Photo Gallery

Kyauktawgyi Paya Temple (built 1853-78)

Kyauktawgyi Paya (or Pagoda), the pagoda of the “Great Marble Image,” is sited near the southern entry to Mandalay Hill. Although its construction was started in 1853 by King Mindon, it was not completed until 1878, in part due to a palace rebellion and domestic disturbances in the mid-1860s. Originally it was to be styled after the Ananda Pahto in Bagan; the completed Paya, however, bears no resemblance to that massive structure.

The chief feature of the Kyauktawgyi Paya is huge seated Buddha figure sculpted from a single block of pale green marble from the Sagyin quarry twelve miles north of Mandalay. Reportedly it took 10,000-12,000 men thirteen days to transport the stone block from the Ayeyarwady to the site of the pagoda where it was carved. There are reports, whether true or not, that a canal to float the stone was dug the from the Ayeyarwady to the site, but lacking sufficient height of the water 10,000 conscript labors were ordered into the canal to raised the level of the water. The statue itself was dedicated in 1865.

A covered corridor leads through the garden of the arhats to the structure housing the Buddha. On each of the four sides there are twenty shrines with figures representing the arhats, the eighty Great Disciples of the Buddha. Each October one of the largest festivals is held at the Kyauktawgyi Paya.

Text by Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Nebraska