Dear Stephen

How are you?

Thank you for filling in some historical facts which I am not aware
of before.

During my secondary schooling, I skipped all arts subjects such as
history, and totally devoted my time and energy to science and maths
to the extent that my understanding of them went beyond textbooks
quickly. As a result, I had plenty of time to reassess those
subjects and was able to mess with them mathematically as
intellectual play things. With that ability, I had very early
experiences of scientist's panic before the Uni years.

As you mentioned Tibeto-Burman languages, we share the term "lam" to
mean "road" with Tibetans and the term "tao" to mean "way" with
Chinese. The Burmese terms "Lam", "Taa", and "Taalam" means a road.

I am not aware of Tibetan invasion of Burma, being history-
illiterate, but Mongols invaded during 13th century(?) and destroyed
Pagan, the ancient Burman capital. As Mongol armies usually
recruited the soldiers from the conquered lands, Tibetan soldiers
may accompany the Mongol generals. But the invasion happened in the
central Burma in the dry zone, and if Tibetan soldiers remained
behind after the war, I don't think that they would have taken very
unnecessary trouble to go up to the isolated northenmost mountainous
undeveloped region of Burma to live there. They would have chosen to
live in Pagan and other prosperous cities alongside the great
Eyaavatii river, allowing themselves to be assimilated in the Burman
population.

With regards,

Suan

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Hodge" <s.hodge@...> wrote:

Dear Suan,

> Tibetans as indigenous native residents of Myanmar.
I am surprised that you are not more familiar with the history of
your
birth-country. Not only are the Burmese related to the Tibetans
(ever heard
of the Tibeto-Burman languages ?), but I believe that parts of Burma
were
invaded by the Tibetans during the C8th CE, as well as being
honoured by a
later visit from the Mongols under Qubilai Qan in medieval times.
Many
people are not aware that the Tibetan armies travelled quite widely
and
successfully in that period, not only did they occupy the Chinese
capital
Changan for a while, but they also reached Varanasi for a short stay
to
collect relics.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge