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Updated: June 4, 2025


The bazaars are well worth visiting, and the working of elephants in the great teak yards is one of the tourist's principal sights. But the great Shwe Dagon pagoda is of course the centre of interest, and indeed it is one of the most astonishing places of worship it has been my fortune to visit.

The Buddhist triumphs were in Burma, Tibet, China, Japan, at the north; in Ceylon and Java, at the south. Here in Ceylon is preserved a sacred tooth of Buddha; and one of his bones, recently discovered in northern India, is to be brought next week with great pomp and ceremony to the temple in Kandy, which already ranks in sacredness next to the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon.

We have seen something of the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon, but there are many others almost equally beautiful, if not so large: the exquisite Shwe Tsan Daw at Prome, the Arracan near Mandalay, while in old Pagan, Pegu, Moulmein, and a host of other places, are temples which one might well think could not be surpassed for beauty.

As she walks away with a curious shuffle we see that she has on the quaintest shoes, with red velvet caps and no heels; but the caps are so much too small for her feet that she has had to leave the little toe outside! This is a fine dodge, and Mah Shwe can say she takes twos or threes in shoes with truth, even if her feet are much larger!

Upon its summit, commanding a far-reaching view of the winding river and of endless paddy-fields, with mountains in the distance, stands a pagoda which is in many respects more remarkable than the great Shwe Dagon pagoda at Rangoon.

Wot they called the Great Gawd Bud." How many images of Buddha there are in the city it would be impossible to estimate I saw them not only in the pagodas, but newly carved in the shops which supply the Buddhist temples in the interior and the gilded dome of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, "the most celebrated shrine of the entire Buddhist world," glitters like a beacon for miles before you reach the city.

The first and principal sight in Rangoon is the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and on Sunday afternoon Shafto and his new acquaintance passed between the golden lions at its base, and slowly ascended flight after flight of steep brick steps, lined with flower-decked shrines and blocked by dense masses of worshippers, who were swarming up and down.

Before Shafto could reply, Salter quoted in a sonorous monotone: 'Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade? Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone, And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid, Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon. "From the 'Song of the Cities. Rather appropriate to the occasion, eh?"

Long before her destination was in sight, twenty miles from the sea, the glorious Shwe Dagon, a shining golden object, towered into view, flashing in the sunlight against a background of impenetrable woods.

Originally of small dimensions, generations of Kings have from time to time added further layers of brickwork to the gradually increasing structure, until to-day this stupendous Shwe Dagon pagoda stands before us so immense and so beautiful as to be rightly considered one of the wonders of the world.

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