The ''Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription'' () is a multi-language

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

found on the Shwezigon Pagoda Bell, donated by King

Bayinnaung , title = King of Toungoo , image = Bayinnaung.JPG , caption = Statue of Bayinnaung in front of the National Museum of Myanmar , reign = 30 April 1550 – 10 October 1581 , coronation = 11 January 1551 at Taungoo, ...

Toungoo Dynasty ''taungnguumainn saat'' , conventional_long_name = Toungoo dynasty , common_name = Taungoo dynasty , status = Empire/Monarchy, Kingdom , event_start = Independence from Kingdom of Ava, Ava Kingdom , yea ...

and located at the Shwezigon Pagoda in

Bagan Bagan ( ; ; formerly Pagan) is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that w ...

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

(Myanmar). Written in Burmese, Mon, and

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

, the inscription lists the important events in the first six years of his reign. It is the only contemporary record in Burmese that calls the king "Conqueror of the Ten Directions", the title by which he is widely known in Mon and Thai. The ''Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription'' is recognised as a documentary heritage of the world and listed in

Memory of the World Register UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Brief

The inscription contains 43 lines in Burmese, 35 lines in Mon and five lines in Pali. It gives the correct regnal titles for the king and his chief queen as Sri Parama Maha Dhamma Raja and Sri Agga Maha Dhamma Raja Devi, respectively. The main events recorded in the inscription are as follows:Thaw Kaung 2010: 106–108 # Conquest of

Toungoo Taungoo (, ''Tauñngu myoú''; ), also spelled Toungoo and formerly Toung-ngú, is a district-level city in the Bago Region of Myanmar, 220 km from Yangon, towards the north-eastern end of the division, with mountain ranges to the east an ...

(Taungoo) on 11 January 1551 # Conquest of Prome (Pyay) on 30 August 1551 # Conquest of

Pegu Bago (formerly spelled Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon. Etymology The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon lang ...

(Bago) on 12 March 1552 # Dedication of a Bell of Justice hung outside the Kanbawzathadi Palace # Coronation of King Bayinnaung and his chief Queen Atula Thiri on 12 January 1554 # Conquest of Ava (Inwa) on 22 January 1555 # Sending a mission to

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(Sri Lanka) for the promotion of

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' ( anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or '' Dhamma'' in ...

# Preparation of campaign to conquer the cis-Salween Shan States from 9 November 1556 to 8 January 1557 # Conquest of Mong Mit (Momeik) and Hsipaw (Thibaw) on 25 January 1557 # Dedication of a

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

each at Mong Mit and at Hsipaw on 8 February 1557 # Conquest of Mong Yang (Mohnyin) on 6 March 1557 # Conquest of Mong Kawng (Mogaung) on 11 March 1557 # Prohibition of the burial of male and female slaves at funerals of Shan chieftains # Departing Mong Kawng on 9 April 1557 # Gilding of the Shwezigon Pagoda from plinth to pinnacle # Dedication of the Shwezigon Pagoda Bell weighing 2100

viss The traditional Burmese units of measurement were a system of measurement used in Myanmar. Myanmar was one of three countries that had not adopted the International System of Units (SI) metric system as their official system of weights and me ...

(7560 lbs or 3423 kg), cast of copper, on 23 May 1557 # Prayer to attain the

Buddhahood In Buddhism, Buddha (, which in classic Indo-Aryan languages, Indic languages means "awakened one") is a title for those who are Enlightenment in Buddhism, spiritually awake or enlightened, and have thus attained the Buddhist paths to liberat ...

and referring himself as the "Conqueror in the Ten Directions".

Print publications

The complete English translation of the inscription was published in the '' Myanmar Historical Research Journal'' in December 2001. The Mon part of the inscription was translated to Burmese by Chit Thein, a Mon scholar of the Myanmar Archaeology Department, and was in turn translated into English by Than Tun.Thaw Kaung 2010: 108–109

References

Bibliography

* {{Burmese chronicles Burmese chronicles Multilingual texts First Toungoo Empire Inscriptions of Myanmar Bagan Memory of the World Register Burmese Buddhist texts Buddhist inscriptions 16th-century inscriptions