The Singu Min Bell ( my, စဉ့်ကူးမင်း ခေါင်းလောင်းတော်), also known as the Maha Gandha Bell, is a large
bell located at the
Shwedagon Pagoda 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 ...
,
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 ...
(Burma). It was donated in 1779 by
King Singu, the fourth king of
Konbaung Dynasty
The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...
. The official
Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...
name of the bell is Maha Gandha, which means "Great Sound".
Description
The bell weighs about 23-25 tons and measures high, wide at the mouth and thick. There are twelve lines of inscription on the bell. The inscriptions describe King Singu, who came to the throne on 9 June 1776, who ruled over the country of 16 provinces, cast and donated the bell to the Shwedagon Pagoda on 17 January 1779.
History
The bell was cast between 1776 and 1779. In 1825, British attempted to take it from the pagoda during
first Anglo-Burmese War. However, the ship that carried the bell to
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
sank in
Yangon River
The Yangon River (also known as the Rangoon River or Hlaing River) is formed by the confluence of the Pegu and Myitmaka Rivers in Myanmar. It is a marine estuary that runs from Yangon (also known as Rangoon) to the Gulf of Martaban of the Andaman ...
together with the bell. After several unsuccessful attempts to salvage the bell, British finally gave up. Then, a group of Burmese people successfully raised the bell from the riverbed and restored to its original position at the pagoda.
Current status
The bell is housed in a pavilion located on the northwest side of the pagoda's middle terrace.
See also
*
List of heaviest bells
Following is a list of the heaviest bells known to have been cast, and the period of time during which they held that title.
Heaviest functioning bell in the world
The title of heaviest functioning bell in the world has been held chronologicall ...
References
{{Buddhist sites in Myanmar
1779 works
Burmese Buddhist architecture
Individual bells in Myanmar
Pitched percussion instruments