Page 76 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

74 Yangon and around Midtown Yangon
1 THE FOUR BUDDHAS AND EIGHT PLANETS OF SHWEDAGON
in common with most Burmese temples, the Shwedagon has four principal shrines attached
to the base of the stupa at each of the cardinal points and dedicated to the four Buddhas of
the current kalpa. these include the historical Buddha, gautama, along with his predecessors
Kakusandha, Konagamana and Kassapa (a few temples have a fifth shrine, dedicated to the
future Buddha Maitreya, the last of the Buddhas of the present kalpa).
also found here (and at other Burmese temples) is a sequence of “planetary posts”
encircling the base of the stupa, each representing a day of the week, along with its
associated heavenly body and animal (although one curiosity of Burmese astrology is that
wednesday is divided into two, giving eight “days” in total). astrology is still taken very seriously
in Myanmar – particular importance is attached to the day of the week on which one is born,
and locals come to pray at the relevant planetary shrine, each with its own little Buddha image
set on a plinth, which worshippers wash reverently during the course of their devotions.
Starting from the southern stairs and heading clockwise, the pagoda’s planetary posts are:
wednesday a.m. (Mercury; elephant with tusks); Saturday (Saturn; a naga, or snake); thursday
(Jupiter; rat); wednesday p.m., or ”Rahu” as it’s known in Burmese (the moon, ascending;
elephant without tusks); Friday (Venus; guinea pig); Sunday (the sun; a garuda, the mythical
bird-mount of the Hindu god Vishnu); Monday (the moon; tiger); and tuesday (Mars; lion).

added the northern stairway, as well as assigning land and slaves for the pagoda’s
maintenance. She also began the tradition of gilding the stupa, donating her own body
weight in solid gold.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century the pagoda had become Myanmar’s most
famous place of pilgrimage, as well as attracting the attentions (in 1608) of the
Portuguese adventurer Filipe de Brito e Nicote (see p.84), ruler of nearby Thanlyin,
whose troops attacked the Shwedagon, carrying off the 325-tonne Great Bell of King
Dhammazedi. De Brito’s plan was to melt the bell down to make cannons, although
sadly it fell into the Bago River in transit (curiously, exactly the same thing happened
when the British attempted to make off with another of the pagoda’s bells two centuries
later). De Brito subsequently paid with his life for defiling the temple. The pagoda was
also repeatedly rocked by various earthquakes – the worst, in 1768, caused the top of
the stupa to collapse. A new and enlarged stupa was commissioned by King
Hsinbyushin of the Konbaung dynasty, who raised the stupa to its present shape and
height in the late eighteenth century.
The colonial era and independence
Shwedagon suffered badly during colonial-era conflicts. It was seized by the British
during the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824 and held for two years (during which it
was fortified and suffered the inevitable pillaging and vandalism, including the digging
of a tunnel into the depths of the stupa in an attempt to discover if it could be used as
a gunpowder magazine). It was reoccupied and refortified during the Second Anglo-
Burmese War in 1852, although this time the British retained control of it until 1929.
The pagoda played a leading symbolic role in many of Myanmar’s twentieth-century
political upheavals. Burmese students met at the pagoda in 1920 to plan protests
against the colonial University Act – a monument (see opposite) now marks the spot –
while protesting students also camped out on the pagoda’s terrace during the second
university students’ strike of 1936, followed by a similar strike-camp of protesting oil
workers in 1938 during the so-called “1300 Revolution” (see p.368). General Aung San
addressed a mass meeting at the stupa in 1946 demanding independence from Britain,
while during the pro-democracy uprising of 1988 his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi
spoke to another huge gathering at the pagoda, which was also a focal point of the
2007 Saffron Revolution, with huge demonstrations and protest marches featuring
as many as twenty thousand monks and nuns.

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