The Myanmar discovery circuit - Day 3 (morning cont.) - Mandalay, the Mahamuni Pagoda ensemble - The 14th of November 2015

(...)

We walked into the most revered Buddhist shrine in Mandalay, the Mahamuni Pagoda (second to the Shwedagon). We had to walk along a corridor profusely decorated with frescoes, some of which were faded away and lined up with handicraft shops. 

 

 

 

I sighted a young girl sitting on a stool outside one of those shops and decided to hand her out some of the small gifts I had brought, which made her subtly smile back at me.

We then wandered around the yard whose surrounding shrines were undergoing refurbishing work before we actually approached the central chamber where the magnificent Buddha's sculpture stood. It is the eponymous "Mahamuni" or "Great Sage which Bodawpaya's troops took during their pilgrimage of the city in 1784. Revered by pilgrims from all over the world, it is believed to have been one of the only five likenesses of the Enlightened one. 

 

   

The statue probably cast in 146 AD, five or more centuries after the Buddha's death, rises to 3,8 metres in height and is covered in pounded gold. The fact that so many gold leaves have been pressed on it as offerings has led to a thick carapace-like around its back though the face of the Buddha still looked gleaming. Women were not allowed in the chamber, this being the reason as to why I had to get the Buddha's image photographed from outside its chamber.

 

 

 (To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Myanmar discovery circuit - Day 3 (morning) - Mandalay, the Craftsmen's Quarter - Gold leaf manufacturing process - The 14th of November 2015

We were allowed to lie in bed for a while longer as we would be basically exploring Mandalay and its outskirts, as well as and getting acquainted with some of the local handicraft Arts.

 

 

We were introduced to the gold leaf manufacturing process, one of the country's most characteristic industries bearing in mind the fact that for the Burmese devout applying gold leaf to the statue of the Buddha is a sign of reverence and Burmese worshippers visiting Pagodas  often buy a packet of gold leaves at the Temple bazzars to paste onto the Buddha statues, stupas and other religious artefacts.

 

 

I must confess I had no idea it took so long to prepare these gold leaves and only realised it by following the explanations at a workshop we visited, which still uses the extremely old and venerable craft according to a time-honoured tradition. 

 

Typically a worker begins with a 2,5 cm x 1 cm gold leaf pounded with a wooden mallet for half an hour, re-sized and then pounded again for another five hours. The ultra-thin pieces are  then manufactured indivudually into 2,5 sq cm gold leaves before being packaged in multiples of ten.

We also had the possibility of watching the process of making oiled bamboo paper used to divide the layers of gold leaves and I was again impressed with the amount of work involved in its fabrication. The bamboo has to be soaked, beaten flat  and then dried in a process that might take up to three years.

In one of the workshop rooms we came across a grandmother and a child applying gold leaves to oiled bamboo paper sheets and if on one hand I felt that having such a young child working might easily fall into the concept of child labour work on the other hand I was impressed with her ability to do such a meticulous work and do it well.

 

I had brought 6 kilos of toys, baloons, colouring books and pencils, etc to distribute to the children I might encounter during the circuit and this child was actually the first one I handed some of those to. I hesitated to photograph her happiness but her smile will stay with me for a while, as she looked up from her work to accept the offer.

 

 

 

 



 

I ended up buying a gold leaf in the shape of a tear, a lady worker was packaging,  to offer my daughter.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Myanmar discovery circuit - Day 2 (evening) - Sunset as seen from the Mandalay hill and dinner at a local restaurant - The 13th of November 2015

 

We had to head up quickly (we fortunately took the elevator otherwise it would have meant 1,729 steps) so as to reach the summit of the Mandalay hill with its richly decorated shrines in time to watch the sunset but the moment we got there the verandas were filled with numerous foreign visitors and locals, once the hill is known as an important pilgrimage site for Burmese Buddhists.

 

The view from the top seemed phenomenal with the Ayeyarwady to the west crowned with pagodas and temples,  the rice-growing plains to the North and the city to the South, but photographing was particularly difficult taking into account the number of people and the odd pushing around.

Soon after having come down we stopped at a local restaurant to have another fabulous dinner to crown the day ...

 

The Myanmar discovery circuit - Day 2 (afternoon) - Mandalay, the Kuthodaw Pagoda - The 13th of November 2015

Right in front of the Shwenandaw Monastery stood a golden decorated arch that led to the University and a little farther to the right the Kuthodaw pagoda which we accessed to by means of a shiny corridor which opened up to the whitewashed pagodas, said to be 729 in total.

The pagodas were erected in 1872 during the Fifth Buddhist Synod to individually house the marble tablets upon which the entire Tripitaka (the Burmese Buddhist scripture) was engraved in the Pali language and veneered with gold leaf, thus being the reason why this site is often referred to  as the world's largest book. It is said that  when it was first unveiled it took 2,400 monks six months to recite the text.

The Kuthodaw Pagoda was plundered during the annexation period, more precisely in 1885 and British looters are said to have stripped the hti of its precious stones, peeled the gold leaf from the pagoda, carried off 6,570 brass bells from the subsidiary stupas, disfigured statues and even used the stone slabs of the Tripitaka to build a military road. It has taken over a decade to repair the damage.

 

 

 

We were surrounded by several young vendors of flowers, whose faces were decorated with amazingly beautiful thanaka patterns. It was almost impossibe to resist them and although Westerners are not commonly used to buying garlands to worship the Deities with I ended up buying some to help and please them.

 

 

 

The central structure of the Pagoda ensemble - a 30 metre high Maha Lawka Marazein stupa was quite impressive.