Hsinbyume Pagoda

On the west bank of the Irrawaddy at Mingun, a short way upriver from Mandalay, King Bagyidaw built a pagoda in 1816 in memory of his first consort and cousin, Princess Hsinbyume, who had died in childbirth nearby. It is also known as Myatheindan. Instead of the familiar bell-shaped stupa on a plain base, the design translated a piece of Buddhist cosmology into brick and whitewash: the pagoda was a model of Mount Meru, the mountain at the centre of the universe, and its seven concentric terraces stood for the seven mountain ranges that ring it.

The result was one of the most photogenic buildings in Myanmar. Each terrace was a wavy white parapet, rising in undulating tiers like frozen surf or the folds of a wedding dress, with a central stupa crowning the whole. Stairways led up through the rings, and from the upper levels the view took in the river, the village of Mingun and the enormous brick stump of the Mingun Pahtodawgyi, the unfinished pagoda of Bagyidaw's grandfather Bodawpaya, which stands close by together with the great Mingun Bell.

The pagoda has been damaged and rebuilt before. The earthquake of 1839 wrecked much of it, and King Mindon had it restored in 1874, the form in which it became famous. On 28 March 2025 the magnitude 7.7 earthquake centred near Mandalay struck the region again; the central tower of the pagoda almost entirely collapsed and the stairs around it were damaged, together with other monuments at Mingun. What survives is the ringed plan of the terraces, still legible as an image of the Buddhist world-mountain, and the story of a king's grief given architectural form twice in two centuries.

Getting there

Mingun lies on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, about 11 km from central Mandalay. Mandalay International Airport (MDL) is about 39 km away. The classic way to arrive is by boat: a public ferry leaves the Mingun jetty on the Mandalay riverfront in the morning and takes roughly an hour upstream, returning around midday, and private boats can be hired. The pagoda is a short walk from the Mingun landing, near the Mingun Pahtodawgyi and the Mingun Bell.