Mandalay & Around - Myanmar (Burma) - page 437

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BOOK

Around the beautiful gilt-and-gold stupa of the mid-19th-century Kuthodaw Paya
MAP GOOGLE MAP ( 24hr) , you'll find 729 text-inscribed marble slabs,
each housed in its own small stupa and together presenting the entire 15 books of
the Tripitaka. Another 1774 similarly ensconced marble slabs (collected in 1913)
ring the nearby Sandamuni Paya MAP

with GOOGLE MAP ( 8.30am-5pm)

Tripitaka commentaries. Collectively these slabs are often cited as the 'World's
Biggest Book'. Producing the Kuthodaw set alone required an editorial committee
of over 200. When King Mindon convened the 5th Buddhist Synod here he used a
team of 2400 monks to read the book in a nonstop relay. It took them nearly six
months.

Central Mandalay

Eindawya Paya BUDDHIST TEMPLE
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(Eindawya St, 88/89) Ranged around a sizeable stupa glowing with gold leaf,
Eindawa was founded in 1847 by King Pagan Min, whose princely palace once stood
here.
In 1919, Eindawa was the site of a notable cultural battle when a group of Europeans
defied the Buddhist ban on shoe-wearing and were forcibly evicted. For their pains, four
of the monks who ejected the insensitive foreigners were convicted by a colonial court,
one receiving a life sentence. So please take your shoes off!