Shwedagon Pagoda

Shwedagon at dawn

My second morning in Yangon, I took advantage of my jet lag to wake up at 4:30am to visit Shwedagon Pagoda at dawn. Myanmar is not called Land of the golden pagodas for nothing.  Even at Ngwe Saung, a fairly secluded beach town there were 3 miniature gilded pagodas within a short walk from our beach bungalow.


Shwedagon is known as the crown of Burma and stands at 325 feet, adorned with 27 metric tons of gold. Whether gleaming in the bright sun during the day or illuminated with industrial lights at night, Shwedagon is a glowing tower that can be seen from all over Yangon. This pagoda is an important buddhist monument as it is said to hold 8 hairs of Gautama Buddha that he gave to 2 Burmese merchants who offered him honey cakes as alms. The term "pagoda" is misleading in terms of Shwedagon; in fact it is religious compound made up of gilded Buddhas and shrines to house the Buddhas.

At 5am, my taxi dropped me at the East gate (not the renowned Southern gate guarded by a pair of giant Chinthe.) This entrance appeared to be a regular market street. However vendors were already  pushing pagoda-specific wares of plastic bags for shoes and wreaths of jasmine and other flowers as offerings for the Buddha. I followed 3 monks toward an impressive staircase and removed my shoes when they did so. We ascended three flights of stairs,  finally emerging onto the main terrace where I was greeted by the towering pagoda.  I expected the place to be empty before dawn, but it already vibrating with activities of worship. The larger Buddha statues have their own shrines that look like open air temples.  Many of theses structures were full of monks and other supplicants chanting and ceremonially cleaning and draping the Buddha in yellow robes.

The scent of incense gently scented the compound as each Buddha shrine was adorned with candles, incense, food offerings and flowers. Shwedagon pagoda with its hundreds of mini-shrines to buddha, each with its own group of adorers, struck me as what catholics would do for saints if worshipping saints didn't already verge on idolatry. Saints and the many different of buddhas represent the idea that our prayers and desires are best taken to God's ear by an advocate who knows and understands our pleas.  I suppose I felt at home because of my Catholic background, and my mother's devotion to certain saints to help her family.

Pre-dawn prayers

At 6am Shwedagon was positively frenetic with worshipers and visitors, like myself, who seemed content to make the counterclockwise lap around Shwedagon over and over. I never tired of gazing up at the gleaming tower, or admiring the other gilded buildings that contained Buddhas in a variety of positions and made from different mediums. I wandered into one shrine, covered  in a mosaic of mirrors, with several Buddhas sitting in a forest under trees. The pewter colored buddhas were being rubbed down with Brasso.

Buddhas being polished with brasso

The most impressive site was a ceremonial march of many monks and others around the pagoda ending in one of the larger shrines tuckes away in a corner. Three monks led the procession chanting and holding incense, their chant was echoed by the followers, then punctuated by a sharp horn, a chime, and the bang of a gong. The planetary shrines, 8 in total, represent the days of the week with Wednesday having one for morning and evening.  For luck, people pray and make offerings to the shrine of the day of their birth. These seemed to be the most active miniature shrines with different groups, mostly women, taking turns to wash the Buddha with small cups of water and lay wreaths of flowers.

After sunrise 

Shwedagon was a welcome glimpse and introduction to Buddhism in this majority Buddhist nation. For better or worse,  religion permeates daily life in Myanmar. Monks and nuns roam the streets with the rest of us. I was delighted to see monks on the beach at Ngwe Saung; indicative that the monks live among the people they ask for alms. I know some monks in Myanmar incite violence against the muslim minority group the Rohingya and Buddhism has been used as a tool of nationalism by the military government.  The locals know monks are not free from corruption or venal desires. Despite their vow to a simple life, daily asking of alms, and allowed only 6 possessions, many monks happily play on their iPhone 6.

I liked the manifestation of Buddhism I saw at Shwedagon pagoda; it was solemn but joyful, vocal,  and transparent in its practice.  The buddhas are plied with offerings because the worshipers are asking for something in return. When the pagoda is re-gilded, people make donations to cover the cost of gold leaf.  There is a very clear understanding: you must give in order to receive.  Shwedagon was opulent, and it begs the question of the amount of charitable services could be bought with that type of money. Yet, I appreciated that the gold and beauty of Shwedagon was open to all worshipers  (Well, $8 for tourists.) and the compound felt like a community center, not a silent cathedral.  My next tangle with Buddhism will be at Bagan, an ancient city filled with Buddhist temples, pagodas, and a glimpse into Myanmar's past.