History:
The history of the Shwedagon Pagoda begins with the story of two Burmese merchant brothers, Tapussa and Bhallika. On a trading expedition to India, they visited the Buddha as he sat under the bodhi tree on the 49th day after attaining Enlightenment. The brothers offered him honey cakes, and when the Buddha had eaten them, they asked for a gift from him. Buddha passed his hands over his head and produced eight hairs, which he gave to Tapussa and Bhallika. The brother journeyed back to Burma, with the sacred hairs. They gave two to the King of Atjjhatta and and two to the serpent king Jayasena. With the aid of these leaders and several nats or spirits, the brothers arrived in present day Yangon with the four remaining hairs. With the help of the King of Ulkuppa, they set out to enshrine the hairs, contained in a ruby casket, on the Singuttara hill. This was already a shrine, containing the the relics of the three previous Buddhas--the water filter of Kakusandha, the robe of Konagamana, and the staff of Kassapa. The relics were committed to a chamber, over which was built a stupa or zedi of gold. This was encased in a silver pagoda, then in a pagoda of gold and copper alloy, then in an iron pagoda, then in a marble pagoda, and then finally in a brick pagoda. That is the legend of the origins of the Shwedagon Paya. Since then it has been ravaged by war and earthquakes, built upon and added to until the present day

Layout:

As the diagram below shows, the Shwedagon Paya is laid out on the four cardinal points of the compass, with an entrance to the plinth or platorm at each cardinal point, and there is ra devotional hall to each of the four incarnations of the Buddha at that point. All of this is arrange around the main zedi, or central stupa. Around the zedi itself are 8 planetary stations, while there are many other shrines and halls connected to both Buddhism and its history in Myanmar arrayed around the plinth. To learn about many of the features of this striking complex, please click on the image below and a virtual tour will open.