The Shwedagon Pagoda is the heart and soul of Yangon, a mayor place of pilgrimage in the Buddhist world, the Buddhist equivalent of the Kaaba at Mecca, and, in sum, a great and glorious monument.

'The fairest place, as I suppose*' thought Ralph Fitch, 'that is in the world.' Fitch had seen the splendors of the Mogul Empire, and it is a consolation to think that as the Shwedagon has been, if anything, improved since Elizabethan days, there still exists one tiny oasis, in a desert of pinchbeck modernity, where the prodigious glamour of the ancient Orient endures.

The special sanctity of the Shwedagon Pagoda arises from the fact that it is the only pagoda recognized as enshrining relics not only of Gautama, but of the three Buddhas preceding him.

Those of the Buddha consist of eight hairs, four of them original, given in his lifetime, and four others, miraculous reproductions generated from them in the course of their journey from India.

These, according to the account in the official guidebook, flew up, when the casket containing them was opened, to a height of seven palm trees. They emitted rays of varie­gated hues, which caused the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk.

Later, a rain of jewels fell, covering the earth to knee's depth. The treasure buried with these relics was of such value that, centuries later, the report of it reached the ears of the King of China, who made a magic figure in human form, and sent it to rob the shrine.

This creature, says the chronicle, was so dazzled by the pagoda's appearance, that it hesitated, and while in this bemused state was attacked and cut to pieces by the Shwedagon spirit-guardians. It was the habit of the Burmese kings to make extravagant gifts for the embellishment of the Shwedagon, diamond vanes, jewel-encrusted finial umbrellas, or at least their weight in gold, to be used in regilding the spire.

The wealth that other Oriental princes kept in vaults and coffers was here spread out under the sun to astound humanity. Two of the three greatest bells in the world were cast and hung here.

Both pagoda bells were seized by foreigners, one by the Portuguese, and one by the British and both, causing the capsize of the ships that carried them away, were sunk in the river.

Shinsawbu, Queen of the Talaungs or Mons, won so much respect by building the great terrace and the walls, that the most flattering thing the Burmese could think of to say about Queen Victoria was that she was a reincarnation of this queen.

The great annual pagoda festival is being held at the full moon of Tabaung, which coincides with Easter in the West.

All of Yangon or Rangoon is topped by the magnificent Yangon Pagodas, in particular the famous Shwedagon Pagoda und dozens of other Myanmar Pagodas unknown to most travelers.

Sule Pagoda

Sule pagoda Yangon or Rangoon Myanmar

Right in Yangon City center the the inverted golden bell of the Sule Pagoda gleamed softly.  The spire of the Sule Pagoda is plated with gold, furnished by the devout.

The Sule pagoda is approached by four covered stairways, with a minor temple, well constructed in corrugated iron, built over each entrance. These additions have been given at various times by  leading merchants of Yangon city, who have thereby acquired great merit and probably avoided

The sanctity inherent in the pagoda begins at the first step leading from the street pavement up to the platform under which the sacred relics are buried. It also extends to the various shops built into the pagoda's surrounding wall, some of them ' including a lottery-ticket seller and some Yangon photo studios being remarkably secular.

A sightseeing walk in the city of Yangon or Rangoon could start from the Yangon Sule Pagoda which marked the centre of the city when the British rebuilt Rangoon or Yangon. Laying out Rangoon or Yangon's streets on a gridiron pattern; the wider ones running east to west and the narrower ones, north to south.