2 T
discovered in Siam? tells us how the Indian merchants
used to go to trade and settle in Siam in the early
centuries of the Christian Era. " According to Col.
Gerini, the inscription is engraved on a stone just
discovered at old Takuapa (Takopa) within the pre-
cincts of Wat Na-Miiang, in the middle of a former
bed of the river in the Malay Peninsula.'* It is
written, according to Hultsch, in archaic Tamil, which
resembles the Tiruvallam inscription of Vijaya-Nandi-
vikramavarman.1 It may, therefore, be placed in the
eighth or ninth century A. D. The translation
reads:—
( L. i ) ............of ( Bhaska) ravarman.........the
hoops of the team of oxen touching our boundary (?).
Prosperity !
(L. 4) Naranam (is) the refuge of the members
of Manignimam and of the members of the detach-
ment and of the bowmen ( ?).
Naran&m means a temple of Visnu and Mani-
grdmam is the name of a trading corporation. Thus
in the eighth or ninth century A. D., there was in
Siam an Indian trading corporation, perhaps from
South India, who made this temple of Visnu* It
might have been the result of a naval expedition,
garisoned by Tamil Vaisijava soldiers.3
1. South Ind. Ins., Vol. Ill, p. 91.
2. E. HULTSCH—Note on a Tamil Inscription in Siam*
J, R. A. S.f 1913, pp. 337-9.