Myanmar’s temple city Bagan awarded UNESCO World
Heritage status
By Simon Lewis
YANGON (Reuters) - UNESCO inscribed Myanmar’s
ancient capital of Bagan as a World Heritage Site on Saturday, nearly a quarter
of a century after the complex of Buddhist temples was first nominated for
listing.
The decision recognizes the importance of the
central Myanmar site – which includes more than 3,500 stupas, temples,
monasteries and other structures built between the 11th and 13th centuries –
and will likely be a boon to Myanmar’s tourist industry.
The Myanmar proposal to list the site was approved
at a meeting of the U.N.’s cultural body in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites
recommended the listing, noting that Myanmar had adopted a new heritage law and
had formed plans to reduce the impact of hotels and tourism developments around
the temple.
Myanmar had reversed some “inappropriate
conservation interventions,” the body said, noting that Bagan was important for
its historical significance and as a place of continuing Buddhist worship.
Bagan was first nominated as a World Heritage Site
in 1995, but the military junta that ruled the country at the time was accused
of ignoring experts’ advice on restoration efforts and the nomination was
rejected.
Earthquakes have also damaged the ancient
structures, most recently in 2016 when nearly 200 temples were damaged by a 6.8
magnitude quake.
Myanmar has renewed efforts to list the site since a
transition from military rule began in 2011.
“Bagan is living heritage, having endured all forms
of challenges for more than a thousand years,” said Myanmar diplomat Kyaw Zeya,
speaking on behalf of the Myanmar delegation at the Baku meeting.
“Today we are celebrating the joyous moment of the
successful inscription of Bagan in the World Heritage List. Afterwards we will
continue our efforts on conservation and management of Bagan so that this
treasured heritage will remain for another thousand years.”
History of Bagan
Bagan (Burmese: ပုဂံ; MLCTS: pu.gam, IPA:
[bəɡàɴ]; formerly Pagan) is a UNESCO World-Heritage-Listed ancient city located
in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was
the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions
that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between
the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and
monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of
over 2,200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day.
The Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main attraction
for the country's nascent tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in
attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Bagan is the present-day standard Burmese
pronunciation of the Burmese word Pugan (ပုဂံ), derived from Old
Burmese Pukam (ပုကမ်). Its classical Pali name is
Arimaddanapura (အရိမဒ္ဒနာပူရ, lit. "the City
that Tramples on Enemies"). Its other names in Pali are in reference to
its extreme dry zone climate: Tattadesa (တတ္တဒေသ, "parched
land"), and Tampadīpa (တမ္ပဒီပ, "bronzed
country").[2] The Burmese chronicles also report other classical names of Thiri
Pyissaya (သီရိပစ္စယာ; Pali: Siripaccaya) and Tampawaddy (တမ္ပဝတီ;
Pali: Tampavatī)
9th to 13th centuries
According to the Burmese chronicles, Bagan was
founded in the second century AD, and fortified in 849 AD by King Pyinbya, 34th
successor of the founder of early Bagan. Mainstream scholarship however holds
that Bagan was founded in the mid-to-late 9th century by the Mranma (Burmans),
who had recently entered the Irrawaddy valley from the Nanzhao Kingdom. It was
among several competing Pyu city-states until the late 10th century when the
Burman settlement grew in authority and grandeur.
From 1044 to 1287, Bagan was the capital as well as
the political, economic and cultural nerve center of the Pagan Empire. Over the
course of 250 years, Bagan's rulers and their wealthy subjects constructed over
10,000 religious monuments (approximately 1000 stupas, 10,000 small temples and
3000 monasteries)[6] in an area of 104 square kilometres (40 sq mi) in the
Bagan plains. The prosperous city grew in size and grandeur, and became a
cosmopolitan center for religious and secular studies, specializing in Pali
scholarship in grammar and philosophical-psychological (abhidhamma) studies as
well as works in a variety of languages on prosody, phonology, grammar,
astrology, alchemy, medicine, and legal studies. The city attracted monks and
students from as far as India, Sri Lanka and the Khmer Empire.
The culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The
religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox. It
was largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada
Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu
(Saivite, and Vaishana) schools as well as native animist (nat) traditions.
While the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism since the mid-11th century had
enabled the Buddhist school to gradually gain primacy, other traditions
continued to thrive throughout the Pagan period to degrees later unseen.
The Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 due to repeated
Mongol invasions (1277–1301). Recent research shows that Mongol armies may not
have reached Bagan itself, and that even if they did, the damage they inflicted
was probably minimal. However, the damage had already been done. The city, once
home to some 50,000 to 200,000 people, had been reduced to a small town, never
to regain its preeminence. The city formally ceased to be the capital of Burma
in December 1297 when the Myinsaing Kingdom became the new power in Upper
Burma.
14th to 19th centuries
Bagan survived into the 15th century as a human
settlement, and as a pilgrimage destination throughout the imperial period. A
smaller number of "new and impressive" religious monuments still went
up to the mid-15th century but afterward, new temple constructions slowed to a
trickle with fewer than 200 temples built between the 15th and 20th centuries.[6]
The old capital remained a pilgrimage destination but pilgrimage was focused
only on "a score or so" most prominent temples out of the thousands
such as the Ananda, the Shwezigon, the Sulamani, the Htilominlo, the
Dhammayazika, and a few other temples along an ancient road. The rest—thousands
of less famous, out-of-the-way temples—fell into disrepair, and most did not
survive the test of time.
For the few dozen temples that were regularly
patronized, the continued patronage meant regular upkeep as well as
architectural additions donated by the devotees. Many temples were repainted
with new frescoes on top of their original Pagan era ones, or fitted with new
Buddha statutes. Then came a series of state-sponsored "systematic"
renovations in the Konbaung period (1752–1885), which by and large were not
true to the original designs—some finished with "a rude plastered surface,
scratched without taste, art or result". The interiors of some temples
were also whitewashed, such as the Thatbyinnyu and the Ananda. Many painted
inscriptions and even murals were added in this period.
20th century to present
Bagan, located in an active earthquake zone, had
suffered from many earthquakes over the ages, with over 400 recorded
earthquakes between 1904 and 1975. A major earthquake occurred on 8 July 1975,
reaching 8 MM in Bagan and Myinkaba, and 7 MM in Nyaung-U. The quake damaged
many temples, in many cases, such as the Bupaya, severely and irreparably.
Today, 2229 temples and pagodas remain.
Many of these damaged pagodas underwent restorations
in the 1990s by the military government, which sought to make Bagan an
international tourist destination. However, the restoration efforts instead
drew widespread condemnation from art historians and preservationists
worldwide. Critics are aghast that the restorations paid little attention to
original architectural styles, and used modern materials, and that the
government has also established a golf course, a paved highway, and built a
61-meter (200-foot) watchtower. Although the government believed that the
ancient capital's hundreds of (unrestored) temples and large corpus of stone
inscriptions were more than sufficient to win the designation of UNESCO World
Heritage Site,[16] the city has not been so designated, allegedly mainly on
account of the restorations.
Bagan today is a main tourist destination in the
country's nascent tourism industry, which has long been the target of various
boycott campaigns. The majority of over 300,000 international tourists to the
country in 2011 are believed to have also visited Bagan.[citation needed]
Several Burmese publications note that the city's small tourism infrastructure
will have to expand rapidly even to meet a modest pickup in tourism in the
following years.
On 24 August 2016, a major earthquake hit central
Burma and again did major damage in Bagan; this time almost 400 temples were
destroyed. The Sulamani and Myauk Guni (North Guni) were severely damaged. The
Bagan Archaeological Department has started a survey and reconstruction effort with
the help of UNESCO experts. Visitors are prohibited from entering 33 damaged
temples.
News Original Link ;
https://www.reuters.com/…/myanmars-temple-city-bagan-awarde…
History by
Wikipedia
Photo from Aye Thaung FB
