Ananda Temple

The story

The Burmese chronicles tell that eight monks came to Kyansittha's court from India and described to him a cave temple called Nandamula in the Himalaya, where they had lived. The king asked them to recreate it by their meditative powers, and they showed him its image; he then built the temple in its likeness. The chronicle adds that he had the architects put to death so that the building could never be copied, a story that belongs to a common type of legend and is not treated as history. The name of the temple is often explained as coming from Ananta, the infinite wisdom of the Buddha, or from the Buddha's disciple Ananda.

The temple

The temple is a square of brick, with a porch projecting from each side, so that the plan forms an equal-armed cross. Above rise six receding terraces and a tall spire, gilded in modern times. Inside, two concentric corridors run round a solid central core. In a niche on each face of the core stands a gilded wooden Buddha about nine and a half metres tall, facing out through the porch. Two of the images are generally considered original; the others replaced figures lost to fire. The four represent the four buddhas of the present age who have already appeared, Kakusandha, Konagamana, Kassapa and Gotama.

The corridors hold small niches with stone reliefs of the life of the Buddha, and the outer basement and terraces are covered with glazed terracotta plaques illustrating the jataka stories, each labelled in Mon. Two figures kneeling at the feet of the western Buddha are traditionally identified as Kyansittha and the monk Shin Arahan, who had a central role in the religious life of his reign.

Kyansittha

Kyansittha, a son or general of Anawrahta by different accounts, came to the throne in 1084 after the death of Anawrahta's son. His inscriptions, written largely in Mon, present him as a righteous Buddhist king and a future buddha, and show the strong Mon influence on the Pagan court. He completed the Shwezigon stupa and sent missions to repair the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya.

Later history

The Ananda remained in worship after the decline of Pagan and was restored at intervals. The earthquake of 1975 damaged it, and it was repaired, the spire gilded in 1990. A further restoration in the 2010s, with Indian assistance, cleaned and conserved its interior paintings and plaques after the earthquake of 2016. It hosts a major festival each year in the Burmese month of Pyatho.