiévet's paintings as ‘fact’ rather than fiction. For instance, the opening statement reads:

Arakan is one of the fourteen states and divisions that composed together in the Union of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is located on the boundary of present-day Myanmar and Bangladesh. Situated east of Vanga and Samatata of ancient India, Arakan was in olden days a thriving, independent border state beyond the Indian subcontinent. Indologists who write about the history and culture of ancient India have never mentioned this area where high standards of life, culture and art flourished. Under the cultural influence of India, city-states flourished in the first millennium of the Christian Era (CE). They are Dhaññavatī and Vesālī. The Gupta-period sculptures point the city of Dhaññavatī to the fifth century CE (Gutman 2001: 19) and art and numismatic studies place Vesālī between about sixth and tenth centuries CE (Gutman 1976; 2001: 41), although a fourteenth-century radiocarbon date from a city gatepost suggests intermittent reoccupation (Hudson 2005).

About fifty Sanskrit and Pāli inscriptions written in Gupta, Devanāgarī and proto-Bengali scripts between the period of fifth and tenth centuries CE were found in Arakan. Most of the inscriptions can be assigned to the Vesālī period. Interestingly, none of the inscriptions found in Arakan during the first millennium CE were inscribed in vernacular languages; all were written in the classical languages of Sanskrit or Pāli using Indian scripts. This is due to the cultural impact, especially the Buddhicisation, of ancient India on this region which is situated very close to the subcontinent.

Most of the inscriptions from the Vesālī period bear the gāthā (verse) of ye dhammā. According to archaeological data, the ye dhammā verses were first inscribed around the fifth-sixth centuries (Mya 1961b: 17). We do not know whether the custom of inscribing the ye dhammā gāthā appeared first among the Mahāyāna or Theravāda schools. However, most of the ye dhammā inscription of the fifth century CE were written in Pāli. Between sixth and seventh centuries, the ye dhammā gāthā were commonly in usage both in Pāli and Sanskrit languages.