GOASIAPLUS January 2017

Sacred Sites
FROM TOP The
Shwedagon Pagoda,
peeking out from
the Yangon skyline;
The Sule Pagoda in
the city centre.
The gleaming gold
structure of the
Shwedagon Pagoda.
Yangon, Myanmar
Yangon is a city that has one foot in the past and the
other in the future. It is one of the fastest developing
cities in the country and widely regarded as its intellectual
and commercial hub. At the same time, it contains many
religious monuments, some of which testify to thousands
of years of history. Among its most staggering and famous
is the Shwedagon Pagoda, around which the cityscape
of Yangon revolves. 'Shwe' means gold in Burmese, and
'Dagon' refers to the historical area that it sits on. It is a feat
of architecture that is as decadent as it is sacred when you
consider the fact that it is plated with 21,841 solid gold bars
and contains the relics of four Buddhas.
Often mentioned in the same breath as Shwedagon,
is Sule Pagoda. It is situated right in the middle of a large
roundabout, and at over 2,500 years old, believed to be
even older than its jewel encrusted counterpart. There's
a permanent place for it in history books, thanks to its
reputation as a rallying point for the 1988 uprisings that
got the world to sit up and take notice of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Legend has it that Sule Pagoda enshrines a strand of hair
belonging to Buddha, who was said to have given it to two
Burmese merchant brothers.
“it is plated with
21,841 solid gold
bars and contains
the relics of four
Buddhas.”
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