Shwedagon: Myanmar's Holy Land
continuedA description could not do anymore justice to the main zedi than the pictures, but perhaps a few statistics would help: The 326-foot main zedi contains 60 tons of gold, plus 150 square feet of gold leaf. The umbrella at the top is made from 1/2 ton of gold and has 83,850 gems, as well as 4,000 gold bells. The gold orb at the top contains 4,351 diamonds with a total weight of 1,800 carats. At the very top is a single diamond weighing 76 carats. The main zedi is encircled by 60 more zedis, all plated in gold. That's just the main shrine. Around is a forest of hundreds of smaller shrines. The first ones that my guide took me to were the planetary shrines that surround the main zedi. These represent the eight days of the week. Yes, eight. The Burmese divide Wednesday into two "days," morning and afternoon.
Main zedi.
Everyone in Myanmar knows the day of the week they were born as it has enormous significance in Burmese culture. Each day of the week has an animal, angel, planet, and position of the Buddha assigned to it. Having been born on Saturday, my planet would be Saturn and my animal the naga (sea dragon.) Worshipers will do perform a good deed at the shrine for their day, such as wash the Buddha statue, leave a donation, light a candle, press gold-leaf on the shrine, or give an offering of flowers, incense, etc. to the angel of the shrine. The shrine takes the form of a pedestal shaped like a lotus flower and supported by a statue of the animal representing the day of the week, also resting on a lotus flower. On the pedestal is a statue of the Buddha and a silver bowl filled with water and small glasses so worshipers can wash the Buddha statue. Whether or not it's already clean doesn't matter, the intention and effort that go into the good deed are what earns one spiritual merit. Below the statue is a pot of soil for offering incense and above it is a statue of the angel for that day.
One of the planetary shrines.
Despite the fact that the Shwedagon is a forest of shrines to the Buddha, the nats and other mythical beings are not forgotten. Each shrine to the Buddha is protected by at least two of something: two nats, two magicians, two angels, two tigers, two demons (good demons preached to and converted by the Buddha,) two Nagas, and two of any other of the many beings that inhabit the Burmese supernatural. The ones I found the most alluring were beings that had the front of an angel and the back of a lion. However uncomfortable this combination may be, they always smile serenely, these gentile giants that keep away evil spirits and people. Some shrines are not to the Buddha and can enshrine any number of things. One, for example, contains a statue of a hermit with unequal eyes. It is said that he was blind, but thtough the magic powers he attained as a hermit was able to replace his lost eyes with those of a goat and a bull. Another shrine was dedicated to two nats. My guide pointed out that the nats had new longyis. He said that he knew the lady that donated them. Her husband was about to sell his car and he was hoping it would sell for 4,000,000 kyats (about US $5,000). So she prayed to the nats and promised to bring a new longyi to decorate the statues if the car sold for that price. Sure enough, it did.
The atmosphere of a place like the Shwedagon is magical enough as it is, with its fairy-tale shrines and statues, but as the sun set the place took on a whole new quality. Bright-but not too bright-lights lit up the massive amounts of gold and the many pagodas as the overall atmosphere of the place took on both a sacred and festive feel. Most worshipers in any Burmese temple will walk three times around the main zedi, and the one at Shwedagon is no exception. It is exceptionally huge so worshipers spend plenty of time walking, often very slowly. Part of that may be to save energy, but part of it is that for most people, this is no ordinary trip to the local temple. Every Burmese Buddhist aspires to make at least one trip to the Shwedagon in his or her lifetime, and given the poverty of Myanmar once in a lifetime is all most families can afford. So for many of the families there that night, the walk around the zedi was the fulfillment of a lifetime's dream, just as the wailing wall is for many Jews, Mecca for Muslims, the Ganges for Hindus, or Angkor Wat for Cambodians.
