Bagan Minochantha Stupa Group, Myanmar

Address

Bagan Minochantha Stupa Group, Myanmar

Minochantha, Bagan,

Myanmar (Burma)

Moolavar

Buddha

Introduction

Minochantha Stupa Group (built c. 1112) is a small Minochantha (also Minochanta) group features the stupa erected under orders of King Kyansittha, who had fallen seriously around 1112. A Ceylonese king had sent Kyansittha nine relics of the Buddha as a tribute. According to the marker on the site, the king enshrined the relics in a stupa and said “I am quite old enough, with this meritorious deed may I be free from diseases, and may I live a longer life. May the sasana [the Buddhist movement] be flourished? Thus this stupa was named as Min-O-Chantha.” Alas, the king died the following year.

The complex is on a raised platform with a small modern wooden shrine along its western face and impressive stupas, guarded by chinthe, the half-lion and half dragon from Hindu-Buddhist mythology. The Minochantha contains an iconographic portrayal of the “Five Sacred Lords” (or hpaya-nga-zu), the five Buddhas of that bhadrakalpa (period).

From the rear of the platform there is a wonderful lookout over part of the vast Bagan plain and its numerous stupas and temples, including those of the magnificent Ananda and Thatbinnyu.