![Kaba Aye Paya 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Kaba_Aye_Paya_1.JPG)
Kaba Aye Pagoda ( my, ကမ္ဘာအေးစေတီ; ; also spelt Gaba Aye Pagoda; lit. World Peace Pagoda), formally Thiri Mingala Gaba Aye Zedidaw, ), is a
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
pagoda
A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to 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 sometimes Taoist, ...
located on Kaba Aye Road,
Mayangon Township
Mayangon Township ( my, မရမ်းကုန်း မြို့နယ် ; is located in the northern part of Yangon. The township comprises ten wards, and shares borders with Insein Township and Mingaladon Township in the north, North Dag ...
,
Yangon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
,
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 C. Wells, Joh ...
. The pagoda was built in 1952 by
U Nu
Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the pr ...
in preparation for the
Sixth Buddhist Council
The Sixth Buddhist Council ( pi, छट्ठ सॅगायना (); my, ဆဋ္ဌမသင်္ဂါယနာ; si, ඡට්ඨ සංගායනා) was a general council of Theravada Buddhism, held in a specially built cave and p ...
that he held from 1954 to 1956. The pagoda measures high and is also around the base. The pagoda is located approximately 11 km north of Yangon, a little past the Inya Lake Hotel. The Maha Pasana Guha (great cave) was built simultaneously with the Kaba Aye Pagoda and is located in the same complex. The cave is a replica of the
Satta Panni cave, located in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, where the
First Buddhist Synod was convened. The six entrances of The Maha Pasana Cave symbolize the Sixth Great Synod. The cave is long and wide. Inside, the assembly hall is long and wide.
Background
![Mahapasana Guha Cave, Yangon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Mahapasana_Guha_Cave%2C_Yangon.JPG)
As prime minister of Burma, U Nu built the Kaba Aye Pagoda and the Maha Pasana Guha Cave () in 1952 in preparation for the Sixth Buddhist Synod that he convened and hosted and which lasted two years, from 1954 to 1956. This Synod coincided with the 2500-year anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment. In Burma, the kings traditionally built a pagoda in their honor to stand as a relic of their rule. For example,
Ne Win
Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
built the
Maha Wizaya Pagoda
The Maha Wizaya Pagoda ( my, မဟာဝိဇယစေတီ; pi, Māhavijayacetiya) is a pagoda located on Shwedagon Pagoda Road in Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar. The pagoda, built in 1980, is located immediately south of the Shwedagon Pag ...
in his honor. The construction of the pagoda and cave were a part of U Nu's attempt to establish
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
as the official religion of Burma, thereby creating a Buddhist state.
The Kaba Aye pagoda is open daily from 6 am to 8 pm, with an admission fee of $5. In addition to the Burmese who make religious pilgrimages, the pagoda attracts domestic as well as foreign tourists. The Kaba Aye Pagoda compound is large and is intended to be peaceful and quiet for the tourists, monks and devotees who visit.
The circular platform surrounding the main pagoda is enclosed in the style of a cave-temple. There are five porches decorated with colorful arched pediments. Lotus flowers, lotus buds and swastikas are carved in stucco around the outside. The main pagoda is 117 feet 6 inches high, with smaller pagodas on the five porches each high. Vendors sell handmade products on the entrances to the pagoda. The pagoda, which is hollow, has a middle point inside which features four great Buddhas (four great pillars) in commemoration of the four Buddhas who have already appeared in the world. A room inside the pagoda houses Buddha relics, including a large silver statue of Buddha, over eight feet tall. There is also a room inside the pagoda, which is used to keep Buddha relics.
The Maha Pasana Cave, which translates to “great cave of stone,” is located to the north of the Kaba Aye pagoda. The cave is a replica to the cave by the same name in India, where the first Buddhist Synod or Great Council was held just some months after the Buddha underwent
Parinirvana
In Buddhism, ''parinirvana'' (Sanskrit: '; Pali: ') is commonly used to refer to nirvana-after-death, which occurs upon the death of someone who has attained ''nirvana'' during their lifetime. It implies a release from '' '', karma and rebirth a ...
. During the sixth Buddhist Synod in 1954, 2500 monks converged on the cave to recite the words of the Buddha in Pali, the entire
Tipitaka. The monks recited, edited, and approved all of the Buddhist scriptures, known as the Three Pitakat.
Political significance
U Nu
Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the pr ...
was the first Prime Minister of Burma after the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma was passed. U Nu was a
pious Buddhist and tried his best to establish Burma as a Buddhist country. On August 29, 1961, the Parliament announced that Buddhism was the official state religion, mainly due to U Nu's efforts. Cow slaughtering was officially banned in Burma. However, in 1962
Ne Win
Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
, who succeeded U Nu, repealed this measure and the effort to make Burma a Buddhist country was eventually halted. The construction of the Kaba Aye complex was part of U Nu's attempt to institutionalize Buddhism at the national level.
The Kaba Aye complex also underscores the failure of U Nu to standardize and institutionalize Buddhism. There are some minorities in Burma such as the Kachins and Karens who felt alienated by this effort to make Buddhism a state religion. Furthermore, Buddhists did not believe that Buddhism should be a part of a political institution. They wanted Burma to be a moral society but did not wish their religion to be imposed on the citizens. The monks who want religion to be a social practice that is separate from the state do not associate with these pagodas. Therefore, the pagodas such as the Kaba Aye are not affiliated with any monasteries. The fear is that if these monks become tied to a pagoda, which was built by the state and is run by the state, they will be captured by the state and lose their autonomy.
Significance and Origin of Pagodas in Burma
The most sacred pagoda in Burma is the
Shwedagon Pagoda
The Shwedagon Pagoda (, ); mnw, ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ်; officially named ''Shwedagon Zedi Daw'' ( my, ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော်, , ) and also known as the Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda is a gilded stupa ...
(Golden Pagoda). This pagoda towers at tall, is gilded in gold and is also located in
Yangon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
. It, too, contains relics of the past four Buddhas inside of it. According to legend, the pagoda is 2500 years old. Burma is most famous to the western world because of the
Shwedagon Pagoda
The Shwedagon Pagoda (, ); mnw, ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ်; officially named ''Shwedagon Zedi Daw'' ( my, ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော်, , ) and also known as the Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda is a gilded stupa ...
. For the Burmese people, seeing foreign tourists visit the pagoda and looking at it in awe is a source of national pride.
In the 11th century, King
Anawrahta
Anawrahta Minsaw ( my, အနော်ရထာ မင်းစော, ; 11 May 1014 – 11 April 1077) was the founder of the Pagan Empire. Considered the father of the Burmese nation, Anawrahta turned a small principality in the dry zone ...
invaded the
Mon Kingdom of Thaton in what is currently part of southern Burma. Following the successful invasion he returned to Pagan with the Buddhist missionary monk
Shin Arahan
, image =Shin Arahan.JPG
, caption = Statute of Shin Arahan in Ananda Temple
, birth name =
, alias =
, dharma_name = mnw, ဓမ္မဒဿဳ
, birth_date = c. 1034
, b ...
and the
Buddhist scriptures
Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...
he had brought with him from Ceylon. After establishing his
Pagan Dynasty
The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...
through numerous military campaigns, Anawrahta eventually converted and later established
Theravada Buddhism
''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...
as the state religion in 1056 and built many
Buddhist pagodas
A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhism, Buddhist but sometime ...
. Some feel as though he built these pagodas in order to make up for the violent warfare by which he built his Pagan dynasty. Anawrahta implemented a tradition of pagoda building that has continued until the present. It was in keeping with this tradition that Ne Win also began building his
Maha Wizaya Pagoda
The Maha Wizaya Pagoda ( my, မဟာဝိဇယစေတီ; pi, Māhavijayacetiya) is a pagoda located on Shwedagon Pagoda Road in Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar. The pagoda, built in 1980, is located immediately south of the Shwedagon Pag ...
. Furthermore, the military regime that succeeded him built the Swedawmyat (tooth relic) Pagoda. Currently, hundreds of pagodas dot the Burmese landscape. Scholars suggest that besides King Anawrahta, many other kings or leaders built the pagodas not out of devotion to Buddhism, but rather as a form of repentance that they felt for carrying out multiple wars with various kingdoms in India and Thailand regions, in addition to other parts of what is currently Burma.
1996 bombings
On December 25, 1996, two bombs exploded at the Kaba Aye Pagoda and Maha Pasana Cave, killing five people and wounding 17. The initial explosion took place at the Kaba Aye Pagoda at 8:20 pm, but nobody was injured because pilgrims did not use that entrance. However, the second explosion, which detonated two hours later as authorities were looking into the other blast, went off inside the temple as it was filling with pilgrims, causing the fatalities and injuries. At the Kaba Aye compound Buddha's
tooth relic
The relic of the tooth of Buddha (Pali ''danta dhātuya'') is venerated in Sri Lanka as a sacred cetiya relic of Lord Buddha, who is the founder of Buddhism, the fourth largest religion worldwide.
History The relic in India
According to Sri Lanka ...
was on display, and thus many more pilgrims were at the site than during normal times. The
tooth relic
The relic of the tooth of Buddha (Pali ''danta dhātuya'') is venerated in Sri Lanka as a sacred cetiya relic of Lord Buddha, who is the founder of Buddhism, the fourth largest religion worldwide.
History The relic in India
According to Sri Lanka ...
, on loan from China and believed to be one of two surviving since the Buddha's death 2500 years ago, was not damaged in the bombing.
The explosion followed a crackdown on student protestors who were demanding more civil liberties. The
SLORC
The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
(State Law and Order Restoration Council) accused the All-Burma Students Democratic Front (
ABSDF) and the KNU (
Karen National Union
The Karen National Union ( my, ကရင် အမျိုးသား အစည်းအရုံး; abbreviated KNU) is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Ka ...
) of carrying out the bombing. Both groups denied the accusation. Aung Naing U, the foreign affairs liaison officer of the ABSDA, denied all involvement and added, “This is just an excuse by the SLORC to use force in suppressing the democratic forces. We learned that more security forces were placed at the site of the bombing; despite this measure, the explosions took place. Thus, it is assumed that it must be the work of the SLORC.”
[“Opposition group condemns 6th April bomb explosion” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, April 10, 1997.]
Even before the bombing at the Kaba Aye complex, the Burmese government had been accused of staging disturbances to justify crackdowns that would follow.
See also
*
Cetiya
upright=1.25, Phra Pathom Chedi, one of the biggest Chedis in Thailand; in Thai, the term Chedi (cetiya) is used interchangeably with the term Stupa
Cetiya, "reminders" or "memorials" (Sanskrit ''caitya''), are objects and places used by Buddhi ...
*
Burmese pagoda
Burmese pagodas are stupas that typically house Buddhist relics, including relics associated with Buddha. Pagodas feature prominently in Myanmar's landscape, earning the country the moniker "land of pagodas." According to 2016 statistics compil ...
*
Shwedagon Pagoda
The Shwedagon Pagoda (, ); mnw, ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ်; officially named ''Shwedagon Zedi Daw'' ( my, ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော်, , ) and also known as the Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda is a gilded stupa ...
*
Sule Pagoda
The Sule Pagoda ( my, ဆူးလေဘုရား; ) is a Burmese Buddhist stupa located in the heart of downtown Yangon, occupying the centre of the city and an important space in contemporary Burmese politics, ideology and geography. Accord ...
*
Botataung Pagoda
The Botataung Kyaik De Att Pagoda ( my, ဗိုလ်တထောင်ကျိုက်ဒေးအပ်ဆံတော်ရှင်စေတီတော် ; also spelled Botahtaung; literally "1000 military officers") is a famous pagoda ...
*
Maha Wizaya Pagoda
The Maha Wizaya Pagoda ( my, မဟာဝိဇယစေတီ; pi, Māhavijayacetiya) is a pagoda located on Shwedagon Pagoda Road in Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar. The pagoda, built in 1980, is located immediately south of the Shwedagon Pag ...
*
Buddhism in Myanmar
Buddhism ( my, ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), specifically Theravāda Buddhism ( my, ထေရဝါဒဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), is the State religion of Myanmar since 1961, and practiced by nearly 90% of the population. It is the most re ...
References
Literature
* Daulton, Jack. (1999). "Sariputta and Moggallana in the Golden Land: The Relics of the Buddha's Chief Disciples at the Kaba Aye Pagoda," Journal of Burma Studies 4 (1999), 101–128.
External links
Jack Daulton, "Sariputta and Moggallana in the Golden Land: The Relics of the Buddha's Chief Disciples at the Kaba Aye Pagoda"
{{Buddhist sites in Myanmar
Yangon
Religious buildings and structures completed in 1952
Buddhist temples in Yangon
20th-century Buddhist temples