Alanpya Pagoda (; also known as Signal Pagoda) is a

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 ...

located on Alanpya Hill, on the southern part of Dhammarakhita Hill, 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 Wells explai ...

. The pagoda is south of Maha Wizaya Pagoda.

Names

Alanpya Pagoda is known by a number of various names. During British rule in Burma, the pagoda acquired its present-day name, Signal Pagoda (Alanpya Zedi in Burmese), because it was used as a

signal station A signal station is a form of Aids to Navigation that is defined by the IHO simply as "A signal station is a place on shore from which signals are made to ships at sea". While this broad definition would include coastal radio stations and fog sig ...

for vessels coming up

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 ...

. It was also known as McCreagh's Pagoda, after Brigadier McCreagh, and as Sale's Pagoda, after Lieutenant

Robert Sale Major-General Sir Robert Henry Sale (19 September 1782 – 21 December 1845) was a British Army officer who commanded the garrison of Jalalabad during the First Afghan War and was killed in action during the First Anglo-Sikh War. Biography ...

, who was stationed there during the

First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmes ...

. The pagoda has also been known as Sandawkyo Pagoda (ဆံတော်ကြိုစေတီ), Gurkha Pagoda, and Tatoo Pagoda (တပ်ဦးစေတီ), as well as by its Mon language name, Kyaik Hapaw Cih (ကျာ်ထပှ်ထစှေ်, ).

History

According to the Shwedagon Chronicle, the pagoda pre-dates

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 ...

, and was built on the site of a pavilion honoring the arrival of the Buddha's hair relics. The pagoda was toppled in 1348 and subsequently renovated by King Razadarit. In 1452, Queen

Shin Sawbu Shin Sawbu ( my, ရှင်စောပု, ; mnw, မိစဴဗု; 1394–1471) was queen regnant of Hanthawaddy from 1454 to 1471. Queen Shin Sawbu is also known as Binnya Thau ( mnw, ဗညားထောဝ်; mnw, ဨကရာဇ� ...

gilded the entire pagoda, which was reconstructed by King

Bayinnaung , image = File: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 Toung ...

in 1564. The pagoda was rebuilt yet again in 1775 by Min Letwe, King

Hsinbyushin Hsinbyushin ( my, ဆင်ဖြူရှင်, , ; th, พระเจ้ามังระ; 12 September 1736 – 10 June 1776) was king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) from 1763 to 1776. The second son of the dynasty founder Al ...

's minister. The pagoda's site subsequently became a military encampment for British forces following the

. The pagoda's present

hti HTI may refer to: * Hti, the finial ornament placed on pagodas and temples in Myanmar * HTI+, a former technician certification from CompTIA * Great Barrier Reef Airport, on Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia * Haiti, a country in the Caribbe ...

(umbrella) was donated in November 1910.

References

{{Buddhist sites in Myanmar Buddhist temples in Yangon