ABSTRACT
The Chola lord was probably travelling on some mission, for the Chola dynasty of Madras fostered maritime trade. Their conquest of Kedah in the Malay states brought them into subordinate relations with their own colony, the flourishing Hindu kingdom of Palembang in east Sumatra. On the outside of the temple are fifteen hundred plaques illustrating the jataka stories of Buddha’s previous existences, each explained by a short inscription in Pali or Talaing. Kyanzittha, riding a white horse at the head of a great procession of monks and people, dedicated the temple in 1090. The long romance of Kyanzittha’s life drew to a close. He was nearly seventy, and as he lay dying it was his only son, the love-child born in exile, who made solemn offerings and set up the inscribed stone post, still in its place, at the Myazedi pagoda south of Pagan.
