Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Brief history
According tolocal legend, the Shwedagon dates back toaround588BC, making it the oldest
stupa in Myanmar, if not the world - although more likely it was originally built by the Mon
between the sixth and tenth centuries. Mon king Binnya U of Bago (ruled 1348-84) had the
stupa raised toaheight of18m,butthe temple onlyreally started taking shape acentury later
under
QueenShinsawbu
(reigned1453-72),whohadtheheightofthestupadoubledto40m
and also laid out the terrace around the stupa and added the northern stairway, as well as as-
signing 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
placeofpilgrimage,aswellasattractingtheattentions(in1608)ofthePortugueseadventurer
Philip de Brito e Nicote
, ruler of nearby Thanlyin, whose troops attacked the Shwedagon,
carrying off the 300-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,
causedthetopofthestupatocollapse.AnewandenlargedstupawascommissionedbyKing
Hsinbyushin of the Konbaung dynasty, who raised the stupa to its present shape and height
in the late eighteenth century.
The colonial era
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
andsufferedtheinevitablepillagingandvandalism,includingthediggingofatunnelintothe
depths of the stupa in an attempt to discover if it could be used as a gunpowder magazine). It
wasreoccupied andrefortified duringthe Second Anglo-Burmese Warin1852,although this
time the British retained control of it until 1929.
ThepagodaplayedaleadingsymbolicroleinmanyofMyanmar'stwentieth-centurypolitic-
alupheavals.Burmesestudentsmetatthepagodain1920toplanprotestsagainstthecolonial
University Act - a
monument
now marks the spot - while protesting students also camped
outonthepagoda'sterraceduringtheseconduniversitystudents'strikeof1936,followedby
a similar strike-camp of protesting oil workers in 1938 during the so-called
“1300 Revolu-
ence 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.
