Dear Friends,
It has been more than ten years that I have not visited Pindaya. So, last week, I decided to visit it and the Shwe Oo Min pagoda cave at the west of the town. I went there through the Baw Hseng route but unfortunately, I missed to make a turn at the junction to Pindaya and arrive Baw Hseng, a town near Pindaya. So, I decided to visit Kon Lon monastery near Baw Heng first instead of making a U turn.
The monastery was about 10 miles away from Baw Hseng and is on the way from Baw Hseng to Pindaya. It was built in a form of a stupa ,guided with and was built to enshrine the body of Kon Lon Sayardaw (Sayardaw means venerable monk in Myanmar), who passed away in 2004 at the age of 96. Instead of being cremated, the body of the Sayardaw was kept in a glass coffin and the body did not decay until now. Below are the photos taken at the monastery.
Then, I visited the nearby monastery, where the venerable Sayardaw had lived when he was alive. There, I could find the wax replica of him inside the monastery.
Then, I went on to Pindaya cave, inside which Shwe Oo Min pagoda is located. It took about twenty minutes to get there by car. Pindaya is a small town situated in the southern Shan State, Myanmar and it is about two-hour drive from my town, Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state. It is well-known for its Shwe Oo Min natural cave and numerous ancient Buddha images insides. Although, there are three natural caves there, because I arrived there in the afternoon, I was able to visit the South and middle caves only.
Below is the image of the caves located on the mountain. Visitors can climb the mountain with vehicles first and then, use the stairway or elevator to get to the entrance to the South cave. And the huge building in the middle is where the middle cave is located.
I climbed the mountain up to the place where I could take my car and ascended the stairways to the elevator. Near the entrance to the stairways, I saw the statues of a prince aiming to shoot at a giant spider. As the legend goes, seven angel princesses were trapped in the southern cave by a giant spider when they returned from Pone Taloke lake after taking a bath. The statues there depict the princesses being saved by a passerby prince.
I climbed with the elevator and below are the view of Pindaya as could be seen from above. The lake in the distance is where the seven princesses took a bath before they came to take a shelter at this cave.
Below is the photo of the cave entrance and on entering it, I found a tall Shwe Oo Min pagoda and many other Buddha images of all sizes and some pagodas. This Shwe Oo min pagoda was said to be built by King Asoka ( c. 304 – 232 BCE) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka) and was renovated by the Burmese King Alaungsithu (1090–1167) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaungsithu).
When I enquired about the total no of images inside, I was told that there are 8094 ancient Buddha images and 802 new images inside the cave. What I just entered is the outer cave and there is one more cave inside. Below are the photos taken at the outer cave.
And then, I walked through a descending way to get to the inner cave and on the way, I found myriad of more Buddha images and also a meditation place. On the way, I spotted two black Buddha images. It was said they could not be gilded with gold leaves because of the perspiring moisture from those two images. Below are the photos taken on the way.
Then, after going a little further and a few turnings, I arrived the inner cave, where I could see more Buddha images on the walls and in the mid of the cave. To my eye, I felt that many of them were built in recent modern time. However, I could still see ancient Buddha images like those protected inside a glass house (can be seen in the photo below) and some on the walls.
Then, I had to walk a little distance before I get to a bridge crossing a pond. After going further inside , I arrived at the end of the inner cave. Below are the photos of the bridge and the ancient Buddha images in the glass house.
I can see beautiful stalactites and a lime stone column with water dripping from above. Below are the photos of some of them.
I don't know whether it could have been more beautiful if it was kept in a natural way with fewer Buddha images inside. The cave is 490 ft long and is well illuminated all the way and inside. Although the innermost place is far from the entrance, I didn't feel any suffocation there. And I think some may have noticed the inscriptions below each Buddha images and pagodas. They were the name of the persons who donated for renovation work. And on some images, a small plates describing the era of the images are also attached as can be seen below.
After visiting the South cave, I found out that there is a middle one also and decided to visit there before getting late. According to the legend, the giant spider lived in that middle cave and that fact intrigued me to explore more. It was a few minutes walk to the middle cave but when I got there, I didn't find any cave entrance. Instead, I found a huge Buddha image with a few smaller ones around. I was told that the huge image was over 500 years old and so were the smaller images there. What made them distinct was that there were elephant figures below the hand of the Buddha images.
Because it was quiet there with no visitors around, I mediated for about ten minutes and returned home before late. On the way back home, what was puzzling to me was that 'Is there a cave behind the huge Buddha image? If so, did the giant spider really live there according to the legend and was it as big as the huge Buddha image?'.
Thank you for reading my post at the Daily Blog.
