As someone coming from the birthplace of lord Buddha (Nepal), I was attracted to this amazing piece of ancient architecture both spiritually and aesthetically. When I got the first sight of it from a tall apartment building in the outskirt (anyone would catch the towering pagoda from most part of Yangon), i could feel the strong allure of it.
There would be no visitor, either an atheist or a religious person, who would not be awe-inspired by the grandeur of Shwedagon Pagoda. Its magnificence comes from its prehistoric architectural mastery, its sheer size – 90 meters tall – and the valuable jewels it is studded with. The entire pagoda is covered by gold plates (it is not a paint), which, according to the local people, is replaced every year – hence the breath-taking gold glitter. There are over two dozen ancient Buddha statues made of bronze, gemstone [jade] and most of them are gold-plated. The top peak of the pagoda is a marvelous piece of art made of 500 kg pure gold plus 2000 valuable gems.
According to local Burmese legends, the pagoda was built some 2600 years ago when Buddhism started spreading across the continent following Buddha’s enlightenment. According to the stories, two of the merchants from Myanmar (Taphussa and Bhallika) had a chance to meet with Buddha while they were on their international trade missions. The merchants received his teachings. Buddha also gave them eight of his hairs. Upon their return to Myanmar, they wanted to keep the hairs safely as relics of Buddha for prayers. So they built the Shwedagon Pagoda as a holy place to keep the relics of Buddha. The merchants received full support for the construction from then King Okkalappa of that area. This is also an official version given by the Burmese authorities managing the Pagoda.
However, some western historians have claimed that the Pagoda was built only in the 6th century and was left unattended until 14th century when Burmese King Binnya U decided to renovate and rebuilt the temple to its current grand size.
Worth noting here is the fact that Buddha (Siddhartha Gautam) was born into a royal family in Lumbini, currently a district in the southern plains of Nepal. He gave up the comfort of the royal palace and went on a spiritual quest, which finally led him to attain enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, an Indian village across the border of his Nepal-based birthplace, Lumbini [please note that for some obvious economic reasons, there have been some efforts to create confusions that Buddha was born in India and not in Nepal. The United Nations, esp UNESCO has already confirmed with archaeological evidences that the birthplace of Buddha is present day Nepal’s Lumbini]. Following his enlightenment, Buddha started spreading his “messages,” which was mainly around the four noble truths: the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. It was during this phase in the post-enlightenment that the Burmese merchants met with Buddha and that led to construction of the Pagoda, according to local legends.
I made the first trip to the pagoda and captured these photos [public Google Photo Folder], but it was not primarily for photography. Instead, it was to enjoy the beauty of it. I would like to invite friends from the local guides group to join me in creating a public photo/video folder [click above folder] that aims to capture the Pagoda at its best by compiling photos of different times taken by different local guides.
