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Lokananda Pagoda is on the bank of River Ayeyarwady near Thiripyitsaya Village south of Bagan, a place where there used to be a ferry landing in ancient times. It was the third stupa enshrining the Tooth Relic of Buddha. It was built by King Anawrahta in AD 1059 and said to be the most extraordinary among all. Legend has it that the king himself had borne the Sacred Relic on his head as he waded neck-deep in the water in conveying it there for enshimement.
The site was chosen by the royal elephant that set out bearing the Sacred Relics and sat at auspicious places meant for their enshrinement, like the other ones. It is now over 900 years old and there has never been erosion of the river bank at that place. Ven when the river is swollen by torrents, the water level never reaches the platform of the pagoda. And strangely enough, thitkanet tree alien to Bagan climate are growing there. From the pagoda platform one can get a breath-taking panoramic view of the river in the north-west and some parts of Bagan in the east.
Buddha's Footprint
Standing on a site close to what was once the busy harbor of Bagan, the Lawkananda Lokananda in Pali, meaning “Joy of the World” was built by King Anawrahta (1044-1077) to enshrine a holy tooth replica.
The chronicles relate that the King of Sri Lanka sent Anawrahta a holy tooth relic and that, when the ship from Sri Lanka arrived in the harbor, Anwrahta himself descended neck-deep into the water to bear on his head the jeweled casket holding the holy tooth relic and carry it to the palace. The holy relic was enshrined in the Shwezigon, but when Anawrahta made a solemn vow and said, “If I am to attain Buddhahood, let another holy tooth proceed from the first!”, miraculously another holy tooth appeared. Again he made a vow, and there was another tooth … and still another until there were four replicas. One of these holy tooth replicas he enshrined in the Lawkananda which he built near the place where the holy tooth relic had first arrived and where he had descended into the water to receive it. The Lawkananda has three receding octagonal terraces, the lower two of which can be ascended by flights of steps. The bell-shaped dome, much more elongated than that of later pagodas, rises above the terraces and merges directly into a ringed, conical finial.
Reference
1. Ancient Pagodas in Myanmar Vol I , Jan 2003, by Myat Min Hlaing 2. Glimpses of Glorious Bagan, Jan 1996, by The Universities Historical Research Centre |
