Maunggan gold plates with Pali text
Láminas de oro de Maunggan con texto en pali
- Date
- c. siglos V-VI · confidence medium
- Place
- Sri Ksetra (Hmawza), Pyay, Bago Region, Myanmar
- Credited to
- Pyu people
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A set of gold leaves bearing Pali Buddhist canon passages written in a script derived from southern Indian Brahmi, found in the late 19th century. It is among the earliest evidence of Pali Buddhist texts in Southeast Asia.
The exact age of the plates is estimated by palaeography (5th-6th centuries) and not by absolute dating; the exact find-spot (Maunggan, near Sri Ksetra) is cited somewhat differently in sources.
What it led to
- the Pali tradition of Theravada Buddhism in Burma
- the Pyu script and later Burmese script
- inscribed gold relics in the Pyu world