Bagan

Overview

Bagan is an ancient city and plain of Buddhist monuments in central Myanmar, located on the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady River. More than 3,500 temples, stupas (solid dome-shaped monuments), and monasteries built between the 11th and 13th centuries survive across roughly 104 square kilometers. Bagan is one of the most significant Buddhist sites in Southeast Asia, with active temples drawing daily worshippers and festivals gathering pilgrims from across Myanmar. Bagan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Present

Bagan's monuments are managed by Myanmar's Department of Archaeology under the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture. Worship continues daily across the plain. Major temples, among them the Ananda Temple and the Shwezigon Pagoda, hold a regular devotional life of offerings and prayer, served by monastic communities in the surrounding towns. Buddhists from the region and from across Myanmar come on pilgrimage throughout the year. Annual temple festivals gather thousands of worshippers; the Ananda Temple festival, held at the full moon of the Burmese month of Pyatho, usually in January, is among the largest. An earthquake in 2016 damaged several hundred monuments, and restoration with international assistance followed. The Myanmar civil war, ongoing since 2021, affects the site and the surrounding region.

Religious Significance

Bagan holds religious significance for Buddhists as the place where Buddhism became rooted in the region that is now Myanmar and from which the faith spread across the country. The thousands of monuments on the plain express the Buddhist practice of merit-making: Buddhists believe that generous acts, such as building or maintaining religious monuments, generate merit, positive karma that shapes a person's future lives. Rulers, officials, and ordinary donors built temples and stupas at Bagan for this reason over some 250 years. Burmese Buddhist tradition holds that the Shwezigon Pagoda enshrines relics of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The Ananda Temple houses four standing Buddha statues facing the four directions, representing the four Buddhas who, in Buddhist belief, have appeared in the present age of the world. Pilgrims come to these and other temples throughout the year, and temple festivals gather worshippers from across Myanmar.

History & Structure

Bagan was the capital of the Bagan kingdom, the first realm to unify the region of present-day Myanmar, from the 11th to the late 13th century. King Anawrahta, who came to the throne in 1044, adopted the Theravada branch of Buddhism, made his capital its center, and began the era of temple building. Over roughly 250 years, an estimated 10,000 religious monuments were built on the plain beside the Ayeyarwady River. The kingdom declined at the end of the 13th century after invasions by the Mongol empire, and large-scale building ceased. Worship continued at the major temples in the centuries that followed. More than 3,500 monuments survive, most of them brick, ranging from solid stupas, dome-shaped monuments that enshrine relics, to hollow temples built for worship. Among the most prominent are the gilded Shwezigon Pagoda, completed in the late 11th century, the Ananda Temple, completed in the early 12th century, and the Dhammayangyi and Thatbyinnyu temples. Earthquakes in 1975 and 2016 each damaged hundreds of monuments, and restorations followed. Bagan became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Additional Resources

• Related: Google Arts & Culture: Bagan, Myanmar
• UNESCO: Bagan
• Book: Ancient Pagan: Buddhist Plain of Merit by Donald M. Stadtner (2005)