The possession of the tooth has always been a great object of desire to
Buddhist sovereigns. In the 11th century King Anarauhta, of Burmah, sent a
mission to Ceylon to endeavour to procure it, but he could obtain only a
"miraculous emanation" of the relique. A tower to contain the sacred tooth
was (1855), however, one of the buildings in the palace court of Amarapura.
A few years ago the King of Burma repeated the mission of his remote
predecessor, but obtained only a model, and this has been deposited
within the walls of the palace at Mandale, the new capital. (Turnour in
J.A.S.B. VI. 856 seqq.; Koeppen, I. 521; Tennent, I. 388, II. 198
seqq.; MS. Note by Sir A. Phayre; Mission to Ava, 136.)
Of the four eye-teeth of Sakya, one, it is related, passed to the heaven
of Indra; the second to the capital of Gandhara; the third to Kalinga; the
fourth to the snake-gods. The Gandhara tooth was perhaps, like the
alms-bowl, carried off by a Sassanid invasion, and may be identical with
that tooth of Fo, which the Chinese annals state to have been brought to
China in A.D. 530 by a Persian embassy. A tooth of Buddha is now shown in a
monastery at Fu-chau; but whether this be either the Sassanian present, or
that got from Ceylon by Kublai, is unknown.
