Botahtaung Pagoda

Botahtaung Pagoda stands beside the Yangon River on Strand Road in Botahtaung Township, Yangon, Myanmar. The name means 'a thousand military officers' and refers to the legend that a thousand soldiers escorted relics of the Buddha from India to this site more than 2,500 years ago, a tradition that places the founding in the Mon era. The pagoda was severely damaged in 1943 when Allied bombing struck the riverside during the Second World War, with the old stupa reduced to rubble. During the clearing of the debris in 1948, workers found a chamber containing a hair relic of the Buddha, which was placed in a golden casket and later displayed to the public. The government then rebuilt the pagoda between 1948 and 1953 as a hollow structure, and this reconstruction is its present form. The rebuilt stupa rises to about 40 metres and is covered with gold plate. The most unusual architectural feature is the interior: instead of a solid brick mass, visitors enter a hollow, mirrored, gilded corridor lined with glass-fronted cabinets that show relics and ancient artefacts recovered from the original site, including small votive objects and bronze pieces. The corridor winds through the stupa to a golden shrine at the centre, where the hair relic is shown behind glass. The curatorial approach is devotional and display-based rather than chronological. On the grounds visitors find a large pagoda platform, a small zoo-like pool with a pet-like collection of fish and turtles, a statue of the nat Bo Bo Gyi, and a hall housing a famous bronze Buddha image brought from Mandalay. A riverside walkway on the western side looks over Yangon's working port and across to Dala. Conservation is maintained by donation-funded regilding. Visitors must go barefoot inside the compound and dress modestly. The pagoda is a short ride from downtown hotels along the Strand Road corridor, and many visitors combine it with colonial buildings in Kyauktada Township and with a ferry ride toward Dala.