Update: 2005-01-17 12:20 PM +0700
B. R. Pearn, Corporation of Rangoon, American Baptist Mission Press, Rangoon, 1939
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IN the middle of the eleventh century Anawrahta, King of Pagan, extended his authority over Lower Burma. In so doing, it is said, he came to Dagon. The conquest of Thaton tool place about 1054 or 1057 A.D., and the occupation of Dagon must have occurred, if it occurred at all, at about the same date. Mon tradition has it that he came to seize the Hairs:
“And King Nurahtaminsaw came down from Pagan and thought that he would dig up the relic-chamber and take away the Hairs. While fifty men with spades in their hands were digging, a terrific whirlwind arose, so that King Nawrahtaminsaw’s soliders and attendants were all frightened, and Nawrahtaminsaw, having offered golden and silver umbrellas and inserted on the north-east of the shrine a ruby of the kind found in Mount Vepulla, returned to pagan fn015-01.”
The Mon History of Kings tells exactly the same story fn015-02.
But these chronicles are of late date and of little value as evidence of the history of that remote age; and despite Mon traditions of Anawrahta’s submission to the Hairs, it may be doubted whether he troubled even to visit Dagon at all, for there is no contemporary evidence of the event; and if he did come, he must have come as a conqueror, for from this period Governors of Hanthawaddy were, it seems, appointed from Pagan, three of them being named in the History of Syriam, and that Dagon could under these conditions have remained outside the royal power is not conceivable. It may further be doubted whether Dagon existed at all, for no good evidence of its existence can be found. If it did exist, it was certainly not a place of major importance in the Delta of those days, but was completely eclipsed by Dalla, so much so that Dagon is not even named in any of the inscriptions of the Pagan period that have so far been discovered. Dalla was the principal town in the Delta, and is referred to as myo or fortress. But this was not the Dalla of today; the Dalla of that period lay on the Twante ridge. There votive plaques inscribed with Anawrahta’s name have been found; Dalla was the scene of the death of King Uzana; many other references to Dalla may be found in the inscriptions of the Pagan period; but not a single dependable reference to Dagon, unless, indeed, Molana, which is casually referred to in an inscription of the year 1198 as a village “ to the east of Dalla” can be identified with Dagon. fn015-03
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fn015-01 Pe Maung Tin op.cit. p.57 fn015-01b
fn015-02 Trans. R. Halliday. fn015-02b
fn015-03 Pe Maung Tin and G.H. Luce: Insriptions of Burma. fn015-03b
Dagon may have shared in the intercourse with Ceylon in the twelfth century and perhaps suffered in the Cingalese raid on the Delta in about the year 1180; but no evidence that Dagon was attacked is available and the suggestion is pure hypothesis. It is improbable, indeed, that Dagon was in that period a port; for there are trustworthy reference to various ports in the Delta, such as Pusium, which may be identifiable with Bassein, and Kusim, which remains unidentified, but no reference to any port that can be identified with Dagon. In all probability Dagon was still in a condition of complete insignificance. The only evidence which might indicate that Dagon even existed is the recent discovery of a votive plaque of the period at Tadagale, to the north of Rangoon. It would be reasonable to conclude from this discovery that the laterite ridge at the end which Dagon lay was the scene of activity in the age of Pagan; the ridge may well have provided the route for a road southwards to Dagon as it did centuries later and still does today. But as yet no such plaques have been found at Dagon itself, and thought it is, of course, probable that a pagoda of some sort was in existence on the Pagoda Hill which provided so suitable a site, and though, in view of the discovery at Tadagale, it is possible that votive plaques of Pagan origin lie buried beneath the Shwe Dagon, no evidence is forthcoming. The very existence of Dagon, in the Pagan period is hypothesis, and it is not until after the fall of the Pagan dynasty that Dagon clearly emerges from the obscurity of the past. fn016-01
With the collapse of Pagan power in the later thirteenth century a separate kingdom of Lower Burma, with its capital at Martaban, appeared, and when in the middle of the fourteenth century the capital was moved to Pegu, Dagon became a place of some note, not, however, as a town or sea-port, but as a centre of religious life. Such evidence as there is from this period onwards, indicates clearly that such importance as Dagon had at any time was derived from the Pagoda. King Binnya U (1353-1385), it is said, came to Dagon and repaired the Pagoda, raising its height to 60 feet. “In the year 734,” says the Mon History of Kings, “he was permitted to enlarge the pagoda of the Lagun hair relics. Having raised it to a height of forty standard cubits, he was permitted to maintain it all his days.” Similarly it is recorded in the Shwe Dagon Inscriptions, which erected only one hundred years after the date of the event, are fairly good evidence, that “Kings of faith ruling the country of Mon and intending to make the cetiyaghara permanent destroyed that cetiyaghara and encased the ceti so as to make it higher in successive stages and the ceti became the great ceti. The venerable ceti of the hair-relics of the Lord Buddha which Taphusa and Bhallika had enshrined on top of Mount Tamagutta, at the time when his Majesty the Lord of
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fn016-01 Burmese chronicles refer only casually to Dagon; e.g. in reference to the monk Uttarajiva, it is stated that his tutor was the pupil of “Shin Mahakala the elder, who dwelt in the town of Dagon.” ( Glass Palace Chronicle, V. p. 143). But there is no suggestion that it was a place of any note. The Glass Palace Chronicle, moreover, has little historical value, and its statement provide no valid proof that Dagon even existed. In any case, it is apparent that Burmese tradition, unlike Mon tradition, ascribes no importance to the place. fn016-01b
the White Elephants by name King Dhammatrailokyanatharajadhirat (Binnya U) was ruling, the prasada of cetiyaghara having been destroyed, he encased and increased and then it was forty cubits high”.
It would thus appear that already there was a Pagoda at Dagon, but that it was of trifling size: a circumstance illustrative of the unimportance of Dagon at that time. Binnya U pulled it down so that a larger one might be erected; but again the limited height to which the King raised the new Pagoda is noteworthy; even his new Pagoda measured only forty cubits or sixty feet; previously, therefore, the Shwe Dagon could have been of but very insignificant size and could not have been a shrine of any note. While the rulers of Pagan been erecting their magnificent temples, the Mons had produced nothing of comparable value, and even now in the days of their greatness their Kings had as yet aimed at no more than a stupa of sixty feet height. It is evident that the Delta had legged far behind Upper Burma in civilisation; perhaps the Burmese conquest had been accompanied by something approaching a depopulation of the Delta and development had consequently been retarded. But from the time of Binnya U the Shwe Dagon Pagoda increase in size and Dagon becomes a place of more importance. Binnya U’s sister, the Princess Mahadevi, was myosa of Dagon and made it her residence at times in this period. It was to Dagon that Binnya U’S son, Binnya Nwe, afterwards the King Razadarit, fled when he ran away with his half-sister, Talamidaw. Binnya Nwe was pursued and captured but thought he was later pardoned for his offence, again he fled to Dagon to escape danger at the King’s court at Pegu; for his aunt, the Princess Mahadevi plotted with Thamein Maru, who had married Binnya Nwe’s sister, to killed both this sister and Binnya Nwe himself: whereafter the two were to marry and secure the succession of the throne to Thamein Maru. After several warnings Binnya Nwe with thirty followers fled once more to Dagon, and having come there he killed the servants of his aunt, and the inhabitants of the place submitted themselves to him. He had “the towers and the moat of the city” repaired, and asked for aid from his brother, the myosa of Dalla. He made his council chamber at the Athok Pagoda; and he paid reverence at the Shwe Dagon. His aunt made alliance against him with Laukpya, myosa of Myaungmya, to attack him when the rains ceased by water and by land, for “Dagon is no walled city but just a fort of logs; how will be able to hold out?”. But the Dalla myosa came to aid his brother, and so when the fighting began Binnya Nwe was victorious, and his enemies fled to Pegu. Binnya Nwe then occupied Pegu, and at that very time his father, Binnya U,died, and Binnya Nwe became King with the name of Razadarit. Thamein Maru fled to Martaban, but he was later captured and executed. Bearing in mind the gratitude which he owed his aunt, who had looked after him in childhood, Razadarit did not punish her but confirmed her in her myosaship of Dagon.
During his occupation of Dagon, Razadarit had been aided by certain Muslim seamen, doubtless some of the Arabs who traded across the Indian Ocean so freely in these days; and this would suggest that the River was now being frequented by foreign sailors who took their merchandise through the Delta creeks to Pegu.
When Razadarit ascended the throne in 1385, he neglected the Shwe Dagon, despite the fact that it had sheltered him in the days of his adversity. “Because he was great in war always, he had no opportunity to enshrine pagodas. He could only make offerings,” says the History of Kings. For there was much warfare during his reign. Laukpya, the myosa of Myaungmya, induced Minkyiswasawke, King of Ava, to make war, promising to hold Pegu as a vassal state of Ava; and so began between the two kingdoms a conflict which, with varying fortunes, continued for many years. The forces of Minkyiswasawke invaded Pegu and advancing down the Hlaing River, perhaps attacked, among other places, Dagon. The Thamaing asserts that he came to seize the Hairs: he “came with the intention of taking away the Hairs, but for the same reason (as in the case of Anawrahta) he had to abandon his design. He and his army stopped at the place where now Kemmendine stands. He said, ‘From here we can see the whole of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda; so we will stop here.’ Thus its name became and still is Kyimyindaing. The King made offerings to the Pagoda and returned to Ava.” In so far as there is any reliance to be placed on this story, it would appear that the attack on Dagon failed, and that Minkyiswasawke, having camped a while by the riverside below the Hill, retreated; but other accounts suggest that the invaders did not come so far as Dagon and the story may be dismissed as legendary. However that be, the invasion of Pegu failed. But Laukpya was yet unsubdued, and again urged Minkyiswasawke to attack the Delta, suggesting that he come down the Panhlaing River against Hmawi, Dagon, and Dalla, before attempting to take Pegu. But the invaders got no farther than Hmawbi; and while Laukpya waited at Panhlaing the Burmese army was defeated. Laukpya still held out, and much fighting ensued around Myaungmya, some of those who fell in battle being buried, it is said, on the platform of the Shwe Dagon. Ultimately Laukpya was defeated, but he was treated generously and was only made to ”Live beneath the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in the observance of religion,” i.e., he was compelled to enter a monastery. fn018-01
On Razadarit’s death his successor Binnyadammayaza (1424-1426) was opposed by two of his brothers, princess of Dagon and of Dalla, one of whom. afterwards King Binnyaran, held Dagon against him. Continual warfare occupied his brief reign, and he also “had no hand in enshrining the relics”. fn018-02 Yet the Shwe Dagon Inscriptions assert that King Sutasoma Rajadhirat,
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fn018-01 Razadarit Ayebon, trans. J. S. Furnivall. fn018-01b
fn018-02 History of Kings. fn018-02
who must be either Razadarit or Binnyadammayaza, did in fact embellish the Pagoda: “ he again caused it to encased and increased. On its being encased and increased, he put up the spire, the umbrella, and with a layer of copper within and a layer of copper outside he had the whole spire fully overlaid.” it may therefore be that when Binnyammayaza for a time was at place with his brothers he came to Dagon and commenced work which was not finished by the time of his murder.
Both the History of Kings and the Inscriptions refer to the embellishments made by Binnyadammaya’s brother and successor, Binnyaran (1426-1446). The former says that he “was great in his desire for works of merit. When his Majesty saw the pagoda of the eight hair relics, being desirous of increasing its size he thus considered: ‘The measurement of the base is too large.’ So with the architect his Majesty took cogitation. The hill itself was cut down, and the base having been built up in five stages, the pagoda was raised six standard cubits. The work was begun in the year 815, but there was not time to complete it then.” The Inscription suggest that Binnyaran’s work was necessitated by the collapse of the existing structure: “The venerable ceti of hair-relics, being the top part from the shoulder of the bell crumbled down. His Majesty with His Queen Nārājadevī sent Prince Sāṁm Mlām to level the ground and build it up again. After building it up, they had it plastered. Then saying that the ceti w as too small, from the large plainth (upwards) they had it rebuilt and encased once more. Before the encasing of the ceti was finished His Majesty Rāmarājādhirāt went to the city of Gods”. It would appear from these accounts that the ground space on the summit of the hill was too limited in extent to bear a pagoda of the size at which the King aimed, and that he therefore had the hill cut down and levelled so as to provide more room; but that the work was not completed at the time of his death.
His successor, King Binnyawaru (1446-1450) carried on the work. “There never was any king among all the kings who reigned in Haṁsāvatī that did such good deeds as this king did. He took great delight in the three germs. He did much in keeping up and preserving the pagoda relic chambers. As to the Lagun hair relic pagoda, from the five terraces of the base which had not been completed, he built up again until the bell was finished. This king because he greatly desired the good of the people for many a day, managed only to repair the Lagun pagoda as far as the bell". fn019-01 The Inscriptions similarly state that the King was unable to complete his design before his death, but had to leave the completio of it to his successor. This successor, King Binnyakyan (1450-1453) also “greatly delighted in works of merit. As to the Lagun pagoda which was not yet finished, from the bell he built it up to finish at the umbrella and put on its crown.” The Inscriptions, however, suggest that it was the King’s mother who completed the
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fn019-01 Ibid. fn019-01b
work, the King merely having the Pagoda plastered and setting up the spire and the Umbrella.
When Binnyakyan died, there was no obvious successor. For a brief spell King Mawdaw, cousin of Binnyakyan held the throne; “this king during his reign showed a very cruel disposition. He was an adulterer. He reigned for seven months only.” fn020-01
It was evidently during these years of the MOn kingdom of Pegu that the Shwe Dagon first began to assume its importance as a place of religious veneration. While tradition many exaggerate the glories with which it was endowed, there can be no doubt that it was rapidly gaining in size and in fame. Before the time of Binnya U it had been a very minor shrine; the Pegu kings began to build it up, increasing both its height and its importance. No rason is advanced in the chronicles for the development of the Pagoda. Possibly some change in the courses of the Delta creeks had increased the importance of the River and by attracting trade to the neighbourhood had made the town of Dagon more populous. But the more probable explanation is that Dagon had a tendency to become a Cave of Adullam for rebellious princes and for this reson it was perhaps desirable to make clear the royal interest in the place and to provide a pretext for frequent visits.
It was in the time of Mawdaw’s successor that the Shwe Dagon first assumed something of its present appearance. His successor was the famous queen Shinsawbu, who also is known as Srītribhūwanādityaparavara-dham-matrailokyanātha Mahādhammarājādhirājadevī and is the only queen-rgnant in the history of all the Burmese kingdoms. Born in 1395, she was a ad daughter of Razadarit. She was married in 1415 to Binnyabwe, a nephew of Razadarit, but during the troubles of Binnyadammaraza’s reign, when Thihathu, King of Ava, invaded Pegu to assist the rebels, she was given in marriage to Thihathu by one of her brothers, the rebel Lord of Dalla, afterwards King Binnyaran. At that time she was a window with a son and two daughters. She was taken to Ava and became Thihathu’s chief Queen; but on his death in 1426 she was genven to the myosa of Pagan. A succeeding King of Ava, Mohnyinthado, took her from the myosa; but finding her condition intolerable she fled from Ava in 1430, in the company of two Mon monks who had been her teachers. Going by boat, she escaped down the river and eventually came to Pegu, after an absence of seven years. Binnyaran sent her to Dagon to live. It was her son who became King of Pegu in 1446 as King Binnyawaru. After Mawdaw’s death there was no male representative of the house of Razadarit left, and Shinsawbu was accepted as queen-regnant. fn020-02
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fn020-01 History of Kings. fn020-01b
fn020-02 For the history of Shin Sawbu see Harvey: History of Burma, and Saya Thein: Shin Sawbu. The dates are uncertain. fn020-02b
Two claims to fame are hers: one, that she ruled well, so much so that “four hundred years later the Talaings could think of no fairer thing to say of Queen Victoria than to call her Shinsawbu reincarnate; fn021-01 the other, that she embellished the Shwe Dagon.
There was a great contrast between her rule and that of her predecessor; the History of Kings says of her that, “She was held in much honour. She was great in faith and self-sacrifice. Kings of the eight directions sent messengers with presents without intermission. She accomplished a great many meritorious work, first in regard to pagodas great and small, and also in respect to monks who have undertaken the burden of study and the burden of contemplation. She built many monasteries and made them over to the monks. She made offerings without number all the time.”
After seven years she resolved to abandon the throne. She decided that one of the two monks who had accompanied her from Ava should be her successor, and this man, renouncing the yellow robe, became the Einshemin with the name of Dammazedi, and married one of the Queen’s daughters. Leaving her son-in-law in charge of the government, she came to Dagon. “When her Majesty Bañā Thau had reigned in Haṁsāvatī seven years she handed over the government to the monk Dhammacetī, who was viceroy. Then her Majesty Bañī Thau went away down to Lagun. She had them build and enlarge the Lagun Pagoda platform. her Majesty also put on a crown. Her Majesty went on the scales and made them take her own weight in gold, twenty-five viss fn021-02, and beating it out into leaf, cover the pagoda from the dome to the umbrella and down to the bottom. For the city of Lagun they made up five thousand viss of pure bronze and offered it to the pagoda. Four chiefs of pagoda slaves, four soldiers and five hundred people were placed, and they all gave service to the Lagun pagoda. She had them cast a bronze bell of one thousand seven hundred viss weight. She had them pave the Lagun pagoda platform with paving stones. Stones posts were put all round the pagoda, and stone lamps were put all round. There were four white umbrellas, four golden alms bowls, eight golden curry dishes, four golden spoons, four earthenware vessels, and four offerings were made each day. There were twenty-seven men who prepared the lamps each day. There were twenty men as guardians of the pagoda treasury. There were four goldsmiths’ shops, four orchestras, four drums, four sheds eight door-keepers, four sweepers, and twenty lamp-lighters. She built round and strengthened the sevenfold wall. Between the walls her Majesty Bañā Thaū had them plant palmyra palms and cocoanut trees. So she adorned the place. In this fashion she arranged for the upkeep of the Lagun hair relics.” fn021-03 The Shwe Inscriptions give a similar statement
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fn021-01 Harvey, op. cit., 117. fn021-01b
fn021-02 About 90 lb. fn021-02b
fn021-03 History of Kings. fn021-03b
except that Dammazedi is joined with shingsawbu in this pious work: “The two sovereigns, mother and son, stayed at the foot of the hair-relics and had the ravine filled up. Even the very deep ravine they caused to be entiredly filled up. High mounds they caused to be dug and levelled. On the earth which was filled in were ranged in order blocks of gravel stone and outside of it they had it all faced. Then on the first plinth supporting the ceti, at the mouth of the upper plinth they arranged stone umbrellas overlaid with gold. Between the umbrellas they had the foot of the plinth of the ceti covered full with the falt stones. And on the foot of the plinth, having built up the bell, they arranged standing lanterns adorned with stones. On the top of the Cetiyangana fn022-01 what is termed a pannasa fn022-02 for people to walk round, and round about the umbrellas they laid down flat stones throughout. At the end of the pannasa they built a wall, with an earthwork, on which they made patterns of lotus . . . at the end of one storey of the lower level they had permanent rest-houses built all round. On that level they built the pannasa on one storey and on the next storey of the lower level they had a wall built all round it. Within the wall they had cocoanut palms planted throughout. Outside the wall they had the ground levelled throughout.” And again, they History of Syriam: “She repaired the pagoda and the hall of ordination and flagstaff. She overlaid it from the pinnacle right down to the plinth with scroll work and tracery of gold of four times her won weight. She also bestowed five thousand pieces of silver upon the inhabitants of the towns and villages within the sacred lands. Morever she set up as a further benevolence four companies of watchmen, one on each of the four sides of the pagoda, five hundred men with four head astrologers, tow writers and sitke. Further she appointed a headman over the gold work and a headman over the wood oil, and a headman over the plaster work, a writer for the gold, and a land measurer, fourteen men to present the offering of food, twenty-seven to light the lamps, five men as a watch to patrol each face, ten men to keep watch over the treasury, four ushers, eight doorkeepers and four wood carvers, in all one thousand and six men, and four sets of Talaing drums and four of Kala drums, four golden alms-bowls for the royal use, four pieces of gold lace, four tiers of the pagoda and seven flagstaffs. These are the boundaries of the lands which she dedicated to the Shwe Dagon Pagoda; on the east Kyiaikkanat pagoda, on the south Danok pagoda, on the west Pyaung Bya pagoda, on the north Myoeik Modaw Pagoda: these lands are marked out and dedicated.” fn022-03
Thus what Shinsawbu did was to fill in the nullahs in the sides of the Hill, and to cut the Hill into terraces; the Hill has to this day the appearance of being a partially artificial erection. The topmost terrace she had paved with stone, and a stone wall was built around. She was the first to gild.
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fn022-01 Cetiyangana – the precincts of the ceti. fn022-01b
fn022-02 Pannasa – a leaf-hut. fn022-02b
fn022-03 See Appendix A: THE Glebe Lands of the Shwe Dagon. fn022-03b
the Pagoda, for there is no previous reference to gilding in its history. To the Pagoda she dedicated slaves and land. For her residence during the building of the Pagoda she had a stockaded palace erected near the Pagoda, and there is a tradition that the remains of the stockade are still visible in the erathworks on the gold-course between the Pagoda and Prome Road. fn023-01 The hillock which formerly stood west of Voyle Road, to the north-west of the Pagoda and which was levelled in 1936-37, was known as Shin Sawbu Gon.
According to the tradition she spent some years at Dagon engaged in later. Her death took place at Dagon: “There came a day when her Majesty Bañā Thau grew sick, and wishing to ontemplate the Lagun Hair relics which glowed and glistened, she opened her eyes and having attained tranquillity, she passed away and returned to the devalokas.” fn023-02 It would thus seem that she was brought to Dagon to look once more on the gleaming Pagoda which she had adorned, and that having seen it she died. She is said to lie buried at the pagoda still known as Shinsawnbu’s cemetery near the kyaungon Windsor Road. It is said that among her other works of merit she enlarged the Sule Pagoda, which according to legend was originally built at the same times as the Shwe Dagon to commemorate the spot where King Ukkalapa and the two brothers assembled while searching for Singuttara hill. Actually, however, the term Sule appears to be derived from cūḷaceti “the small pagoda,” in contradistinction to the great pagoda of Shwe Dagon. fn023-03
On Shinsawbu’s death in 1472 she was succeeded by her son-in-law, Dammazedi. He also was pious, and his chief contribution to religion was the sending of a mission of twenty-two monks to Ceylon in 1475. Having made offering to the Tooth at Kandy and to other objects of veneration, and having presented gifts to the Cingalese clergy and the King of Ceylon, these monks obtained ordination from the monks of the Mahavihara, and after their return they transmitted these orders to the monks of Pegu. At.Pegu Damazedi erected inscription-stones relating the story of these events, the Kalyāṇi Stones, so called from the Kalyāṇi them at Pegu where the new ordinations were made: the thein itself deriving its name from the Kalyāṇi stream in Ceylon on whose banks the Cingalese monks ordained the King’s mission. But he reduced the gift of land which Shin Sawbu had made to the Pagoda, though he erected the Inscriptions telling the legend of the foundation of the Pagoda and also gave some compensation in the shape of gold:
“In the year 832 after the death of the princess Pinya Daw, during the reign of Dhammazedi, because the lands that Pinya Daw had formerly dedicated were too broad, he reduced them to a small compass. Thereafter the sacred lands extended on the North-East so far as the Thit Thin Kan Hill, on the East so far as Nga Mo Yeik Chaung, on the South-East so far as
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fn023-01 But see below p. fn023-01b
fn023-02 History of Kings. fn023-02b
fn023-03 Forchhammer: The First Buddhist Mission to Suvannabhumi. fn023-03
the Pan Alwe chaung and the mouth of the Nga Mo Yeik; on the South at the Tonbo landing stage the venerable Dagon was contiguous with the lands of Dalla; on the South-West the Kangyi watch-post; on the West the Kemmendine watch-post and the Inwa Bauk chaung; on the North-West the mouth of Hmawbi chaung; on the North-West from Nga Than Tin village so far as Yongalauk chaung; because he reduced the compass of the lands Dhammazedi measured his weight and the weight of the queen in gold and with four times their weight of gold he overlaid the pagoda with scroll work and tracery. He also cast a large bell ‘Awinga Sauk’ of three parts brass, eighteen thousand in weight, and dedicated it.” fn024-01
The History of Kings mentions his gifts but does not refer to his expropriation of the Pagoda lands: “Then his Majesty went down to Lagun to perform meritorious works. He had the heir-apparent and the queen go on the scales, and gave their weight in gold to be beaten out into gold-leaf the size of a wall, and had the Lagun pagoda covered over. His Majesty had them design and cast a great bell of one hundred and eighty thousand viss weight of bronze. The mouth of the bell was eight cubits, and its height twelve cubits. He cast also a small bell of five hundred viss weight to strike in offering to the Buddha, on the upper platform of the pagoda. They paid up in Lagun as the contribution of the Lagun people five viss of gold and five thousand viss of bronze. Because it was the city of the Buddha they were obliged to eat fruits and vegetables. His Majesty gave this standing order to the governor of Lagun: “When it comes to the end of Lent, let twenty-five trees of kalpavŗiksa flowers be brought to the pagoda every year.” Thus began the practice of making annual royal offerings to the Pagoda, a practice carried on by later Kings. It is to be noted that the inhabitants of Dagon were constrained to vegetarianism, as became subjects of a true Buddhist.
Dagon was the place at which Dammazedi desired to receive the monks on their return from Ceylon. “When Rāmādhipatirāja received the tidings that the thēras has arrived at the mouth of the Yoga River fn024-02, he bethought himself: ‘Considering that these thēras visited Sīhaladīpa fn024-03 at my solicitation, and that they are the inaugurators of the upasampadā ordination fn024-04, it would not be proper to send any of my officials to welcome them. It would, indeed, be appropriate that I should myself welcome them on my return from Tigumpanagara where, on the mabāpavāraṇa fn024-05 day, which falls on the full-moon day of Assayuja, I shall present the cetiya fn024-06 containing the Hair Relics of the Fully Engightened One, obtained during His life-time, with a large bell made of brass, weighing 3,000 talas’.7 Agreeably with this thought, he
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fn024-01 History of Syriam, trans, J. S. Frunivall. See also Appendix. A: The Glebe Lands of the Shwe Dagon. fn024-01b
fn024-02 Taw Sein Ko (Indian Antiquary XII) suggests the Pegu River, but Balgden (Epigraphia Birmanca III) prefers the Bassein River. fn024-02b
fn024-03 Ceylon, the country of the Sīhalas (Cingalese). fn024-03b
fn024-04 The higher ordination or admission to the full privileges of recognized monkhood. fn024-04b
fn024-05 An ecclesiatical ceremony performed at the end of the Buddhist Lent. fn024-05b
fn024-06 Shrine. fn024-06b
7 Taw Sein Ko (op. cit.) interprets as 120,000 viss; Blagden gives 3,000 viss.
wrote a letter saying: ‘As I am visiting Tigumpanagara, may it please the Venerable Ones to remain in that town?’ And, after making arrangements for their entertainment, he had them disembarked from their sea-going vessel and conveyed to Tigumpanagara in river-boats......... On Thursday, the 8th day of the light half of the month Assayuja, 838, fn025-01 Sakkarāj, Rāmādhipatmahārāja, with the object of presenting a great bell to the Kesadhātucetiya, fn025-02 embarked on a barge surmounted by a golden spire, and, escorted by a number of boats such as the indavimāma, proceeded to Tigumpanagara. On Tuesday the 13th day of the light half of the month Assayuja, the day of his arrival at Tigumpanagara, he invited the eleven thēras, who embarked in the same ship at Rāmaūta, and served them with various kinds of delicious food. He likewise presented each of them with two couples of cloths for their ticīvara robes, fn025-03 and having exchanged with them the customary compliments of friendship and civility, commanded that their residence be shown to them. Rāmādhipatimahārāja had grand festivals held for three days; and on Thursday, the day of mahāpavāraṇā, the great bell was conveyed to the quadrangle of the Kesadhātucetiya, in order that it might be presented to it. On Friday, the 1st day, fn025-04 offerings were made to the priests residing in Tigumpanagara, and the King commanded that largess be given to paupers, wayfarers, and beggars. On Sunday, the 3rd day, fn025-05 eleven boats were adorned in a reverent manner, and ministers were sent to escort the thēras. Having thus made preparations for escorting the thēras, Rāmādhipatiraja left Tigumpanagara on the morning of Monday, the fourth day”. fn025-06
As a corollary of the institution of the new orders, Dammazedi caused the reconsecration of theins (or ordination sites) throughout his kingdom, and the list of reconsecrations at Dagon indicates the numbers of theins that exist there in his day, viz., “the Ma Damru simā, the Mah Damru Simā, the Mah Dun simā, the Rak simā, the Duiw Canlan simā, the Pubbārām simā, the Kyāk Ma Sāṁ Kyow simā, the Duiw Panah simā the Goh Dhammārām simā, the Tak Naṅ simā, the Apa Gay simā the Kyăk Gnak simā, the Nelu Laṅ simā, the Dåṅ Luin simā, the Pāṅ Taboṅ simā, the Twān Akhwin simā, the Balā simā the Daroṅ Sā simā, the Maṅga simā, the Kruṅ Cra simā, the Cambuiṅ simā, the Duiw Khaweṅ simā” fn025-07. As would be expected, the theins around the great Pagoda were numerous.
If the accounts in the History of Kings of the offering of precious metals by the people of Dagon are to believed, the place must by now have become a large and wealthy town, but from later descriptions this appears improb-
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fn025-01 26th September, 1476. fn025-01b
fn025-02 “The shrine of the hair-relics” –i.e. the Shwe Dagon. fn025-02b
fn025-03 The three robes of Buddhist monk: Saṅghāti, the cloak, Uttarāsaṅga, the upper robe, and Antaravāsaka, the inner garment. fn025-03b
fn025-04 4th October, 1476. fn025-04b
fn025-05 6th October, 1476. fn025-05b
fn025-06 Kalyani Inscriptions, trans. Taw Sein Ko. fn025-06b
fn025-07. Blagden: Epigraphia Birmanics, III. p. 270 fn025-07b
able. Nevertheless, this period has been described as “the golden age of Lower Burma”, fn026-01 and thought Dagon itself was a small town, pious men from other parts of the Delta may well have been in a position to make generous gifts to the Pagoda.
But it did not last. Before long Upper Burma had asserted its superiority and a long series of wars brought down the Mon power in ruin. Dammazedi was succeeded by his son Binnyaram (1492-1526), and during his time “a great storm arose and the Umbrella of the Lagun pagoda floated away on the air and fell down as far away as Syriam. His Majesty Bañā Rām lifted and brought up the Umbrella and the crown, and having set them round with many precious stones, put them upon the dome of the Lagun pagoda. When His Majesty reached the age of forty-eight, he built forty-eight little pagodas on the base. He again enlarged the great base, and made offerings in golden alms-bowls with golden litters every day and had eight men hang a golden bell as an offering.” fn026-02 According to modern belief as recorded in the Shwe Dagon Thamaing this episode was the work of the Nats who thus indicated the evil of the King’s rule and so led him to better ways: “He was a bad King and committed many evil deeds. In his reign epidemic diseases came; famine visited the land; Nats stood in the sky and abused him; fearful storm arose; heavy rains fell, accompanied by thunder; many deaths occurred; people cursed the King; Nats cursed the King. The Umbrella from the Shwe Dagon Pagoda was blown off by one gust of wind coming with terrible force and it fell down on the ground some two miles to the north-west of the Pagoda. This evil portent changed everything. The King, his ministers, and all his subjects, were affrighted, and thereafter devoted themselves to religious practices such as making offerings, going to the pagoda, building pagodas and monasteries, digging wells and tanks, approaching sanghas and keeping the precepts. They also indulged in harmless amusements so as to forget he unhappy times, holding pwes and festivals all the year round. At the place where the Umbrella of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda fell, the King held a great festival; and he repaired the Umbrella and replaced it on the Pagoda. At that time the king’s age was forty-eight years, and therefore he built forty-eight small pagodas around the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. In the same year the King died.”
He was succeeded by his son Takayutpi, who also adorned the Shwe Dagon; “for the hair relic pagoda he made a consecrated chain of stones, and put it on the dome of the pagoda. His Majesty gave as an offering to the pagoda a royal tusker elephant, with two young ones, a silver alms-bowl, and eight men.” fn026-02
But in 1535 Tabinshwehti, Lord of Toungoo, attacked Lower Burma; he took Pegu in 1539, and Takayutpi fled to Prome and died within a few months. So ended the independent Kingdom of Pegu; for two hundred years.
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fn026-01 Harvey, op. cit. p. 121. fn026-01b
fn026-02 History of Kings. fn026-02b
thereafter Lower Burma remained subject to Upper Burma. It is significant that Tabinshwehti was opposed in his attack on Pegu by certain Portuguese sailors who happened to be there, and that Portuguese adventurers figure in much of the warfare which accompanied the subjugation of Lower Burma. The fall of the Mon Kingdom synchronised with the beginning of a new age, the age of European adventurers in Burma; and from this time the some-what slender evidence of Mon chronicles and inscriptions for the history of Dagon is supplemented by the accounts of European travellers.
The first European traveller to visit Burma so far as is known was the Venetian merchant Nicolo di Conti, who came to Tenasserim, Arakan, Ava, and Pegu, about 1435; but he makes no reference to Dagon in his description of Pegu. Another Italian, Hieronimo de Santo Stephano, came to Pegu in 1496, nine years later another fellow-countryman, Ludovico di Varthema also came there; but either do these refer to Dagon in their accounts of their adventures. It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that though Dagon had become an eminent religious centre, it was in other respects still insignificant, and not in any way a place likely to interest the commercially-minded. In the second decade of the sixteenth century the Portuguese began to have official relations with Lower Burma, and a Portuguese settlement was established at Martaban. But Pegu was the principal centre of trade, for Pegu was in those days an important port. The Pegu River did not, as now, flow towards the sea past Syriam: on the contrary it flowed into the Gulf of Martaban, and this remained the case till the later sixteenth century. fn027-01 It was to Pegu that foreign merchants went in pursuit of their trade, and not even Syriam, much less Dagon, was as yet within the range of commercial interests. As Dammazedi’s reception there of his monks shows, Dagon was not yet sea-port, for it was reached from the sea by river-boats. In the later sixteenth century, however, travellers do on occasion refer to Dagon: thus Ramusio, in his Delle Navagationi et Viaggi, dated 1563, mentions “Dogom” as a “port”, though this may mean no more than that trading barges came there from Pegu and other greater towns: and in describing the distances from Pegu to the major towns he mentions Dagon as one day and one night’s journey away. But it is Gasparo Balbi, who came there in 1583, to whom we owe the first detailed description of ancient Dagon.
On the 2nd November of the year 1583, he says, he reached the city of Dall (i.e., Twante), where there were “ten large rooms full of elephants; which are kept there by divers servants of the King of Pegu. The day following we came to the faire citie of Dogon, it is finely seated, and fronted towards South-West, and where they land are twenty long steps, as from the Pillar of Saint Marke to the Strawbridge, the matter of them is strong and great pieces of timber, and there are great currents of water both at ebbe and floud, because it is neere Maccareo, fn027-02 which entereth and goeth
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fn027-01 See Map. I., which indicates the old course of the Pegu River. fn027-01
fn027-02 Maccareo – a tidal bore. fn027-02
out of the mouth of Sirian, which is sea-port; and alwaies when the water encreaseth, they goe upon the Staires; and when it is ebbe, it discovers all about, and makes it a great way drie land. On both sides the River, at the end of the banke, or at the staires, is a wooden Tigre, very great, and painted after the natural colour of a Tigre; fn028-01 and there are two others in the midst of the staires, so farre from one another, that they seeme to share the staires equally ..... They told me a foolish belief which they have, that they stand there to guard, for if any should be so bold to displease the Pagod, those Tigres should defend him, for he would give them life. After we were landed we began to goe on the right hand in a large street about fifty paces broad, in which we saw wooden houses gilded, and adorned with delicate gardens after their custome, wherein the Talapoins, which are their Friers, dwell, and look to the Pagod, or Varella of Dogon. The left side is furnished with Portals and Shops, very like the new Procuration at Venice; and by this street they goe towards the Varella, we found a paire of stpes of ninety stpes, as long in my judgements as the channel of the Rialto at Vencie. At the foot of the first staire are two Tigres, one at the right hand, and the other the left, they are of stone, and stand in the same fashion that they do at the shoare-side.... On the last step are Angels of stone, each with three Crowns one upon the other; .... they have the right hand lifted up, ready to give the benediction, with two fingers stretched out. The other hand of the one is layed upon the head of a Childe, and of the other upon the head of an Ape; those statues are all of stone. At the right hand is a Varella gilded in a round forme, made of stone, and as much in compasse as the street before the Venetian Palace, if it were round: and the height may equal Saint Markes Bell-tower, to the top of it, but the little Pinnaces. At the left hand is a faire Hall carved and gilded within and without. And this is a place of devotion, whither the people goe to hear the Talapois preach; the streete is greater than Saint Markes, at the least larger. And this is a place of great devotion amongst them, and yearly multitudes of people come by Sea and by Land. And when they celebrate a solemn Feast, the King in person goeth before them all, and with him the Queens, the Prince, and his other sonnes, with a great traine of Nobles and others, who goe to get a pardon. And on this day there is a great Mart whe4re are all sorts of merchandises which are current in those Countries, which they frequent in great multitudes, which come thither not so much for devotion as traffique, and we many freely goe thither if we will . . . I found in a faire Hall a very large Bell, which we measured, and found to be seven paces and three hand breadths, and it is full of Letters from the top to there bottome but there was no Nation that could understand them. fn028-02 On the shoare where we landed to goe to Dogon.
fn028-01 i.e. a Chinthe. fn028-01b
fn028-02 Presumably Dammazedi’s bell; it was very likely inscribed in Pali, though it is accept the statement that no one could understand it. fn028-02b
which is made of large strong timbers, are two Statues, which resemble two Boyes from the head downwards, their faces after the likeness of devils with two wings.”
Ralph Fitch, the Englishman, who came to Burma at about the same time, wrote an account of the country which so closely resembles that of Balbi that some have doubted whether in truth he ever came to Burma and suggest that he is simply a plagiarist: of Dagon he says,
“About two days journeys form Pegu, there is a Varelle or Pagode, which is the Pilgrimage of the Pegues, it is called Dogoune, and is of a wonderfull bignesse, and all gilded from the foot to the top. And there is a house by it, wherein the Tallipoies which are their Priests doe Preach........ There are houses very faire round about for the Pilgrimes to lie in; and many goodly Houses for the Tallipoies to Preach in, which are full of images both of men and women, which are all gilded over with gold. It is the fairest place, as I suppose, that is in the world; it standeth very high, and there are foure ways to it, which all along are set with Trees of fruits, in such wise that a man may goe in the shade above two miles in length. And when their Feast day is, a man can hardly passe by water or by land for the great presse of people; for they come from all places of the Kingdome of Pegu thither at their Feast”.
Perhaps the most significant point in these accounts of sixteenth century Dagon is the reference to the annual “great Mart where are all sorts of merchandises which are current in those Countries, which they frequent in great multitudes, which come thither not so much for devotion as traffique”. The full moon of Tabaung, which occurs approximately in March, and to a lesser extent the full moon of Thadingyut in October also, were as now, the occasions of great religious festivals which brought “a great presse of people” to the major pagodas; and such festivals were normally accompanied by a great fair, as still today in Upper Burma the greater religious holidays are the occasions of fairs held at the chief pagodas. These fairs were formerly one of the principal means by which goods were carried from the place of origin to the place of consumption, ad they played therefore an important part in the economy of Burma. At what date the Tabaung festival at the Shwe Dagon first became the occasion for such a fair is not known, but as Dagon grew in fame as a place of devotion, so its annuals fair must have grown in magnitude, while the festival of Thadingyut appears also to have been accompanied by a fair of only lesser importance. The fact that San Stephano and Varthema make no reference to Dagon would suggest that at their period the Fair had not assumed its latter magnitude; but evidently by the end of the sixteenth century the Fair was sufficiently famous to attract people from distant parts, and it is not unreasonable to assume that at this time the Dagon Fair was one of the chief markets for overseas trade, possibly even rivalling Pegu which, however, would have a more steady, not a
seasonal, trade. Perhaps the change which was taking place in the course of the Delta rivers in the later sixteenth century brought the Dagon Fair into greater prominence; for though the Fair may have had local importance obscurity would operate to elevate the Dagon Fair. This Fair continued to be held at the full moon of Tabaung for centuries, until, indeed, the British period of Burmese history.
At the same the commercial importance of Ragoon was essentially seasonal. It is evident from the graphic description of Balbi and Fitch that Dagon was as yet, for the greater part of the year, primarily a place of religious interest; it is the Pagoda that excites the interest of the foreigners, and while at its festivals Dagon would be full of people Fith states, at others times it would be a very quiet spot. Dalla is normally still of greater importance in mundane affairs; Fitch saying of it that “hath a faire Port into the Sea, from where goe many ship to Malacca, Mecca, and many others places”, while he makes no reference to shipping at Dagon, which became commercially noteworthy only on the occasion of its great festival. But we learn from these accounts a good deal of the condition of the place in the later sixteenth century. The Venetian, accustomed to the tideless Mediterranea, was struck by the rise and fall of the tide, a point not referred to by the Englishman who was familiar with the rise and fall of the tide around the English coast; in respect of the tide the River was thus much as it is to-day. There was a wooden landing place with wooden stairs leading up to the bank, with chinthes guarding it. There were a fair number of shops in the town by the bank of the river, but most of the buildings were kyaungs; the profusion of vegetation took the fancy of the traveller who comments on the gardens around these kyaungs. The main street of the town ran straight from the waterside northwards towards the Pagoda, and all along this road were more buildings, which, from their description as “paint houses” (i.e. pent houses) through which men might walk would appear to have been open zayats. After two miles of this, though the Venetian reckons it at one mile only, the traveller came to the Pagoda steps, which ascending he found the wide platform “greater than Saint Markes” with kyaungs on it, and the great bell of Dammazedi. Such then was Dagon, a little town by the River, and a long road lined with zayats leading to the great Pagoda; that was all. There is little evidence to justify the suggestion that it was a town whose population could contribute “five hundred viss of gold and five thousand viss of bronze” to the Shwe Dagon. Most of the year the town must have been almost deserted, springing to life for a few days when pilgrims and traders came from near and far to worship at the Pagodaand to exchange their goods, and to see the King and his household like themselves reverencing the Shwe Dagon. The town is insignificant; it is Golden Dagon standing on its hill above the town that impresses the stranger; it is the Pagoda, and not the town, that is “the fairest place, as I suppose, that is in the world”.
Indeed the town itself must at times have been a far from happy place to live in. True its very insignificance would save it from many of the troubles that afflicted greater towns; Dalla was still a notable port and housed the King’s elephants; Pegu was the greatest port in Lower Burma; Syriam was rising in importance, for Balbi refers to it as a sea-port and in 1569 Caesar Fredericke mentions “Cirion” while he makes no reference to Dagon. But even so, insignificant as it was, Dagon had its share of troubles; the happy days of the Mon Kings had gone and there was much warfare in the sixteenth century. Dagon had been occupied by Tabinshwehti, who reverenced the Pagoda and proclaimed his sovereignty of the Delta, as had the Mon Kings, by adorning it along with other Mon shrines: “this King had them put a crown adorned with many gems on the Umbrella of the Lagun hair relic pagoda. The king the queen herself as an offering and redeemed her with ten viss of gold.” fn031-01 But in 1550 rebellion broke out, the Mon rising against their new masters; an illegitimate member of the Mon dynasty set himself up as a minlaung under the name of Smim Staw and occupied Dagon. He was soon driven out by Bayinnaung, Tabinshwehti’s successor; but the town must have suffered in these troubles and in the disturbed period which followed while Bayinnaung was striving to assert his authority over the Delta. Another rival for the throne, the Mon lord Smim Sawhtut appeared, and also, it would seem, held Dagon, for the History of Kings states that he “put an umbrella on the Lagun Pagoda, adorning it with vairous gems”. But he was killed in battle and Smin Htaw was soon afterwards made prisoner and executed. Even after that, there was still much disorder and unrest. Moreover, it is said that during the reign of Bayinnaung in the year 1564, at the same time as the Queen’s death, there was an eclipse of the sun accompanied by an earthquake, in which “the Lagun hair relics crumbled down. They had to pull down the pagoda to the middle stage, and build it up again. His Majesty had the privilege of raising the crown, and of putting an Umbrella over the dome, of overlaying it with gold, and thus enshrining the pagoda.” fn031-02 During this period Dagon came under the control of a myosa, a Siamese named Aukbya Setki, who having treacherously betrayed the Siamese capital, Ayuthia, to Bayinnaung, was rewarded with Dagon. Bayinnaung’s son, Nandabayin, also reverenced the Shwe Dagon; he sent his general Binnya Dala, a Mon lord, “to put on gold leaf five viss in weight, and overlay the spire down to the bulging part of the plantain bud, to the silver stays with five viss of gold leaf. He was permitted to put on an Umbrella with a crown. He cast a bronze bell of forty viss weight, and offered it to the Lagun hair relics” fn031-03
Thus the Pagoda was still reverenced by the Burmese Kings, while Dagon itself remained a small town of little note. But times were changing, and the rise of Syriam was to bring Dagon into more porminence.
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1 History of Kings.
2 Ibid.
fn031-03 Ibid.
The ever-changing rivers and creeks of the Delta had effected one more change, and Pegu was no more a port. In the latter sixteenth century the Pegu River ceased to flow into the Gulf of Martaban, but cut back and flowed in a more westerly direction as it does today. Ocean-going ships, even the small ships of those days, could no longer reach Pegu; other ports must take its place. But Pegu remained the capital of the Delta for the time being, and the port which succeeded to its maritime importance must therefore have easy access to it. The Pegu River now flowed to the sea past Syriam, easily accessible from the sea by the largest of vessels and also easily accessible by river-boat from Pegu, which long continued to be the commercial centre of the Delta even after it had ceased to be a port and even when it was no longer the capital of a kingdom: for as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century it was recorded that “in this kingdom of Pegu there is a province called Siriam, which is reached in boats through canals debouching into the river. It takes three days’ travelling to reach the town where the merchandise has to be sold”1 Similarly Fitch a hundred years earlier noted that at Syriam “the ships stay and discharge and send up their goods in Paroes to Pegu”. Thus Syriam became the chief port, though Pegu remained the commercial centre. The change in the course of the Pegu River caused much confusion in the minds of Europen catographers, and as late as the end of the eighteenth century some were still confusing that river with the Sittang.2 In truth, the cartographers’ notions of the topography of the Delta were often very strange, and their maps are of little assistance to the historian. Nevertheless, they have a certain negative significance; thus there is only one map of the sixteenth century which marks Dagon and this is in Rotz’s Boke of Ydro-greaphie of 1542,3 which, curiously, omits Pegu, possibly because it was not near the sea-coast, and which does not give Syriam; apart from that, Dagon does not appear on a map until the middle of the seventeenth century. A map of 1519-22 (B.M. maps 29.c.6) shows Pegu but neither Dagon nor Syriam; Oretelier in 1575 shows Pegu but likewise gives neither Dagon nor Syriam; Mercator’s Atlas of 1595 also marks only Pegu, as does Langren’s map of 1598-1600; Dagon appears along with Syriam in some of Blaeu’s maps of 1640 and later; and Wilde’s map of 1643 or somewhat later, which gives Pegu and Syriam, includes also Dagon. “Dogon” appears, also in D’Abbeville’s map of 1654, and from that time onwards is, like Syriam, consistently shown by the cartographers. It may be seen how Syriam and Dagon became of importance in the seventeenth century, whereas previously, in the sixteenth century, they had held little interest for the makers and purchasers of maps.
It would appear that in the seventeenth century it was possible to approach Syriam and Dagon for the sea by a creek which ran to the east
1 Storia do Magor IV. p. 209.
2 e.g. Basset 1791 and Laurie and Whittle 1797, link the Sittang and Pegu River together.
3 See Map II.
of the Syriam ridge, parallel to the Ragoon River. Wilde’s chart,1 which is dated the middle seventeenth century, shows the River itself with perfect clearness, even to the groves of trees which formed the landmarks, on either side of the mouth and the soundings at the River entrance; and also with equal precision the creek farther east, at the mouth of which soundings are again given. This creek would appear to be the one marked on later charts as the “Appoo River.” The Appoo, now vanished, is consistently shown in the eighteenth century charts; but in Laurie and Whittle’s chart of 1798 it is marked as drying up, though the remnants of it figure in a chart as late as the year 1835.2 Probably the Apaung creek of the present day represents the estuary of the “Appoo.” It would appear from the charts to have been navigable in the middle eighteenth century, but it must have already been silting up, and probably by that date the Rangoon River had become the normal approach to Syriam and Dagon.3
But whatever the development of Rangoon and Appoo River may have been, it is certain that circumstances tended to raise first Syriam and then Dagon into the rank of the principal port of Lower Burma. And with the rise of Syriam occurs also the establishment of European settlements in the Delta; for the last ten years of Nandabayin’s reign were marked by an almost complete collapse of Royal power and by accompanying rebellion as well as invasion by both Siamese and Arakanese, and it was out of these troubles that arose government of the Portuguese adventurer. Felipe de Brito y Nicote, at the new port of Syriam. From the year 1600 onwards de Brito held Syriam, which he first entered as an employee of the Arakanese when they invaded the Delta in that year. He set up as an independent ruler and was recognized by the Viceroy of Portuguese India as the officialgovernor of the place. With the aid of a small force of Portuguese, numbering only a few score, he held the surrounding country, while his ships prevented trading vessels from entering any other port. Thus artificial as well as natural causes elevated Syriam. But de Brito had little respect for religion: Dagon came under his sway and he took Dammazedi’s great bell from the Pagoda so that he might cast its bronze into cannon; but by the
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1 See Map III.
2 Ross, Crawfurd, and Roe.
3 It has been suggested that as the middle of the sixteenth century the Hlaing found its way to the sea through the Appoo; that the Rangoon River did not definitely until the middle of the seventeenth century; and that even then it was so choked by sandbanks as to be of little value for navigation. Only in the later eighteenth century, according to this theory, did the Rangoon River become navigable. But Wilde’s chart of the seventeenth century, indicating the River as navigable, seems to negative this suggestion. Further, the eighteenth century charts of the River, such as D’Anville’s, are marked with traditional names, obviously given by sailors, which must have been in use for many years – e.g., “Manoel de Silva Points,” which in some charts bears the legend “Here Manoel de Silva lost his ship,” must surely back to the days when the Portuguese flourished at Syriam, in the very early seventeenth century, and this would indicate that the River was in use in those days even though, in view of Manoel de Silva’s unfortunate mishap, sandbanks were doubtless numerous. The other name marked on such charts suggest equally that the River had been long in use by the time that, e.g., D’Anville published his chart in 1762. Moreover, D’Anville and others give much information about the Rangoon River, but none about the Appoo beyond marking its position in general. By 1762 at all events, the River was the normal approach, and doubtless had been a quite possible approach for some time. Probably the Appoo had been and alternative route, but not the only route.
power of the Buddha the boat bearing it to Syriam sank in the River. In the absence of a Buddhist King it fell to the lot of the people of Dagon to embellish the Pagoda: “The ship commander, the foreigner, Kappitan Jerā (Captain General) was king again in Syriam. Because he was of Deva-datta’s Company, a heretic, he had no opportunity of enshrining at the relic chamber of the Pagoda. The superior of Angebut, the superior of Angebut, the superior of the hill Lacew, these two with the people of the city erected an umbrella. The superior of the hill monastery gave the time. The combined number of precious stones was three hundred and fifty. In the year, 972, on Friday, the eleventh of the light half of the month Srāvaṇa,1 the citizens made merit in putting a crown on the Lagun pagoda. The foreigner Kappitan Jerā pg34 was king in Syriam twelve year”.2 Then in 1613 King Anaukpetlun, Nandabayin’s son and successor, attacked Syriam; the town was stormed and de Brito who was made prisoner was executed by impalement. But that was by no means the end of the Europeans at Syrians at Syriam, for a few year later the English East India Company formed a factory there, and later on the Frech. With the rise of Syriam, must have occurred a development of the importance of the Shwe Dagon Fair.
After the taking of Syriam, Anaukpetlun, apparently as a thanks-offering, “gave four hundred and twenty men to keep the hair relics. He had them cast a bronze bell and offer it to the Buddha’s relics”; the bell was no doubt intended to replace Dammazedi’s which had sunk in the River. Six years later “he put up an umbrella and put a crown on the Lagun Pagoda. The height and the circumference of the crown were four cubits and two hands equally. The weight of the gold was two viss, fifty-five ticals. There were two thousands rubies, and the weight of the diamonds in the crown was two viss”: His officers, apparently Mons in his service judging from their names, also made offerings: “Punakamā pg34 put down twelve silver bells five viss and five and a half ticals weight, Bañā Juk Lalī gave silver bells and banyan leaves of two ticals gold. The weight of the two bells was ten viss and seventy-five ticals”.3
But the Shwe Dagon was damaged by another earthquake during this reign, and the top of the Pagoda fell down. The terraces also suffered; “The big wall on the north-west side of the Lagun pagoda broke down, of the lower stage four standard cubits, and of the upper stage five standard cubits, making nine standard cubits. The big wall on the south-east broke down to thirty-five standard cubits. Adding on the rain-shelter there was as length of two-hundred and fifty-six fathoms in all. His Majesty was able to finish the work on the inside wall.” The King also made gifts to the Pagoda every year: “each year at the full moon of Āsvina4 as well as at the full moon of Phālguna5, four lamp towers at the four sides, with golden
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1 Srāvaṇa 972 – Wagaung (July-August) 1610.
2 History of Kings.
3 Ibid.
4 Asvina – Thadingyut (September-Octomber);
5 Phālguna – Tabaung (February-March).
flowers, golden parched grain, golden candles, and silver candles were offered to the Lagun relic pagoda. Two white umbrellas twice in each year were presented to the Lagun pagoda. Every gold leaf was laid on the pagoda.”.1
When in 1628 Anaukpetlun was murdered by his son Minredeippa, the latter became King for a few months, and during that period, perhaps as a sop to his conscience, he “gave an offering of lamp towers for the four sides. At the end of Lent and again at the full moon of Phālguna pg35 he had them lighted in honour of the Lagun hair relics. He padi his respects to the Lagun hair relics with golden candles, sivler candles, and white umbrellas. He made plaster of lime and glue, and with black wood oil offered it to the Lagun hair relics.”
Thalun, Minredeippa’s uncle and successor, also celebrated his accession in a similar way, for he “put the crown on the Lagun hair relic pagoda. The weight of the gold was three viss and five and a half ticals and the number of gems was 658”; this was occasioned by an earthquake which had cast down the crown. But nine years afterwards, in 1638, the crown again fell down and had to be replaced; this was done two years later. This King also made offerings twice a year to the Pagoda “of golden flowers, silver flowers, and two white umbrellas”.
Succeeding Kings similarly honoured Shwe Dagon with annual gifts, and also on occasion repaired the fabric; for in 1649 the crown fell out of alignment and King Pindale had to repair it; and in 1661 a storm and an earthquake cast down “three stages of the crown of the Lagun hair relics together with the dome, and the rest of the crown was carried over to the hill Wan at Syriam”. But two years later King Pye replaced it and with his ministers offered many gifts: they “offered to the Lagun relic pagoda a hundred golden flowers, a hundred silver flowers, eight white umbrellas. four large golden candles, ten small ones, four large candles and ten small ones, eight diamond streamers, and eight diamond flowers, They gave food to eighty monks, including monks from Syriam, Pegu, and Lagun, on the pagoda platform”. Yet again 1664 an earthquake occurred and much of the fabric was damaged; “The crown of the Lagun pagoda fell away to the south-east on the pagoda platform. Five standard cubits and two hands of the central support broke off and fell down on the western side at the bell mouth. The umbrella slanted away to the north-west, and the diamond bulb with the wire stays lay on top of the umbrella to the south-east. The plaster of the plantain bud burst out and fell away. The lotus bud burst up in three petals and was carried away to the south-east. What remained of the bricks of the six petals on the north broke away also. The python’s coil and the bell down to the main base burst out
1 Ibid.
And broke to a great extent”. The following year the damage was repaired so far as the fabric was concerned, and a year after that a new crown was imposed with great ceremony; “The weight of the crown was twelve viss of gold. There were 1800 gems set round the crown. They gave food to two hundred and forty monks. The offerings which were offered were very many. There were two orchestras, ten dancers, and the crown festival lasted three days”.
It is curious to read these accounts from the History of Kings of the repairs to the Pagoda, for at this time the Delta was much troubled by wars; the King’s government was weak, and the Siamese also. One wonders whether the earthquakes which afflicted the Pagoda in the chronicles are not a symbolical manner of representing purely human misfortunes; it is significant that the earthquake of 1564 occurred in the year of the death of Bayinnaung’s queen, that there ewas an earthquake in 1628 when Minredeippa was murdered, that the crown fell out of alignment in 1649 at the time of Thalun’s death, that a severe earthquake afflicted the Pagoda in 1661 when Pindale was deposed and murdered, and that the chroniclers, obsessed with the importance of the Pagoda, interpreted every misfortune as a calamity to the Shwe Dagon, just as in some cases they interpreted every was of earlier days as an attempt to seize and carry away the Hairs. Nevertheless, the area is subject to earthquakes and these stories may thus be true.
In any case, it is clear that it is still the Pagoda that gives Dagon its fame. Syriam is the centre of trade: Dagon the centre of devotion; and so it remained till the middle of the eighteenth century.1 As late as the beginning of that century an English traveller can find no more to say of Dagon than that “there are two large Temples near Syriam, one stands about six miles to the Southward, called Kiakiack, or the God of Gods Temple. The other stands in a low Plain North of Syriam, about the same distance, called Dagon. his Doors and Windows are always shut, and none enters his Temple but his Priests, and they won’t tell what Shape he is of, only he is not human Shape. As soon as Kiakiack dissolves the Being or Frame of the World, Dagon or Dagun will gather up the fragments and make a new one. There are yearly Fairs held near these Temples, and the Free-will Offerings arising at those Fairs, are for the Use of the Temples”.2
1 It is difficult to account for the strange statement in he British-Burma Gazetteer II, 568, that the Governor of Dagon was the principal intermediary between the European at Syriam and the Mon court at Pegu, that the King of Pegu increased the authority of the Governor until he was the first officer in the kingdom so that he might check the foreigners, and that the accounts of Portuguese and English officers are full of the doings of the Governor and of their own efforts to win his favour. There is no evidence at all of the importance thus attributed to the Governor of Dagon, and no trace in the records of the East India Company of efforts at any time contemporaneously with an English (or a French) factory.
2 Hamilton: New Account of the East Indies, II, 57.
Hamilton’s description of the Pagoda is curious. Evidently he was unable to grasp the novel idea of a religious edifice built as a solid mass of brick, and since to his mind a temple must have doors and windows, he concludes that doors and windows are indeed there but that, as he has not seen them, they must be kept shut. Thus in his illustration of the Shwe Dagon he depicts an imaginary entrance.1 His grasp of Buddhist philosophy will also hardly bear examination. But at least his account shows one thing beyond doubt, and that is that Dagon was a place of religious interest and nothing else.
Of until industries the town seems to have had none except fishing; Gasparo Balbi in the late sixteenth century describes how the fishers of the River were a danger to boats since they spread their nets on the water and boats which became entangled in them sometimes sank.
So until the middle of the eighteenth century the town of Dagon remained, as for centuries, a small town, little more than a village, close to the waterside, with a long road running up to the Pagoda: a town whose population was largely priestly and the inhabitants of which were required to observe strictly the Buddhist laws. At certain seasons of the year, at the time of major festivals, it became crowded with people, “all the Shans, the Mons, and the Burmese,” says the History of Kings, who came to buy and sell and at the same time to make their devotions and witness the giving of the royal offerings: “With eight white umbrellas, four bouquets of golden flowers of hundred blooms, four bouquets of silver flowers of a hundred blooms, and many gold and silver candles, His Majesty paid respects to the Lagun hair relics every year. Twice a year he paid his respects to the Lagun hair relics.” The History of Syriam describes the ceremony in more detail:
“When the royal offerings came to be presented to the Shwe Dagon Pagoda the men of the household and the clerks had to carry the golden branches and the sivler branches, the elder and the salt boilers had to carry the golden candlesticks and the silver candlesticks, the sitkes had to bear the umbrellas and the pennants, and the rosaries. At the observance of the royal almsgiving the boxers had to perform for three full days; the toll-collectors and writers of the festival and the toll-collectors and writers of the boats had to give the letpet for the prizes, the advocates had to hold the prizes and distribute them. When the Lord Governer of the City (i.e. of Syriam) went up to High Festival of Thadingyut this was the order of procession of his retinue; in front there were the cannon, after them the warriors, after the musketeers, after them the Sitke, after him the boatmen, after them the Yun Sitke, after him followed the keepers of the boats in full array and armed with the weapons that they always carried; after them the fan bearers and then the swords sheathed in scarlet cloth;
1 See Plate No. 1. A Prospect of the Kiakeck or Dagun.
After them the master of the ceremonies; after him on one side came the betel-boxes, with men in shady hats, the baskets carrying the teapots and cocoanut fronds and fine mats; on the other side followed those with red headdresses1 carrying the halberds, spears, guns and all manner of swords.”
But it is to be feared that these occasions were sometimes the scene of conduct hardly appropriate to a religious ceremony. “The inhabitants of this country,” says a writer of about the year 1700, “are accustomed to hold several festivals in the course of the year in honour of their idols. But the principal festivity is celebrated outside the city at the foot of the great mountains. The idols are on the summit. This feast falls in the month of February, and is called the Digon festival, which means ‘Of the fire.’
“On that day the governor and the chief men of the place attend and a grater number of the inhabitants. They solemnize the festival by consuming fireworks, which are discharged at night-time. In the preparation of these firework they labour for many days.
“The machine in which enclose the powder is in place shape and size like a large bowl, hooped with iron, and haveing a long tail. This barrel, in order that it may fly into the air, is attached to a high tree, of which there are plenty in the place, the forest being a vast one. Before the thing is set alight they assume their drinking; then the chief men draw near and bow to it as a mark veneration.
“Once when they were performing these solemn acts, one of the officials of the law courts, being more tipsy than the rest, boasted that he could rise into the air with the firework and come down to earth again unharmed. Over this assertion several wagers for large sums were entered into, because some believed and others disbelieved him. To sum up, to avoid any fraud that the man might attempt, they bound him by his hands to the end of the firework. The end, shaped like a tail, is made out of a large tree called bambu, a great number of which grow in that forest and they are eight cubits in lenght.
“When ten o’clock at night arrived, following their custom they set a light to the fireworks, and all the people began to run about as is their fashion. The next day they found the firework a league away from the place where fire had been applied to it, and the drunkard who had been tied to it was found to have been burnt”.2
Though this story, derived obviously from hearsay, with its absurd description of the Pagoda Hill as “the great mountains”, may have been exaggerated, it is evident hat the great festivals were accompanied by some want of decorum.
1 i.e. soldiers.
2 Storia do Mogor, IV 209 sqq.
But at other seasons of the year than the great festivals, Dagon remained quiet, half-deserted spot, disturbed by none of the bustle which enlivened the commercial city of Syriam across the water, a place of which a writer of 1759 can find no more to say than that it was “a very noted Pagoda”.1
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. O. Blagden: Epigraphia Birmanica.
A. Dalrymple: Oriental Repertory.
E. Forchhammer: The First Buddhist Mission to Suvannabhumi.
J. S. furnivall (trans): Razadarit Ayebon (unpublished)
History of Syriam (Journal of the Burma Research Society V).
R. Halliday (trans): History of Kings (Journal of the Burma Research Society XIII).
Alexander Hamilton: New Account of the East Indies.
G. E. Harvey: History of Burma.
Taw Sein Ko: THe Kalyani Inscriptions (Indian Antiquary XXII).
N. Manucci: Storia do Mogor.
Pe Maung Tin: The Shwe Dagon Pagoda (Journal of the Burma Reserach Society XXIV).
Pe maung Tin and G. H. Luce (trans.): The Glass Palace Chronicle.
Purchase: Travel of Nicolo di Conti, Ludovico di Varthema, Gasparo Balbi, Ralph Fitch.
Ramusio: Delle Navigationi et Viaggi.
Saya Thein: Shin Sawbu (Journal of the Buma Reserach Society I).
Of the Chronicles quoted from or referred to, the Razadarit Ayebon probably dates from the middle sixteenth century, the History of Syriam (Thanhlyin Yazawin) from the middle sixteenth century, and the History of Kings (Slapat Rājāwaṅ) from the middle eighteenth century. All, however, are found only in comparatively modern copies, generally of the nineteenth century. The Shwedagon Thamaing is modern and represents tradition only. The statements contained in these histories need therefore to be accepted with caution.
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1 Letter of 1759, quoted dalrymple I. 112.