N 99   Bagan in My Heart  ( Part 2 )

The first time I went to Bagan was in 1967  I think, in my 4^th year of Uni; but our excursion group met with an accident at Popa and couldn’t continue to Bagan. Later after I worked I led students group( and later Lanzin youths ) for excursion to Burma Proper that included Bagan. So that was the first time I had been to Bagan when I was met by its awe inspiring sight.It captured my heart and can be said love at first sight.

We visited all famous pagodas; The gilded Shwe Zigon , the most visited Ananda with its 4 perfect standing Buddhas, the Sulamani which has the most beautiful architectural design, The Dhammayangyi which is said to be the biggest , the highest Thatbyinyu, Htilominlo, Mahabawdi, in Bagan, and Manuha and Mya Zedi in Myinkaba and many other stupas  and pagodas.  

Many of the big pagodas then have an inner narrow  stairs to the upper tiers and people can get to the top to  look around. I wondered why women should be let to go up as the upper part is higher than the Buddha statues, but now nobody are allowed to go up  to save damaging them.

In those days the places around Bupaya, Shwe Gu Gyi, Thatbyinyu, gawtawpalin , Bagan museum Thiripyitsaya were crowded with houses and shops .So the place was not nice and clean like today.

Hotels were not much popular yet, so we usually stayed at monasteries and zayats. It was rather convenient for us and nobody complained, but were satisfied to see the awesome Bagan.

Judging by the number of pagodas built during that time we assumed that Bagan would have flourished , and the people done  well. The number counted now is 2217. During that time not only  kings and queens and noble people built pagodas but also ordinary people did that. But in my mind it is strange that palaces ( even their foundations ) could not  be found.

Later I visited Bagan many times, sometimes with family, and sometimes with friends.During these times,  sometimes we visited Tant Kyi Taung where we had to cross the Ayarwaddy by watercraft. It is opposite of Lawkananda Pagoda and is on a lofty mountain. On Bagan’s side before entering Bagan is the Tuyin Taung which was built on a hill not far from the roadside.At the foot of the hill there was Mya Kan lake built by King Anawrahta to use its water to irrigate the lands around it. But nowadays  there are  no distinct features of it left.

Though it is hot and dusty it gives people a sense of missing, which in Burmese we called( lwan de) but cannot express  exactly, fully in English .It is a kind of missing, of yearning but to what and to whom we don’t know. We can see famous writers like Zaw Gyi, Min Thu Wun, Mya Than Tint and Maung Thar Cho  express this feeling  in their books , and in their poems. I think many  people who are in Old Bagan feel like this and I am one of them.

And then about its inexplicable  mysteriousness;

Maung Thar Cho wrote

       

   ….. on sleepless nights I would go out with a friend through these pagodas. On these nights the Tamar would smell more strongly….Under the moonlight the greenish htanaung trees looks so mystic…..The standing pagodas and stupas here and there looks as if they are mesmerizing with some magic and I feel as if I am being watched by some supernatural being.

In another chapter the author wrote that while he was riding in a horse cart and passing the Dammaryangyi the driver told him that he dare not go past the pagoda at night because moanings can be heard coming from that direction.The author Nanda Thein Zan also wrote incidents that are not natural in his book.

       

  I believe in soul. So I can understand these things . Bagan is an old, ancient city. Innumerable people had lived and perished in it.Some naturally and some opposite of it. But I am afraid of supernatural things. I won’t dare go out in the night like the author in the book, although I like to see the old city in the daytime.

Bagan is an arid place. Only small bushes and trees like htanaung and tamar can grow in the rusty soil. Without the amazing monuments of worship with their architechural and cultural value, the people of long ago built, the place is worth nothing. But because of these things it is famous all over the world and has become a place of attraction. So we must know its value and cherish it and take care of it ,so that it will last a long time.

N   98  Bagan in my heart

I had been reading a book about Bagan. It was written by author Maung Thar Cho, and the title is “ Lacquer smelling pages of a semi desert “

In the book the author narrated every thing about Bagan; its history written by Burmese historians like Dr Than Tun and also foreign scholars as well.

Beside history with it’s kings the author also wrote some incidents concerning famous and infamous pagodas, about spirits that came into existence during the Bagan era, fable like stories such as Kyansittha and his 3 heroes, , Bagan’s connections with Thiho ( Ceylon ) and also Mount Popa, and poems about Bagan written by famous poets.

And then about steles of which Mya Zedi is the most famous. We know from the book that the 1^st person who discovered it was Dr.E Forchammer, a professor of English from Yangon College in 1886 and that the interpreter was a German scholar Dr. Charles Otto Blagden who worked in Singapore and Indonesia.This made me wonder why it had always been foreigners who discovered old monuments like Angkor Wat, Borobudur, and now our Myazedi Stele. 

We had known all along that Mya Zedi stele was erected by Yarza Kumar , son of Kyansithar and Thambula and it depicted his gratitude to his father. Some paragraphs in the book gave us doubts about Yarza Kumar being the son of Kyansithar and Thambula.

Well…. history cannot be said to be a hundred percent true. Historians have to assemble the facts, clues, relics and sayings handed down from old people to young people to make history. Anyway, true or not true Bagan had been great during its days, that even widows can build pagodas that lasted a thousand years with a number of over 2000.

The author wrote :

This much grand a past

This much majestic a history

This much artful and magnificent bygone days

This much bright and radiant yesterday……

Oh…. Bagan, I value  you as my life

And then he said he loves Bagan; to drink tea from lacquer smelling tea cups, to eat lahpet from a lacquer bowl, to haul water from a well with a lacquer pail and bath, to sit quietly under a hta naung tree encircled  by a red earth footpath, to go and pay homage to serene pagodas with distinquished historical backgrounds. He liked all of these that he had visited Bagan uncountable times.

Another book about Bagan that I like is the book written by Nanda Thein Zan. The title is “ Thoughts about Arimadana still lingering “. I had read and bought it more than once . It was what the author and some friends discussed about Bagan old days which left the author with thoughts.I like the somewhat poetic way that it was written.

So , through what I have read and seen in reality I  also come to like Bagan. I had been to Bagan many times though not as much as the author , but I don’t feel I have had enough of it….

to be continued…..