Shwedagon Pagoda Myanmar

Legendary

A sacred Buddhist pagoda containing the relics of the four previous Buddhas of the present kalpa.

Photo by Werner Bayer

The gold on this pagoda isn't paint. It's thousands of solid gold plates, and at the very top sits a single diamond weighing 76 carats.

Around it, the crown holds more than 5,000 smaller diamonds and over 2,000 rubies. Nobody has ever put a price on the whole thing.

The Shwedagon rises from the top of Singuttara Hill in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar. The stupa itself stands about 99 meters tall, and the hill adds another 51, so it's visible from almost anywhere in the city.

According to Buddhist tradition, the story begins more than 2,500 years ago. Two merchant brothers named Taphussa and Bhallika traveled to India and met Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.

The Buddha gave them eight strands of his hair. He told them to bury the hairs on a hill in their homeland where relics of three earlier Buddhas were already hidden.

The brothers came home to their king, but the king couldn't find the hill. Legend says spirits finally showed him the way to Singuttara Hill, and a small stupa was built over the relics.

Historians tell a different story. Archaeologists believe the first pagoda here was built sometime between the 6th and 10th centuries AD, and the earliest written records date from the 1300s.

Either way, kings and queens kept making it bigger. Earthquakes knocked it down more than once, and in 1768 one toppled the whole top of the stupa.

King Hsinbyushin rebuilt it to its current height by 1774. Queen Shin Sawbu, who ruled in the 1400s, gave the pagoda her own weight in gold to cover it.

Along with the eight hairs, the pagoda is said to hold a piece of robe, a water filter, and a staff belonging to three earlier Buddhas. That's why its name means "Reliquary of the Four."

Take your shoes off at the entrance, since bare feet are required on the whole platform, and walk clockwise around the stupa like the pilgrims do. Find the planetary post for the day of the week you were born, where Burmese Buddhists pour water over a small Buddha statue for luck. Come at sunset, when the gold turns orange and then glows under floodlights against the dark.