A pyramid of washed-out gold in the midday haze and glittering perfection in the evening, the 376ft-high Shwemawdaw Paya stands tall and proud over the town. The stupa reaches 46ft higher than the Shwedagon in Yangon.
At the northeastern corner of the stupa is a huge section of the hti toppled by an earthquake in 1917. Shwemawdaw is a particularly good destination during Bago’s annual pagoda festival, in March/April.
According to murky legend the original stupa was a small, ramshackle object, built by two brothers, Kullasala and Mahasala, to enshrine two hairs given to them by Gautama Buddha. In AD 982 a sacred tooth was added to the collection; in 1385 another tooth was added and the stupa was rebuilt to a towering 277ft. In 1492 strong winds blew over the hti and a new one was raised.
The stupa has collapsed and been rebuilt many times over the last 600 years; each time it has grown a little taller and the treasures mounted in it have grown a little more abundant. The last time it was destroyed was in 1930 when a huge earthquake completely levelled it and for the next 20 years only the huge earth mound of the base remained.
