Mingun is a town in
Sagaing DivisionSagaing Division is an administrative division of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and longitude 94° 97' east...
, northwest
MyanmarBurma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia or Indochina. The country is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the...
(formerly Burma), located 11 km up the
Ayeyarwady RiverThe Irrawaddy River or Ayeyarwady River is a river that flows from north to south of Burma . It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Originating from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-South before emptying via the...
on the west bank from
MandalayMandalay is the second largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of nearly 1 million, and is the capital of Mandalay Division....
. Its main attraction is the ruined Mingun Pahtodawgyi, the remains of a massive unfinished Buddhist
stupaA stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, once thought to be places of Buddhist worship, typically the remains of a Buddha or saint...
begun by King
BodawpayaBodawpaya was the sixth king of the Konbaung Dynasty of Myanmar. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, founder of the dynasty and the Third Burmese Empire. He was proclaimed king after deposing his nephew Phaungkaza Maung Maung, son of his oldest brother...
in 1790. The temple was not completed, due to an
astrologerAn astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
claiming that, once the temple was finished, the king would die.
Mingun is a town in
Sagaing DivisionSagaing Division is an administrative division of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and longitude 94° 97' east...
, northwest
MyanmarBurma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia or Indochina. The country is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the...
(formerly Burma), located 11 km up the
Ayeyarwady RiverThe Irrawaddy River or Ayeyarwady River is a river that flows from north to south of Burma . It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Originating from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-South before emptying via the...
on the west bank from
MandalayMandalay is the second largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of nearly 1 million, and is the capital of Mandalay Division....
. Its main attraction is the ruined Mingun Pahtodawgyi, the remains of a massive unfinished Buddhist
stupaA stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, once thought to be places of Buddhist worship, typically the remains of a Buddha or saint...
begun by King
BodawpayaBodawpaya was the sixth king of the Konbaung Dynasty of Myanmar. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, founder of the dynasty and the Third Burmese Empire. He was proclaimed king after deposing his nephew Phaungkaza Maung Maung, son of his oldest brother...
in 1790. The temple was not completed, due to an
astrologerAn astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
claiming that, once the temple was finished, the king would die. Had the stupa been completed, it would have been the largest in the world at 150 meters. Despite its ruined state, the remains are impressive, making it the largest pile of bricks in the world. There are huge cracks in the structure from the earthquake of 1838, but a small shrine with a
BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher in the north eastern region of the Indian subcontinent who founded Buddhism. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c...
image still serves its purpose as a place of worship and meditation. Pondaw paya or a working model of the stupa can be seen nearby.
King Bodawpaya also had a gigantic
bellA bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
cast to go with his huge stupa. The
Mingun BellThe Mingun Bell is a bell located in Mingun, Sagaing division, Myanmar. It is located in some 11 km north of Mandalay on the western bank of the Ayeyarwady river. The casting of the bell started in 1808 and finished in 1810. King Bodawpaya had this gigantic bell cast to go with his huge stupa,...
weighs 90 tons, and is today the largest ringing bell in the world. The weight of the bell in Burmese measurement, is 55,555 viss or
peiktha (1 viss = 1.63 kg), handed down as a mnemonic "Min Hpyu Hman Hman Pyaw", with the consonants representing the number 5 in Burmese astronomy and
numerologyNumerology is any of many systems, traditions or beliefs in a mystical or esoteric relationship between numbers and physical objects or living things....
.
Just a couple of hundred yards from the great stupa and bell lies the beautiful white Hsinbyume or Myatheindan Pagoda with a distinctive architectural style modelled after the mythical
Myinmo taung or
Mount MeruMount Meru is a sacred mountain in Hindu, Buddhist cosmology, and Jain mythology, and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. It is believed to be the abode of Lord Brahma and the Demi-Gods .The mountain is said to be 84,000 Yojanas high...
, built in 1816 by Bodawpaya's grandson and successor
BagyidawBagyidaw was the seventh king of Konbaung dynasty of Burma from 1819 until his abdication in 1837. Prince of Sagaing, as he was commonly known in his day, was selected as Crown Prince by his grandfather King Bodawpaya in 1808, and became king in 1819 after Bodawpaya's death...
and dedicated to the memory of his first consort Princess Hsinbyume (Lady of the White Elephant, granddaughter of Bodawpaya, 1789-1812) who died in childbed.
External links
- Wanderings in Burma by George W Bird, 1897 F J Bright & Son, London, pp 316A, 318, 318A, 320A inc. old photos of Mingun by Signor Beaton of Mandalay
- The Art and Culture of Burma: The Konbaung Period - Amarapura Dr. Richard M. Cooler, Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University is a public university located in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded on May 22, 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as a satellite campus for what is now Illinois State University. The DeKalb campus was originally called Northern Illinois State...
- A Trip to Mingun GLOBOsapiens.net
GLOBOsapiens is a cooperation headquartered in Munich, Germany, providing Internet services worldwide. The company is perhaps best known for its multicultural oriented Worldwide Internet Travel Community, GLOBOsapiens.net, and a classified service named findix. GLOBOsapiens was founded out of a...
, December 26 2006