Mandalay
(The Last Royal Capital)
Mandalay, the last
royal capital of Myanmar Kings, is situated at the foot of the Mandaly Hill on
the east bank of the Ayeyarwaddy River.
The city was renamed after the Mandalay Hill. The founder
of the city was king Mindon (1852-1878). It was formally inaugurated in 1859,
although the city was built in 1857.
According to the traditional belief, once upon a time
Gautama Buddha came th the top of the Mandalay Hill together with his disciple,
Arnanda, impressed by his great teaching, ogress named Sandamukhi paid great
reverence to the lord Buddha. Seeing the lord Buddha smile, Arnanda, out of
curiosity, asked him why he did so. The loard Buddha explained that royal
capital had been build many times in the vicinity of the Mandalay Hill in the
past during the life times of the previous Buddha. He continued to say that he
himself in one of his previous existences in animal from had taken shelter on
this hill and prophesied that in the year 2400 of his religious (AD 1857) a
king who was the reincarnation of this ogress would establish a great city at
the foot of the Mandalay Hill.
King Mindon fulfilled the prophesy by establishing the
city of Mandalay or 'Yatanabon' and by shifting the capital from Amarapura in
1860 when the construction of the walled palace was completed. The construction
of the palace king Mindon designed includes (1) The place city (2) The moat (3)
Kuthodaw (Royal Bounty) (4) Ordination Hall (5) Atumashi Monastery (6) Prayer
Hall (7) Library.
The palace city was constructed in the form of a square
each side of which was 10 furlongs in length. It has 12 gates, three on each
side, at equal distance from each other and surrounded by pyatthats tiered roofs.
The city was surrounded by moat 255 feet wide and 11 feet deep. There were five
wooden five wooden bridges crossing the moat, four of which led to the main
gates.
The prominent pagodas and religious edifices built by
King Mindon are:-
ATUMASHI MONASTERY
Atumashi Monastery (The incomparable monastery)built in
1857 was a building of wood covered with with stucco on the outside. Inside the
building a huge image of lord Buddha was enshrined and four sets of Tipikata
were placed in large teak boxes. The whole building of Monastery was ravaged by
fire in 1890.
KYAUKTAWGYI PAGODA
Kyauktawgyi Pagoda (The Pagoda of the great marble image)
built in 1865 lies in the shawdow of the Mandalay Hill. The Buddha Image in
this Pagoda was curved out of a single block of while marble which was quarried
from Sagyin Hill a few miles to the north of Mandalay. The marble block was so
large that ten thousand men were employed for 13 days to move it from a caved
to the site of the pagoda. The images of 80 disciples of the Buddha were placed
around the shrine, twenty on each side.
KUTHODAW PAGODA
Kuthodaw (Royal Bounty) Pagoda – King Mindon built this
pagoda in 1587, modeled on the Shwezigon Pagoda in Bagan. The most remarkable
feature of this pagoda is the collection of 729 marble
Slabs on which the
Buddhist Cannons (Tipitaka Test) were inscribed and housed in small shrines.
King Mindon’s achievement of inscribing the Buddhist
scriptures on stone is a great wonder in the Buddhist world. Since after
passing away of Gautama Buddha the Tipitaka has been written and coped by hand
on palm leaf manuscript, this led to many errors in Tipitaka.
To avoid making errors, King Mindon ordered his ministers
to inscribe the whole test of the inscribe the whole test of the Tipitaka, the
King convened the fifth Great Synod which ranked king Mindon with such royal
patrons of Buddhism as King Asoka. The authorized version of the Tipitaka
approved by the synod was inscribed on 729 marble slabs. He urged the learned
monks to participate in covening the Great Synod and give their advice and
blessings.
Each page of this book measures 3.5 feet in breadth and 5
feet in length while the thickness of each page is 5 to 6 inches. If all the
729 pages were to be piled up, the book would rise higher than a 20-storyed
building. All the 729 pages were erected in the precints of the Kuthodaw Pagoda
as the “Worlds’s largest Book”.
MAHA MUNI PAGODA
The most significant religious structure in Mandalay is
the Maha Muni Pagoda which is also called the ‘Rakhine”(Arakan)Pagoda or
‘Payagyi’ Pagoda. This pagoda was located a little over 3 Kilometers (2-miles)
south of the city centre on the road to Amarapura. It was origionally built in
1784 by king Bodawpaya and was reconstructed after a fire a century later.
Pilgrims throughout the world pay obeisance to the Maha Muni Buddha Image
within its image chamber. King Bodawpaya’s troops took this Buddha Image as
booty during a Rakhine (Arakan) campaign in 1784. The King sent his crown
prince with a force of 30,000 men to take Rakhine. The troops returned with the
Maha Muni in three separate pieces. It was ressenbledat Amarapura. The Maha
Muni Buddha Image is 3.8 meters (12feet and 7inches)high and is
coated with layers of gold leaf several centimeters (one to two inches)thick.
PROMINENT PAGODAS
Other prominent pagodas at Mandalay are set Kya Thiha
Pagoda (built by King Bagyidaw in 1832), Eindawya Pagoda (built by King Bagan
Min in 1847), and Shwe Kyee Myint Pagoda (the oldest Pagoda in the city erected
in 1167 by Price Min Shin Saw, the exiled son of kind Alaungsithu of Bagan)
SHWEYATTAW BUDDHA
The most attraction of the city is the Mandalay Hill.
There are two Chinthes (lions)standing upright at the foot of the hill and
greeting every visitor. The slopes (steps)of the Mandalay Hill are clothed in
covered stainways which contain small temples at regular intervals. Many of the
temples are the work of the late Hermit
U Khanti who collected a large sum of money from donors throughout the whole
country to build religiously significant temples. About two-thirds of the way
to the top there stands a gold-plated statue of the Shweyattaw Buddha with his
outstretched hand pointing to the place where the Royal Placed was built . On
the way up the steps there is also a statue of a women kneeling in front of the
Buddha offering th Him her two severed breasts.
Mandalay is not only the religious and cultural centre of
upper Myanmar, but it is also the economic centre of upper Myanmar, but it is
also the economic center forthe Chins of the west, the Kachins of the north and
the Shans of the east. For them and those in Mandalay Region the Zegyo Market
is Mandalay’s most important bazaar. Near the bazaar there is a clock tower
(Diamond Jubilee Clock which was erected in honour Queen Victoria’s 60-year
reign).
Like Zegyo Market another modernized market called
Yatanabon which was built about ten years ago draws a large attraction of
shoppers and visitors. Many new and modernized buildings like Novoted Holel,
Sedona Hotel, Super markets and restaurants also spring up everywhere in the
city.
In Mandalay there are seven universities of higher
learning liz the university of Mandalay, the University of Yatanabon, the
university of Medicine, the University of Distend Education, the institute of
Education, the institute of Economic and the Institute of Indigenous Medicine
of all the Universities the University of Mandalay is the oldest university of
higher learning. Looking back into the past , the University of Mandalay
developed from its infancy as the intermediate college in 1924 with a handful
of students. After the second world war, it was upgraded to the University
College affiliated with the then University of Rangoon. It then became the
University of Mandalay in June 1958.
King Mindon’s Place was destroyed is 1945 when the
british troops came back. Major General Rees ordered the British troops from
the Mandalay Hill to shell the palace where a handful of Japanese soldiers
stayed behind. Thus, the palace went down to ashes after it had stood thruoug
threee years of war and bombings. About twenty years ago, the Government of the
state law and Order Restoration concil built a new palace called ‘Myanan San
Kyaw Shwenandaw’(the golden palace) in place of the old one on the palace
ground.
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