She Myet Hna

Erin — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 20:43:46 +0000

She Myet Hna is one of the 2,200 Buddhist temples, stupas, payas and pagodas that still remain of the 10,000+ that were built in Bagan, Myanmar. While most have are in ruins or disrepair, this one has been preserved and restored. We actually found this temple by accident. One of the modes of transportation in Bagan is the bicycle. We rented our bikes from our hotel, Thante Nyaung U, and rode off in search of some of the temples. As you can see, our hotel wasn’t too far from Old Bagan. Old Bagan is the section inside the blue lines on the left side of the picture. It took us maybe 20-30 minutes to bike back to the hotel once we were done for the day. When we took off from the hotel we were actually looking for Shwezigone Temple, but we took a wrong turn somewhere and when we rounded the corner we found this one. There are a lot of streets not marked on maps and we got lost several times. It wasn’t too bad, though, because getting lost in Bagan just means you find more temples you weren’t expecting. Being that She Myet Hna was the first temple we saw I figured that it should have the honor of being the first Bagan temple I wrote about. Not much is known about She Myet Hna. The locals say it has been there as long as they can remember, but nobody knows how old it is, what prompted it to be built or if She Myet Hna is its original name. The history of it isn’t important to them, they just know it was built as a place of worship and reflection. To them, it’s just another one of the religious sites that cover the land. Another face in a crowded room that showed up one day and nobody knows why. Maybe someday someone will unearth a hidden text that names all the temples and explains what their purpose was. Maybe one day we will know why so many religious structures were built in the same area. Maybe one day we will truly understand what Bagan really means. We did find a placard with writing on it, but haven’t been able to find someone who can translate it. Does this tell the history of this temple? Does this explain more about Bagan? Perhaps it does. It’s actually driving me a little crazy to not know what this says. Perhaps it just explains a bit about Buddhism or maybe it just talks about the restoration of the temple. I really wish someone could tell me. This is a dvarapala. They are guardians set to protect the holy place inside the temple. Since She Myet Hna is small and has no real interior, prayers are done from the individual doorways and this dvarapala protects from outside the temple. One of the nice things about Bagan is that there are many places to get water. These are communal drinking basins. You just take the plate off the top, get yourself a cup of water and then place the cup upside down on the plate over the top of the ceramic basin. While it’s nice for locals, I wouldn’t recommend drinking the water from places like this. This water is usually from nearby lakes or streams and isn’t filtered or treated. Modern day Buddhist graffiti. It’s sad that someone would deface the temple, but I do have to admit it’s a pretty good drawing. These figure are known as deva statues. When King Anawratha was crowned in 1044 AD he began unifying the kingdom of Burma and instituted Theravada Buddhism as the national religion. In order to appease local cults and ensure peace, King Anawrath adopted nats and devas into the Buddhist culture. Buddhism revolves around the concept of reincarnation, but offshoot branches believe that violent deaths prevent a person from being reincarnated, thus their spirit roams and becomes dangerous to the living. Burmese Buddhism believes that these statues are a place where those spirits can dwell and be somewhat at peace. These guys are known as leogryphs or chinthe. Chinthe are almost always depicted in pairs and serve to protect the pagoda. They typically appear as animals, but are sometimes found with human faces. Why do chinthe guard temples and pagodas? Well, according to legend, a princess and a lion fell in love and were married. They had a son, but the princess eventually abandoned the lion who became enraged and began terrorizing the lands. When the princess’s son grew up, he sought out and killed the lion in an effort to protect the people. It was only after the prince returned and told his mother what he’d done that he found out he had killed his own father. To atone for his sin, the prince constructed a statue of a lion to stand as guardian of the local temple and thus the tradition began. The chinthe is revered and loved by the Burmese people and is used symbolically on the royal thrones of Burma. Predating the use of coins for money, brass weights cast in the shape of mythical beasts like the chinthe were commonly used to measure standard quantities of staple items. And ever since the creation of modern currency in Myanmar there have been chinthe on the bills and the coins.

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Sunset at Shwe Sandaw Pagoda

Erin — Tue, 26 May 2015 01:00:20 +0000

Shwe Sandaw Pagoda was built in Bagan, Myanmar, in 1057 AD by King Anawrahta. It consists of five levels of red brick and a large stupa that is topped with a golden umbrella. The white color you see on the temple now wasn’t always there. Up until 1957, Shwe Sandaw Pagoda had retained most of its original design, aside from aging, minor repairs and upkeep. But in 1957, the Pagoda Trustees decided to renovate and modernize the temple by adding plaster embellishments and limewash on the upper half of the temple. When full-scale restorations began in the 1990’s, they restored the plaster and limewash finish instead of removing it to make it look as it had originally. It’s sad that the temple was modified so noticeably, but it still has a rugged, ancient feel to it, so it’s not too terribly bad. In some places you can see where the plaster has come off and shows the red brick underneath, so hopefully they will restore it to its original look soon. Like all pagodas, the pagoda on top of Shwe Sandaw has the privilege of being home to sacred Buddhist relics. Inside this pagoda resides a few strands of hair that belonged to Gautama Buddha, the person whom the teachings of Buddhism were founded. These hairs were originally enshrined in the town of Thaton in southern Myanmar, but they were moved to Shwe San Daw just before construction was completed. One of the unique features of this temple is that there are stairs on all four sides. Most temples just have stairs on one side, so it’s quite distinctive that this has them on each side. It’s unclear why this one would be so different, but it definitely makes it a lot easier to get up and down the levels when there are tons of tourists. The only downside, though, is that the stairs are quite steep. But, on the plus side, I did feel like I’d gotten all my squats and lunges in for the day. Or week. We went up and down the stairs a few times. Once you get to the top, though, it’s very worth the effort. The views are just breathtaking. There are four of these image houses around Shwe Sandaw. They used to house Buddha statues made of brick and bronze, but these images have been removed to the National Museum in Yangon and the Archaeological Museum in Bagan. All that are remaining are made of stone. Some of the image houses have frescoes inside, but most have been damaged by time, vandalism and earthquakes. I was surprised when we walked around the side and looked down on our horse cart. Our lonely little horse was stuck with all those dressed up oxen. We found it rather humorous. Partway through our sunset viewing, we noticed a Dragon Lady down by the front of the temple. We’d heard about them, but had yet to see one, so we scurried down to see if the Dragon Ladies were really what people had said. And, she was. It was really interesting to see a Dragon Lady. We’d heard stories about them, but it’s very different to actually see the brass coils around her neck than to hear about it. And I’d had no clue they also put them around their knees. I wanted to ask if it was painful to have them put on, but she didn’t speak any English. I felt a little silly, gawking at her like we were, but that seemed to be the reason she was there. Periodically she would point to a bowl a few feet in front of her and ask for kyat. She wanted us to pay for looking at her. Someone later told us that the money is also a compensation for her pain. We were receiving joy for her pain (not sure I would call it joy as much as curiosity or intrigue) and thus had to pay her for it. Close by her, there was a younger girl who had her own brass rings around her neck. We had fun watching her weave wraps. They’re very beautiful and it was fun seeing how fast she could go. Before heading back up the temple steps again, we wandered around a bit and saw this guy. It’s creepy, yet cool at the same time. After a while we made our way back up the temple and watched as the sun made its way down to the horizon. Most of the sky where the sun was setting was covered in clouds, so we didn’t get the spectacularly colorful sunset we’d been hoping for, but I did get a few nice shots. This one is my favorite. After a while, Troy got bored by the sunset and wanted to leave before the sun was all the way down, so we made our way down to our horse cart. That actually ended up being a really great idea because we got some beautiful shots of Shwe Sandaw against the sky. And then, as we were driving away in our cute little horse cart, the colors came out.

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She Myet Hna

Sunset at Shwe Sandaw Pagoda