INTERESTING PLACES

Mahamuni Shrine

This shrine was built in 1884 by U Htaw Ung and wife, Mi Hannah. Its architecture is of Indian influence. It has a three-tiered flat roof. The building houses the Mahamuni Buddha image in the main shrine room. The rooms at the back had probably been meant as repository for the Tripitaka scriptures. There is also an underground vault possibly to store the books or manuscripts.

The rooms

The shrine room contains the Mahamuni image which is a conventional Myanmar one and is not attired in royal regalia like its namesake in Mandalay. Behind the image there is a backdrop of ceremic mosaic bodered by floral carvings in copper. At the entrance to the shrine, strung across the two front pillers, there is a festoon of floral carvings delicately fashioned out of many layers of copper sheetings. The ceilings over the main hall are made up of two arches, the main one over the space where the Mahamuni image is placed and the outer and lower one, over the surrounding space. The main arch, forming a dome over the Buddha image, is decorated with finely set gold-painted designs. The lower arches, sectioned into two rows of retangular spaces have similarly painted patterns on the inner row, while the outer rows are less profusely painted. Oval and multipointed motifs occupy the centre of each rectangle in the lower arches. The smaller ceilings are angulated rather than arched and painted in red, with golden floral designs in the middle and bordered by gold linings. The moststriking features are the decorations on the upper parts of the supporting pillers and the main beams where different floral and other decorative designs are carved in plaster and painted in gold and other colors. These together with the decorative arched roofs are impressive sights indeed.

The building exterior

The exterior of the building is extensively decorated on most surfaces with relief designs on cement plaster. A series of pinnacles are placed as decors at regular intervals on the edges of each of the tiers of the buildings.

Condition of building

• The roofs had been leaking badly before. This had resulted in damage to the decorative ceilings in some places However, thanks to repairs being done, there are no more leakages..
• The ceilings as well as some of the decorative work are damaged in many places.
• The plasterwork had peeled off in some places and the woodwork also show some damage.
• The building is now undergoig major repair work and much of the above damage are being addressed.