Bagan Monument 0566- Stupa, Myanmar

Address

Bagan Monument 0566 – Stupa, Myanmar

Wet Gyi Inn, Bagan, Minnanthu village,

Myanmar (Burma)

Moolavar

Buddha

Introduction

Monument 566 (13th century) is located in a lightly wooded area directly south of Minnanthu village. It is one of a cluster of a half-dozen temples including Zanthi West (Mon #577) and Zanthi East (#568).

Puranic Significance

This monument is one of 17 known pentagonal Bagan temples out of more than 2,200 registered sites. Temples of this type are known as nga-myet-hna, meaning “five-sided”. Pierre Pichard, the eminent architectural historian of Bagan, notes that this term was used in the Bagan era itself and occurs in an inscription dated to 1242. The form likely originated from the desire to pay homage to the five Buddha’s of the present epoch; in such an arrangement, five images of the Buddha were placed around the central core of a temple. Monument 0566 is too small to permit such a literal depiction—its reference is merely symbolic.

The monument’s interior shrine is quite claustrophobic and features only one main Buddha image, facing west. It was originally accompanied by two standing guardians on the north and south walls. All three images were demolished at some point in the past, quite possibly by treasure-hunters (the gashes left in the walls can still be seen where the standing Buddha images were located). The seated image was recently reconstructed in an approximation of its original design.

Very little of the temple’s original stucco treatment survives, but the interior mural paintings are still visible. These are of fairly low quality, depicting a bodhi tree behind the seated Buddha, pendant forms and birds on the walls, and a series of circular medallions on the ceiling.