Burma’s Shwedagon Pagoda and the Eightfold Path

YANGON, Myanmar ­— Visiting Burma has always been a magical experience, but now there is also an ethical dimension. Travelers contemplating a trip to Burma will be aware that it is regarded by a large section of the global community as a pariah because of the human rights abuses of the Burmese people by the ruling military junta. There are two viewpoints of travelers: Visiting Burma endorses the current regime, but in a small way, reduces the country’s isolation from the outside world and constrain the junta’s actions.

This article aims to present the country’s eternal beauty, which will remain after today’s political repression has become part of history, ensuring that the country and its deeply religious and dignified people will not be forgotten or ignored.

Today, even the country’s name is controversial. In 1989, the Burmese authorities implemented a series of name changes replacing colonial names with equivalents closer to actual Burmese usage. The name of the country was officially changed from the “Union of Burma” to the “Union of Myanmar”. “Rangoon” became “Yangon”, a name given to the city in 1755 by Alaungpaya when he captured and renamed the city of Dagon. The river Irrawaddy is now the Ayeyarwady. Burmans are now called Bamar, the Karens are called Kayin, and the Arakanese are called Rakhaing.

Land of the gold

The Mon were the first group to reach Burma, before the birth of Christ. They settled on the estuaries of the Thanlwin (Salween) and Sittoung (Sittang) rivers, and their settlement area, which Indian chronicles call Suvannabhumi (“the land of the gold”), is also mentioned in ancient Chinese and Arab chronicles.

In 1829, King Bagyidaw of Burma appointed a committee of scholars to write a chronicle of the Burmese monarchy, which became a 19th century history and mythology of the entire country. The Glass Palace Chronicle, compiled by learned monks, learned brahmans and learned ministers, recounts the story of Buddhism and of the Buddhist kings of ancient India, including the early Burmese kingdoms.

Legend says it was the Mon who laid the foundation stone of the Shwedagon Pagoda 2,500 years ago. It was under the Anawrahta’s second successor, Kyanzittha (1084-1113) who was a deeply religious man that the golden age of pagoda building began. Meantime, Bagan’s golden age came during the 12th century, when it acquired the name “city of the four million pagodas”. Today, there are more than a dozen major pagodas, the most famous is the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon (Yangon).

The Shwedagon Pagoda

It has been said that there are more gold on the Shwedagon Pagoda than in the vaults of the Bank of England. Thus, Burma possesses a hidden kind of wealth. The massive bell-shaped stupa, which soars nearly 100 meters above its hilltop surroundings is a treasure trove inside and out. Inside, according to legend, are eight enshrined hairs of the last Buddha, as well as relics of three previous Buddhas.

Outside, the stupa is plated with 8,688 solid gold slabs. The tip of the stupa is set with 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies, sapphires and topaz. An enormous emerald sits in the middle to catch the first and last rays of the sun. All this is mounted on and above a 10-meter hti (umbrella), built upon seven gold-plated bars and decorated with 1,485 bells, 1,065 of them golden, 420 silver. The golden stupa is surrounded by more than 100 buildings – smaller stupas, pavilions and administrative halls.

The pagoda was well-established by the time Bagan dominated Burma in the 11th century. Queen Shinsawpu (1453-1472) is still reveled for giving the pagoda its present shape and form. She not only established the terraces and walls around the stupa, but gave her weight in gold (40 kg) to be beaten into gold leaf and used to plate the stupa. Not to be outdone, her successor, Dhammazedi, donated four times his weight in gold.

In 1930, the year before the Shweda-gon was half-destroyed by fire, a small earthquake caused minor damage. Another earthquake in 1970 led the government to initiate the strengthening of the pagoda’s crown. For all the Shwedagon’s roller-coaster history, the Burmese are convinced no lasting damage can befall it. Whenever the pagoda has been endangered, the unfailing generosity of the local people has facilitated work to restore it to even greater glories.

Land of ethnic diversity

There are approximately 135 separate nationalities living within the union. Most numerous are the Bamar, originally migrants from southwest China, who make up 68 percent of the population. At just over nine percent of the population the Shan are the second largest. Both are a wet rice-farming people and Theravada Buddhist by religion. The Bamar’s tonal Tibeto-Burman tongue – Burmese – has long been Burma’s national language. Meantime, the Shan closely related to the Thais, inhabit the upland plateau and rolling hills of Northeast Burma.

The fiercely independent Kayin (Karen), constituting about seven percent, live in their own state called Kawthoolei and are scattered throughout the central and southern country. The Rakhang of Rakhang State, who make up four percent, are closely related to the Bamar and are mostly Buddhist.

The Kachin are the dominant minority people of northern Burma and are dry rice farmers and hunters, while the Chin, together with the Naga people, make up about two percent. The Chin live in Burma’s far northwest and spill over the frontier into India. The Mon, also about two percent, have their own state and are inheritors of a proud, ancient civilization preceding that of the Bamar. Today, the Mon have been largely assimilated into Bamar culture.

Shin-Pyu – Initiation into the order of monks

There are no priests in Theravada Buddhism, but the faithful still need a model to follow on the path to salvation and this is provided by monks. In Burma, there are about 800,000 monks. Most of these are students and novices who put on the monk’s robe only temporarily. Until a Burmese boy has gone through the shin-pyu ceremony, he is regarded as being no better than an animal. To become “human”, he must for a time withdraw from secular life, following the example set forth by the Buddha when he left his family to seek enlightenment.

There are three fundamental rules to which the monk must subscribe. First, the renunciation of all possessions, except eight items: three robes; a razor for shaving; a needle for sewing; a strainer to ensure that no living things is swallowed; a belt; and an alms bowl. Second, a vow to injure no living things and to offend no one. Finally, the vow of complete sexual celibacy.

The monk must make his livelihood by seeking alms, setting out two hours before dawn and going door to door. The food received is the monk’s only meal of the day.

Three Jewels, Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path

Theravada Buddhism is the principal religion of about 80 percent of all Burmese people. While there are significant numbers of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and primitive animists (especially among the northern hill tribes), it is safe to say that over 99 percent of the Bamar (Burman), Mon, Shan, and Palaung are Theravadins.

The Buddha denies the existence of a soul: “There is no permanence for the existence of a soul for that which one perceives to be ‘self. Rather, one’s essence is forever changing.” When a person is reincarnated, it is neither the person nor the soul which is actually reborn, it is the sum of one’s karma – the balance of good and evil deeds.

There is no true form of worship in the Theravada, the only true ritual is the recitation – three times a day – of the “Three Jewels” or the Triratna: “I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dhamma. I take refuge in the Sangha.”

The formula of the “Three Jewels” offers solace and security. These are needed for strength, if one is to understand the “Four Noble Truths” expounded by Gautama Buddha in his first sermon: “Life always has in it the element of suffering; The cause of suffering is desire; In order to end the suffering, give up desire and give up attachment; The way to this goal is the Noble Eightfold Path.”

The Noble Eightfold Path is divided into three areas: right views and intent are matters of wisdom; right speech, right conduct or action, and right means of livelihood are matters of morality; while right mindfulness and right meditation are matters resulting from true mental discipline.

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