Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BURMESE ARCHITECTURE
Few other countries are as abundantly endowed with religious architecture as My-
anmar, from the thousands of ancient brick temples blanketing the plains of Bagan
throughtothehugegildedpagodasrisingupabovethebustlingmodernstreetsofYan-
gon,Mandalay,Bago,Pyay,Mawlamyineandprettymucheveryothercityinthecoun-
try. By contrast, relatively little secular architecture survives from the past, excepting
the magnificent European-style colonial streetscapes of Yangon.
Temple names
Temple names in Myanmar can be confusing. Buddhist temples are generally named using
either the English pagoda or its Burmese equivalent, paya , with the two words being used
more or less interchangeably - the Shwedagon in Yangon, for example, is widely referred to
asboththeShwedagonPagodaandShwedagonPaya.InBagantheword pahto isalsosome-
times used, generally when referring to “hollow” temples such as the Ananda or Sulamani,
rather than solid stupas. Bagan's hollow temples can also sometimes be identified by the fact
that they have the word gu (meaning “cave”) in their name - the Gubyaukgyi, Alotawpyi-
gu-hpaya and Shwegugyi temples, for example. The Burmese word for stupa is zedi , as in
Bagan's Mingalazedi and elsewhere.
Pagoda architecture
The sheer number and size of Buddhist pagodas in Myanmar owes much to the Burmese ob-
sessionwith merit-making -doinggoodworksinthislifeinordertosecureafavourablere-
birthinone'sfuturereincarnations.TherulersandnoblesofBaganvirtuallybankruptedtheir
own kingdom thanks to their obsession with temple-building, while modern rulers have also
left a string of pagodas in their wake, including Than Shwe, who sought to atone for a life-
time of greed, repression and murder by raising the huge Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyitaw.
Such edifices also serve as notable memorials to their creators, handily combining religious
good works and self-glorification in a single architectural package.
The vast majority of Burmese pagodas remain very much living places of worship rather
than historic monuments. Many date back hundreds of years, although most have been re-
peatedly refurbished, remodelled - and sometimes completely rebuilt - many times over the
centuries, making it difficult to get a sense of the antiquity of the country's major shrines.
(Even many of the seemingly ancient-looking temples at Bagan have actually been recon-
structed over the past few decades according to local aesthetic whim rather than sound ar-
cheological principles, which is why UNESCO has so far refused to inscribe it on the list of
global World Heritage Sites). The general sense of timelessness is also exacerbated by the
fact that new pagodas being constructed today are essentially not that much different in style
fromthoseerectedathousandyearsago,traditionratherthaninnovationbeingoftheessence.
 
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