Mingun ( ) is a town in
Sagaing Township
Sagaing Township is a township in Sagaing District in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar. The principal town is Sagaing and tourist spot of Mingun.
Ye Kharr lake between Sagaing Hill and Min Wun Hill produces natural spirulina as in Twintaung of B ...
of
Sagaing Region
Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...
, north-west
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
(Burma), located 11 km up the
Ayeyarwady River
The Irrawaddy River ( Ayeyarwady River; , , from Indic ''revatī'', meaning "abounding in riches") is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar (Burma). It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Orig ...
on the west bank from
Mandalay. Its main attraction is the ruined Mingun Pahtodawgyi.
Mingun Pahtodawgyi
The Mingun temple is a monumental uncompleted stupa began by King
Bodawpaya
Bodawpaya ( my, ဘိုးတော်ဘုရား, ; th, ปดุง; 11 March 1745 – 5 June 1819) was the sixth king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, fo ...
in 1790. It was not completed, due to an
astrologer claiming that, once the temple was finished, the king would die. The completed stupa would have been the largest in the world at . Huge cracks are visible on the structure from the earthquake of 23 March 1839. Like many large pagodas in Myanmar, a ''pondaw paya'' or working model of the stupa can be seen nearby.
King Bodawpaya also had a gigantic
bell
A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...
cast to go with his huge stupa, the
Mingun Bell weighing 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
numerology.
Hsinbyume Pagoda
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
Mount Meru
Mount Meru (Sanskrit/Pali: मेरु), also known as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru, is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritu ...
(''Myinmo taung''), built in 1816 by Bodawpaya's grandson and successor
Bagyidaw
Bagyidaw ( my, ဘကြီးတော်, ; also known as Sagaing Min, ; 23 July 1784 – 15 October 1846) was the seventh king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma from 1819 until his abdication in 1837. Prince of Sagaing, as he was commonly know ...
and dedicated to the memory of his first consort Princess Hsinbyume (Lady of the White Elephant, granddaughter of Bodawpaya, 1789–1812) who died in childbirth.
See also
*
Bodawpaya
Bodawpaya ( my, ဘိုးတော်ဘုရား, ; th, ปดุง; 11 March 1745 – 5 June 1819) was the sixth king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, fo ...
*
Mingun Bell
References
External links
Wanderings in Burma by George W Bird, 1897F J Bright & Son, London, pp 316A, 318, 318A, 320A inc. old photos of Mingun by Signor Beaton of Mandalay
Col Henry Yule's Remarks on the Senbyu Pagoda at Mengun, 1869''
SOAS''
The Art and Culture of Burma: The Konbaung Period - AmarapuraDr. Richard M. Cooler,
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...
A Trip to Mingun''
GLOBOsapiens.net'', December 26, 2006
{{Sagaing Division
Populated places in Sagaing Region