ABSTRACT
Shut off from Burma by a hill range, Arakan has a separate history, but it is the same in kind. Before 1437 Sandoway was usually independent. The ease of sea communications renders it likely that Buddhism reached Arakan earlier than the interior of Burma, and the Mahamuni image may well date from the early centuries of the Christian era. The raiders lay inside the mouth of the Hinya river at Chittagong; the Arakanese secretly sank boats laden with stones so as to block the river mouth and then loosed fire rafts from higher up the river, driving the enemy boats on to the sunken craft and annihilating them. Unlike the other races of Burma, the Arakanese maintained sea-going craft and Chittagong bred a race of competent seamen. Earthquakes are for centuries mentioned in the chronicles of the various states of Burma, but those of 1761–2 in Arakan were exceptionally awesome.
