The Shwe Dagon Pagoda
The Shwe Dagon Pagoda is singularly one of the most amazing wonders on
earth. Of the numerous images that come to mind regarding Burma and the
Burmese, none stands so fast or as solidly as the image of the Shwe
Dagon Pagoda. Her pious devotees were wrapped in tight cotton or silk,
kneeling on marble, drenched from the rains, baked in the sunshine, bathed in the
silver of moonlight, men, women, and children, foreheads pressed to the
ground, hands clasped together in prayer, with a garland of fragrant flowers
and incense, searching for a way to overcome the suffering of this world.
The Shwe Dagon Pagoda is one of the wonders of the world, standing high
above the city of Rangoon, reflected gold, real gold, dancing
reflections in the lapping waters of the Royal Lake, more golden even that the setting
sun. The Shwe Dagon stands 326 feet above it's hilltop surroundings and it
is covered in pure gold. At the bell shaped base it is gold leaf, and
someone has the concession to collect gold flakes from the drains after a
rainstorm. Above the lower gold leaf covering are thick pounded gold sheets, above
which are over eight thousand gold slabs rising to the top of the
gracefully curved stupa, the crown, umbrella or hti is also made of solid gold,
thirty-three feet tall, and is encrusted with more than five thousand
diamonds, two thousand rubies and sapphires, more than one thousand
gold bells and four hundred silver bells which ring when the wind stirs. At
the very top is an airy gold cask, with a 76 carat diamond which refracts
rainbows when struck by the light of the sun.
There is a huge bell at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda cast in 1779 which weighs
23 tons. The British removed the bell during their war efforts in 1824 to
1826 in an attempt to melt the bell and cast cannons. The bell was brought
to a ship and loaded on board, but the weight was too great and the boat
capsized and the bell sank to the bottom of the Irrawaddi River. Numerous
attempts to raise the bell failed, and the British with their technology and modern
methods could not raise the bell from the depths of the river.
The Burmese asked the British to allow them to try and raise the bell,
and if they were successful, made the British promise to return it to the
pagoda. The British who had tried everything with cranes and hoists and
pulleys to raise the bell, and had failed, told the Burmese that if
they were able to raise the bell, that they could keep it, thinking that
they didn't have a chance.
One diver with a length of bamboo was followed by another, and yet
another, until enough bamboo was thrust underneath the bell that it floated to
the surface. The British must be commended for keeping their word. Today
the bell hangs in the northwestern side of the pagoda.
Objects that have been donated for centuries fill one room. Jewel
encrusted scabbards, solid gold Buddha's, silver Buddha's set with rubies and
lacquered gold prayer books. In an adjoining room where racks of women's hair
hang, some are four or five feet in length and still glisten. I was told that
those too poor to give anything of worldly value, had their hair cut
off as a sign of deep faith and humility. I held the hair in my hands and the
consistency differed from thick to thin, and the color from brownish to
deep black. Some hair was straight, some wavy, but it was very eerie,
fingering the hair of the dead.
As I walked along speechless at the enormity of it all, I noticed small
cubicles dedicated to the day of the week with worshipers burning
incense. If you ask someone from the west when they were born, they will answer
you such and such a day in that month in the year of our lord. If you ask a
Burman when they were born, they will reply, Monday or Friday or
whatever day of the week that they came into the world. The Burmese week has
eight days, Wednesday being divided in half, each day represented by a
different animal. Wednesday morning is an elephant with tusks and Wednesday
evening is an elephant without tusks. My birthday is Thursday which is represented
by a rat.
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