Yangon Journal 1, July 2014

The Shwedagon Pagoda is the grandest of Myanmar’s religious monuments, of which there are thousands.

Legends say that in one of the Buddha's travels, he met two merchant brothers from Myanmar who gave him food and alms. Grateful, the Buddha gave them eight strands of his hair as a blessing. When the brothers returned to Myanmar, they turned over the Buddha’s hair to the King, who decided to enshrine the strands together with the relics from the three other Buddhas before him. The shrine came to be known as Shwedagon, the Reliquary of the Four.

The Shwedagon sits on top of a hill that is 190 ft above sea level. The pagoda itself is about 326 ft high. You can see it from anywhere you are in Yangon. Edged terraces rise above its octagonal base, followed by circular bands, upon which a bell-shaped structure rests. From the bell, a tower rises. The tower consists of mouldings, bosses, structures shaped like an upturned lotus petal, a banana bud, an umbrella, and a vane. The so-called umbrella is about 43 ft long and 15 ft and 6 inches wide. The vane is 4 ft and 2 inches long and 2 ft and 6 inches wide. At the very top is a diamond orb.

The marvel of this pagoda is that it’s covered with gold and precious gems. The circular bands are pasted with gold leaves, the bell and the tower with gold plates. It is so shiny in the afternoon, the glare is almost unbearable! Every five years, the citizens of Myanmar donate gold to replace the old plates. The umbrella I mentioned earlier is golden; it weighs half a ton. It contains 83,850 gems and 4,016 golden bells. The vane is also studded with gems – rubies, sapphires, emerald, jade, topaz, agate, chalcedony, etc. At the apex is 76-carat diamond. The orb contains 4,351 diamond pieces, totaling 1,800 carats.

We took turns using a telescope to see the design intricacies, the gems and the bells. We passed by the photo gallery to see them in detail. Amazing! Even more amazing is that the place has never experienced a heist!!

Read about the Bodhi tree in the Shwedagon temple in my Yangon Journal 2.