The Diversity of Buddhist Architecture: Bagan, the holy city
Bagan is called the "City of a Thousand Temples". there are more than 10,000 religious buildings in an area of more than 100 square kilometers. Moreover, they are buildings of different typologies: temples, stupas, monasteries, etc. Despite the enormous historical value of these buildings, Bagan only became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
Nowadays, Bagan is no longer the capital of an influential empire. In fact, it is not even a city. there is only the Bagan airport and several settlements around and within it, with extensive historical structures, which are Bagan's main attraction.
Founded in the 2nd century, the city reached its greatest prosperity in the 11th-13th centuries, when most of the religious buildings were built. This happened after King Anoratha made Theravada Buddhism the state religion of Myanmar. He decided to establish the Buddhist cultural center of the country in Bagan. At that time, the population of Bagan reached 200,000. However, after the Mongol invasion in 1287, the city lost its former grandeur, the population was significantly reduced, and it gradually became only a place of pilgrimage.
Due to time, weather, and several major earthquakes, many religious buildings began to crumble, and in the 1990s, Myanmar's military government undertook a major restoration project to make Bagan a major international tourism destination. However, these works did not comply with UNESCO's recommendations for the restoration of architectural monuments. inappropriate materials were used, little attention was paid to matching historical styles, etc. It was only after comments were made in 2019 that Bagan finally received UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
Three main groups can be distinguished from Bagan's religious buildings: Buddhist temples, symmetrical buildings with four altars and Buddha statues facing each cardinal direction; hemispherical stupas, inside which certain sacred relics are kept, and caves, temple structures in the form of labyrinths, the walls of which are painted with frescoes. Brick and white stone were used as the main building materials. Some parts of the most important buildings were covered with gold on top.
Among the many religious buildings of Bagan, the following can be distinguished. The largest religious building is Damayanji Temple. Tourists can see it only from the outside, because the previously covered interior is still in that condition. In turn, the Ananda Temple, built as early as 1091, is the best-preserved large-scale building in Bagan. According to legend, the exterior of the building recreates the decoration of a cave temple in the Himalayas, which the monks showed the king through meditation practices. And in the "City of a Thousand Temples" Tatbinyu Temple is considered the highest, the height of which is 66 meters.
From a religious point of view, the most significant building in Bagan is the Shwezigo Pagoda (Shwegado), where, according to legend, the Buddha's bone and tooth are kept. It is a round stupa covered in gold leaf and surrounded by smaller temples and shrines.