Yangon – Botataung Pagoda

This pagoda was my last stop in Yangon. It was another stinking hot day and I was totally dripping in sweat after walking five metres into the building. This pagoda is right by the river and holds special significance for Myanmar.


This pagoda is where all eight hairs of the Buddha were kept when they first came to Myanmar. They were then distributed throughout the country, with one left behind. This is a major site of veneration for this hair. People seemed to come in, say a few prayers by the hair and leave.

The complex is quite small, but it is dominated by the zedi in the centre. Unlike most temples, the big gold bell shaped zedi is hollow. It was blown up in the second world war and rebuilt hollow. Inside is where the Buddha hair lives. It’s a bit of a funny building. You walk up the stairs, into a narrow corridor, then straight in front of you is the Buddha hair.

There’s then a corridor all covered in tiny triangular mirrors. This allows you to walk the whole way around the zedi. The space in front of the hair is quite tight, so people were worshipping on all the nooks and crannies around the zedi. Any wall that was next to the Buddha hair chamber was prime worshipping place. I wonder if they should be called hair prayers?

Outside the zedi, there’s the standard jumble of smaller buildings holding various shrines to different aspects of Buddhism. One that was a little different, was a pavilion built over the top of a large pond. The pond was the colour of ink and rather gross looking. Squirming around inside, were a huge number of terrpains, as well as some very large slimy catfish.

In south east asia, there’s great veneration for the mystic Naga creature. It’s been shoe horned into fitting into Buddhist doctrine, but it’s really a hangover from indigenous animist religions. It’s meant to be a snake, but there’s a theory that it’s just a huge cat fish. These creatures can grow up to two metres long in the big rivers of Asia. I guess that’s why the pond had so many huge fish in it.


At the entrance to the temple, you can buy some basil leaves to feed the critters, as well as some pellet foods, which look rather like monster munch crisps from London. Very odd.

There were a few other building of note. One had a strange Buddha image. It looked like he was trying to pat his head and rub his tummy at the same time. Party trick Buddha, maybe?


The other thing of note was a rather large seated bronze Buddha. It was having a new house built around it, so you couldn’t get close to it. I guess that’s why they need all the donations.

There were a few other temples in Yangon that were mentioned in the guide book, but by this late stage, I was starting to lose interested. It was amazingly hot, very humid and all starting to look the same. I made one last trip to the Bogyoke Aung Sun market, then headed home.