Tsampenago is the Burmese form of a Pali name, Champa-nagara, from nagam, town, and Champa, the seat of a powerful kingdom, flourishing in the era of Gaudama, the ruins of which are still visible near Bhaugulpore, on the Ganges. Tsampenago, then, means the city of Champa.
The founder and first king of Tsampenago was Tsitta, and his queen’s name was Wattee. They were childless, which was a cause of great grief, and the queen prayed earnestly for an heir. A son was promised to her by a dream, in which the king of the Devas presented her with a valuable gem. Soon after this, the king’s brother Kuttha rebelled, and attacked the city with a great army. The king and queen fled for their lives to Wela, a mountain three thousand feet high, a day’s journey north of Tsampenago. They were pursued, but the queen escaped and was preserved by the nats, on the mountain, where her son was born and named Welatha. The king was taken prisoner and confined in chains. When Welatha was six years old, he saw his mother in tears, and by questioning her learned that he was a prince, and his father a captive. When he was seven, his mother yielded to his importunity, and sent him, with her royal ornaments, to visit his father. On approaching Tsampenago, he met his father being led out to execution. The brave boy stopped the procession, and revealed himself, offering to die instead of his father. Kuttha ordered him to be thrown into the Irawady. But the river rose in tremendous waves, the earth shook, and the executioners could not, for terror, obey the royal order. This being reported to Kuttha, he ordered that the prince should be trodden to death by wild elephants, but the beasts could not be goaded to attack him. A deep pit was dug and filled with burning fuel, into which the prince was cast, but the flames came on him like cool water, and the burning fagots became lilies. When Kuttha heard this, in his fury he had the young prince taken down to the Deva-faced mountain (second defile), and cast from the great precipice into the river, but he was caught up by a naga, and carried away to the naga country. The earth quaked, many thunderbolts fell, the Irawady rolled up its waves, and broke down its banks. Kuttha was seized with terror, and as he fled forth of the city gate, the earth opened and swallowed him up. Thereupon, the nagas brought back the young prince and his father, and they reigned jointly. Their first care was to seek for the queen, but on approaching the mountain of Wela, the flowers were few, and their fragrance gone, and the queen was found dead. History says nothing of their after reign, but records that in the 218th year of the Buddhist sacred era, in obedience to the command of the universal monarch, four pagodas were built in the kingdom of Tsampenago—the Shuaykeenah, the Bhamô Shuay-za-tee; Koung-ting, and two others. The next item of history states that in the year 400 of the era (probably the vulgar era of 638 A.D.) the succession of kings being destroyed, and the glory of the former rulers having departed, the tsawbwa Tholyen did not dare to live in the city; so he founded a new one at the village of Manmau, and made it his capital. Now man is Shan for village, and mau for a pot; thus Bhamô, or Manmau, signifies Potters’ Village, a name still justified by the pottery there manufactured. How Tsampenago was destroyed, is not historically certain, but a tradition exists among the Shans, that it was overthrown by an army of Singphos from the north-west. After Tholyen, twenty-three tsawbwas are said to have ruled in succession at Bhamô over a district comprising one hundred and thirty-six villages. The succession was then broken, and the country was ruled by Shan deputies. After this, tsawbwas were obtained from Momeit, who ruled over Bhamô till Oo-Myat-bung and his family were made slaves by the great Alompra about 1760. Ever since, the district has been governed by myo-woons appointed by the king of Burma. The first, Thoonain, settled the boundaries of the district, including only eighty-eight villages, the eastern and north-eastern boundaries being given as China.
The legend of Tsampenago records the erection of the Shuaykeenah pagoda, the name of which at least is preserved to the present day by the group of pagodas situated on an eminence north of Tsampenago. These are still the holy places of the neighbourhood, and are thronged with pilgrims at the March festival. The great gilded pagoda has been re-edified by royal bounty and popular offerings, but others are from time to time added by private votaries. Thus it was our good fortune to witness the laying the foundation of a votive pagoda at Shuaykeenah. A small square of ground, the exact size of the base of the intended pagoda, was railed off by a fantastic bamboo fence, two feet high, decorated with flowers and paper flags. A wooden pin, covered with silver tinsel, and bearing a lighted yellow taper, was fixed in the centre, and another about two feet from the south-eastern corner of the level plot; round the first a quadrangular trench, and a deep hole by the side of the other were dug and sprinkled with water. Eight bricks, each the exact size of one side of the trench, were prepared. On four the name of Gaudama was inscribed in black paint; on the others, a leaf of gold was placed on the centre of one, silver on the second, a square of green paint on the third, and red on the fourth, each having a border of green. A round earthen vase containing gold, silver, and precious stones, besides rice and sweetmeats, was closed with wax in which a lighted taper was stuck, and deposited in the south-east hole, by the builder of the pagoda, who repeated a long prayer, while the earth was filled in and sprinkled with water. This was an offering to the great earth serpent, in the direction of whose abode the south-east corner pointed. It is an interesting relic of the snake worship once so prevalent among the Shan race to the south, which, like nat worship, has been incorporated in Buddhism. Another instance is afforded in some of the Yunnan shrines, where the canopy over Buddha is supported by many-headed snakes, as occurs in some Indian temples. In the next part of the ceremony, the depositing of the bricks in the trench, the Shan was assisted by his grandmother, wife, and daughter; he knelt at the north, faced by his wife, his daughter on his right hand, and the grandmother on the left. The silvered brick, with a lighted taper on it, was handed to the old woman, who raised it over her head, and, devoutly murmuring a long prayer, placed it in the trench; the wife did the same with the red brick and its taper, and the daughter followed with the green, while her father took the gold one. The girl, in raising her brick, burst out laughing, amused, as we were told, at having forgotten her prayers. The four bricks having been properly deposited, the others were next laid in order, the sacred name downwards, and a layer of cloth spread over all. Earth was then thrown in and sprinkled with water, and the hole having been filled up, the ceremony was over.
Four miles above Shuaykeenah and the mouth of the Tapeng, the Irawady receives the waters of the Molay. It is a narrow stream, rising in the Kakhyen hills, with a course of ninety-six miles, for thirty of which it is navigable during the rains, and a small boat traffic exists, chiefly for the conveyance of salt.
While our leader was engaged planning for our departure with the officials, three of us made a hurried excursion to the first khyoukdwen, or defile. This portion of the river commences a few miles above Bhamô, and extends for twenty-five miles, nearly to Tsenbo.
Between these two points the river flows under high wooded banks. At the lower entrance, the channel is one thousand yards broad, but gradually narrows to five hundred, two hundred, and even seventy yards, as the parallel ranges approach each other. As we ascended, the hills rose higher and closed in, rising abruptly from the stream and throwing out a succession of grand rocky headlands. We moored for the night off a Phwon village standing on a cliff eighty feet high, just above the first so-called rapids. The next day, after we had proceeded about seven miles, we came to a reach in which the river flowed sluggishly between two high conical hills, which seemed to present no outlet. The quiet motion and deep olive black hue of the water suggested great depth.[20]
ROCKY BARRIER ON THE FIRST OR UPPER DEFILE OF THE IRAWADY.
This reach extended about one mile and a half, with a breadth of two hundred and fifty yards, closing in at the upper end, where the channel is broken up by rocks jutting out boldly, and approaching each other within eighty yards. A pagoda, apparently of great age, perched on a small isolated rock, rising about forty-five feet from the stream, seemed to indicate the limit of the rising of the waters, as it could not have withstood the flood. This rocky reach stretches a mile in a north-north-westerly direction, and terminates abruptly in an elbow, from which another clear reach, overhung by precipitous but grassy hills, extends east-north-east.
This bend of the river is one of the most dangerous parts, owing to numerous insulated greenstone rocks which stretch across it, exposed twenty feet and more in February. Owing to the sudden bend, the current rushes between them with great violence, but we found no difficulty in effecting a passage for our boats. Telling evidences were not wanting in the high-water mark, twenty-five feet above the then level, and in the shivered trunks of large trees and debris of branches heaped in wild confusion among the rocks, that the body of water pouring through the narrow gorge must in the rains be enormous and of terrific power. The navigation, with the present obstructions unremoved, would be impossible for river steamers, but engineering skill could speedily render the water way practicable if desired for traffic. We had not time to ascend to the northern entrance of the defile, where the river, unconfined by the hills, is again a majestic stream half a mile in width. We could only look, and long for an opportunity of exploring its course upwards to the unknown regions whence it rolls down its mighty flood. The problem of the Irawady’s source and course has yet to be solved; but we had to return to Bhamô, expecting the solution of our perplexities, as to how and when we should reach Yunnan.