Description of the attraction
The Sule Buddhist Pagoda is built on a busy intersection right in the historic center of Yangon. British authorities, trying to draw up maps of the city, considered this temple to be a kind of "zero kilometer" of the city and carried out the numbering of houses from it.
According to a legend widespread in Yangon, the pagoda was built on the site where the man-eating elephant Sule used to live, which was converted by the Buddha and turned into a spirit. This spirit was to assist King Okkalapa and two merchant brothers in their search for the relics of previous Buddhas, which were hidden in the upper part of the Singuttar Temple, as the Shwedagon Pagoda was called in the past. There are many older versions of this legend, which differ in the number of cannibals who help in the search for artifacts. And some don't even have a hint of Sula. So, one of the myths tells that the place where the Sule pagoda was built, intended to store the Buddha's hair, was indicated by two monks Sonia and Uttarze. The name of the pagoda in the Mon language sounds like Chak Athok, which translates simply: "The pagoda where the hair is kept."
Although some historians believe that the pagoda was built in the 1st millennium BC. e., but there is no historical evidence of this. The earliest mentions of the pagoda date back to the early 19th century. In 1816, the pagoda was renovated: the stupa was gilded, and the tower near it was renewed. Subsequently, this tower was destroyed.
Sule Pagoda was built in the Mon style on an octagonal base. A feature of the pagoda's design is that the stupa also has an octagonal shape. The height of the pagoda is 46 meters. In the 1920s, four prayer halls dedicated to the Buddhas were placed around the Sule Temple. In the following years, fortune-teller shops and kiosks appeared near the pagoda.
