Shwesandaw Pagoda

On the dusty plain of Bagan, where more than two thousand brick temples and stupas rise above the scrub along the Irrawaddy, the Shwesandaw stands out for its sheer bulk. A stepped pyramid of five whitewashed terraces, with steep stairways climbing the middle of every side, carries two octagonal bases and a bell-shaped stupa crowned with a hti, the ornamental umbrella that tops Burmese pagodas. It is counted among the tallest monuments of Bagan, and its upper terraces command a sweeping view over the temple-studded plain towards the river.

The pagoda belongs to the first great age of Bagan. King Anawrahta, who forged the Pagan Kingdom into the first state to unite most of what is now Myanmar, raised it around 1057, after his conquest of the Mon city of Thaton in the south. Its name means roughly "golden holy hair": the stupa was built to enshrine hairs of the Buddha. The usual account says they were brought back from Thaton, while another tradition holds that they were a gift from the king of Pegu in thanks for Anawrahta's help against a Khmer invasion. The design was influential, being among the first in Bagan to lead stairways from square terraces up to a round stupa base. Terracotta plaques illustrating the Jataka tales of the Buddha's earlier lives once lined the terraces, and figures of the elephant-headed Ganesha stood at their corners, giving the monument its old alternative name of Ganesha Pagoda.

Bagan itself was the royal capital from the mid-11th century until the kingdom's collapse in the late 13th century, and in some 250 years its kings and wealthy patrons built thousands of religious monuments across the plain. Bagan lies in an active earthquake zone, and the great earthquake of July 1975 brought down the pagoda's original hti, which still lies within the compound beside the monument; a new finial was fitted soon afterwards. A further strong earthquake in August 2016 damaged hundreds of Bagan's monuments. The city's temples were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019.

Getting there

The Shwesandaw stands in the Bagan archaeological zone, south-east of the walled core of Old Bagan and about 6 km from the town of Nyaung-U, the main gateway to the area. Nyaung U Airport (NYU), just outside the town, is the local airport for Bagan with domestic flights; the nearest international airport is Mandalay International Airport (MDL), about 130 km away. Nyaung-U also has a railway station on lines from Mandalay and Yangon, and river boats travel down the Irrawaddy from Mandalay to Bagan.