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Cambodia – Oudong Mountain

November 17, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

Oudong Mountain is a popular weekend-morning destination for Cambodians as well as tourists. The ride from Phnom Penh takes about three quarters of an hour through the capital city’s suburbs and out into the countryside. Oudong Mountain first appears as a distant vision across the rice paddies.

Oudong was the capital of Cambodia from 1618 to 1866, when the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. There was much damage to the region in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge. Now, new structures and old intermingle peacefully. The climb to the top involves more than five hundred stairs whose railings are topped with resplendent enlightened Buddhas. A pool that graces one of the stairway landings is occupied by a troupe of monkeys.

  

 

The views from the terrace of the newest stupa are stunning, as are the terrace and the stupa itself.

 

 

The older stupas on the mountaintop blend ancient art with modern worship.

   

 

One of these older stupas had a small temple inside, where traditionally worshippers bring Buddha statues.

 

 

 

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Inle Lake – Ngape Chaung, the “jumping cat monastery”

September 11, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

You have to admit, I’ve laid pretty low on the holy sites for the last several posts, a week now, maybe more. So… this is Myanmar, and it’s time for a monastery. And not just any monastery, but the famous home of the jumping cats.

As with all places around Inle Lake, arrival is by boat.

The monastery complex comprises a number of buildings arranged in an attractive tableau.

  

 

The pagoda contains many attractive Buddhas of different styles.

    

 

In addition, the place is inhabited by many contented cats.

   

 

Interestingly, the monks of this monastery have trained the cats to jump through hoops. We didn’t get to see this in person, though we would have loved to. We were told that there have been complaints that training cats is too trivial a pursuit, and not spiritual enough, for serious monks to pursue. And so now the monks no longer demonstrate their cats’ skills. They might still be training them, of course, but not so publicly.

You can watch a video on youtube by clicking here. This is fun. Enjoy!

 

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Inle Lake – near Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda

August 31, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

From the deck of the restaurant where we ate lunch, we could see the splendid temple we would tour shortly.

This pagoda houses five ancient and sacred Buddha images, which are believed to have been brought to Myanmar from the Malay peninsula sometime in the twelfth century. The images are small–only nine to eighteen inches high–and so much gold leaf has been applied to them in this century alone that you can no longer even guess they were once Buddhas. I don’t have a photo, but there is a good image here.

As you might guess, these small statues are uncommonly heavy.

Therefore, it may come as no surprise that when an unexpected storm came up while the Buddhas were being transported on their annual round of the Inle Lake villages and the ceremonial boat capsized, they sank to the bottom of the lake.

The lake is not deep, and four of the five statues were recovered. But search as they may, no one could find the fifth–and largest statue. You can imagine everyone’s surprise when they returned to the temple with the other four statues, and the fifth one was waiting for them there.

Clearly, this one statue didn’t want to travel any more. And so for the last fifty years, only four of the statues make the annual round of the villages.

*  *  *

After lunch, we took the back way and walked to the pagoda. Dan and I being the kind of tourists that we are, we found the backyards as interesting as the waterfront.

 

 

A canal separated us from the temple. From its bank we watched some young women doing, um, something, involving tin cans and water. Then we crossed the narrow pedestrian bridge.

 

At the temple, groups of people talked or prayed, but we didn’t see anyone applying gold leaf right then.

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Inle Lake – Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery

August 27, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

The nearest airport to Inle Lake is at Heho, about an hour’s drive distant. And in between Heho Airport and the lake lies this charming teak monastery, over 150 years old.

It’s not covered by ornate carvings like the royal monasteries and pagodas we saw in Mandalay. This is a regional monastery, and one dedicated to housing poor boys from the countryside, boys who might consider the monastery as a way of life. For them, it provides an education and a predictable meal–more than they might get at home otherwise.

We arrived during wash time. Monks were washing themselves and their clothing together.

 

 

The monks live in a dormitory, where each has his own space: a sleeping mat and a place to store his possessions, including a trunk. With a lock. Not that the monks aren’t honest. Of course they are, but a lock, perhaps, helps them stay that way. Or maybe it’s us tourists that they’re worried about.

The dormitory occupies half of the monastery building. The other half is a temple with an ornately carved ceiling, containing some of the sweeter Buddhas we’ve seen on this trip.

   

 

Nearby–perhaps part of the same monastery complex–is another pagoda with an abundance of Buddhas and beautiful glass mosaics.

The main Buddhas seem about to go out for a stroll.

All around the central sanctuary is a walkway with niches. In every niche is a Buddha (and a sign indicating the Buddha’s donor). There is much merit here.

 

 

The arched ceiling of this walkway is covered with mosaic murals of Buddhist themes. The one I like best shows how the righteous (men) get to pluck the fruit of the tree of virgins. Er… I am not making this up.

I do have to point out the sleeping righteous (men) at the right and below the tree, so perhaps this image depicts only the kind of pleasant dreams such people may have. Or perhaps the image refers to some canonical tale. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy on the right is a person with a name that any good Myanmar Buddhist would know.

 

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Mandalay – Shwe Inbin Monastery (or: an orphan makes good)

August 25, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

Shwe Inbin is a remarkably well preserved teak monastery structure. It was built in 1895 by a Chinese orphan who worked himself up from an poverty to become a rich and powerful merchant, married to one of the king’s daughters, if I recall the tale correctly. Long used as a monastery, it is now being preserved as an historically significant structure; monks from the still-active monastery buildings that surround Shwe Inbin still act as caretakers.

And perhaps the mango trees on the grounds, dropping their near-ripe fruit like cannonballs on the unwary visitor, are also doing their part as caretakers.

The carvings that adorn the teak building, in the traditional Burmese style, are gorgeous. So is the building as a whole.

    

Inside, the teak carvings are also lovely, and the sanctuary contains two gold Buddhas. I don’t know why, but I find these Buddhas tasteful and restrained, despite their being gold. Maybe I am developing gold-tolerance, needing higher and higher doses before it sets off my “excessive!” button.

As we were leaving, we came across the guardian monks, hard at work in their caretaking duties.

After seeing this monastery (and surviving the attack of the guardian mango trees once again), we had yet another delicious Burmese dinner and got ready for our early morning flight the next day to Inle Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

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Mandalay – Maha Muni Paya

August 19, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

Maha Muni Paya (Great Sage Temple) is a particularly holy site among Myanmar Buddhists and others. It contains an ancient Buddha statue (the Maha Muni Buddha), which was transported to Mandalay from Mrauk U in the kingdom of Rakhine (which borders modern Bangladesh), when that kingdom was defeated by the Burmese in 1784. But the statue is much, much older. Some believe that the statue was cast in 554BC, one of only five statues of the Buddha made during his lifetime; that it was breathed upon by him; and that it therefore became an exact likeness.

But the statue has been much altered . More about this later.

The temple itself, reconstructed in the late 1800s after the original temple burned, is ornate and filled with worshippers. Women are not allowed to approach the Buddha beyond a certain point. (This does not sit well with me, but there you have it.)

 

 

Now, here’s the weird part. Men, who are allowed to touch the Buddha image, constantly apply gold leaf to it. This is considered an act of virtue. (They also brush the Buddha’s teeth in the morning, an interesting deed considering that Buddha’s mouth is closed.)

  

 

A pictorial chronography shows the changes to the Buddha over the years as men have continued to apply gold leaf to him.

Let’s look at these changes in a little more detail.

1901

1935

1984

2010

 

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Mandalay – Making Buddhas of Bronze and Marble

August 18, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

It’s time to talk about how they make the bronze and marble Buddhas that we find in all those temples and holy places and who knows where-all else. Because make them, the people of Myanmar certainly do. And in abundance.

Bronze Buddhas are still made (as they have been made here for millennia) using the lost-wax method. In this method, the finished statue is first carved in wax on top of a clay base mold. A second clay frame is then molded around the wax statue. Molten bronze is poured in between the two molds, melting the wax (which is therefore indeed lost) and filling the space that the wax had occupied. When the mold is cooled and broken open, the bronze statue inside is a perfect replica of the original wax statue. And every wax statue is indeed a unique original; each is hand-carved and then destroyed in the bronze casting process.

The workshop yard, filled with works in process

 

A finished wax image; behind to the left, a clay base on which a wax image will be carved

Behind the wax statue (upper right) is a finished mold ready for bronze pouring

And voila! A finished bronze statue!

You too can buy a bronze statue, either custom ordered or a standard design.

Pre-ordered and prepaid statues ready to ship to their purchasers

Statues offered for sale

 

Marble Buddhas are made in storefront workshops along a two- or three-block stretch of road in the outskirts of Mandalay. We chanced upon this area while driving…somewhere else…and our guide Zaw, knowing we like this sort of thing, stopped so that we could walk up and down the street and take pictures.

There was a kind of surreal weirdness seeing all these pristine white Buddhas and all manner of other beings just sitting or lying about, many without faces and yet facing in every direction. It’s the faceless ones that particularly enhance the surreal quality of the scene.

     

We particularly enjoyed watching the stone carvers at their work.

 

  

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Bagan – Shwezigon Pagoda (the Golden Platform Temple)

August 5, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | 1 comment

Yes! It’s another golden pagoda. I think this one is really lovely, but it may fall short of true Burmese elegance in that it manages the transition from the square temple below to the round golden bell of the stupa above a bit awkwardly. But then, it’s the first one (I believe) that made the attempt–somewhere around year 1100AD, and all later stupas were developed from this model, though perhaps with a more graceful segue through octagonal phases.

 

Within, at least one Buddha is of a human scale and all golden, with an inviting smile.

So… what explains why this particular temple has the best collection of nats–pre-Buddhist spirits–that we’ve seen anywhere?

 

This includes a lovely, ancient statue of Thagyamin, king of the nats. (At least, I think this is him!)

 

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Yangon – The Reclining Buddha (Chaukhtatgyi Pagoda)

July 29, 2011 in Photographs, Southeast Asia | No comments

Just as we entered Chaukhtatgyi Pagoda and removed our shoes, we were assailed by a violent noise like a jackhammer. But louder. It seemed so… irreverent. Not at all right for a pagoda containing a huge image of the Buddha.

“What’s that noise?” I asked our guide Zaw, who knows everything.

He looked at me with a funny, squinty look for just a moment, a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. But he saw that I really didn’t know, and so he answered simply, “Rain.”

And indeed it was rain. The most heavens-let-loose downpour of our entire visit to Southeast Asia (and this was the monsoon season) had begun just as we entered the one pagoda on our tour with a metal roof. We had to shout to be heard. It was truly spectacular.

So is the Buddha, of course. Maybe it isn’t the largest reclining Buddha in Southeast Asia, but at over two hundred feet long, it’s large enough to be quite impressive. And certainly it isn’t the oldest Buddha image in Southeast Asia, having been completed originally in 1907 and extensively (entirely???) reconstructed in 1973. But the Buddha’s face is sweet and serene.

And he has the neatest footprints ever. (They indicate all of the [insert large number here--150???] previous lives of Buddha before he was Buddha, only ten of which were as humans. The rest were animals–no dogs or cats, though.)

We weren’t the only ones hanging out in the temple while it rained.

But not to worry: the rain stopped just before we left.

 

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Surveying Their Respective Kingdoms

May 21, 2011 in animals, garden | No comments

The Buddha’s kingdom is within. And the chipmunk’s…?

Take it from me: The chipmunk and its kin are lords and masters of the entire garden.

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