The Shwedagon Pagoda Museum, Yangon
by Heidi Tan
Figure 1. Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, 10 February 2016. Photo: Heidi Tan.
Renovation and Display at the Shwedagon Pagoda Museum, Yangon
New research offers insights into the curation of museums situated within Buddhist pagodas in Myanmar, sacred sites that have arguably been spaces of collecting and curating for centuries prior to the influence of Western notions of the ‘museum’ during the colonial period (1824–1948). The Shwedagon Pagoda is a site of national importance as it is the only pagoda in the country where it is believed the relics of all four Buddhas of this world cycle are enshrined (Fig. 1). A legacy of royal donations dates to the 15th century while the earliest record of spaces designated for keeping and displaying its collection of gifts dates to the early 20th century. The building of the Shwedagon Pagoda Museum in 1992 was developed as part of the then military government’s nation-building programme, also referred to as a ‘museum period’ (Houtmann 1999, 83–84) from the late 1980s onwards. However, pagoda museums were only recently recognised as ‘religious museums’ within the nascent field of museology in Myanmar (Nu Mra Zan 2016, 24). The term ‘religious museums’, rather than ‘museums of religion’, foregrounds the importance of their Buddhist context and the role of donors – around 89% of the population are identified as Buddhist.
An extensive renovation of the Shwedagon Pagoda Museum in 2015–16 was undertaken following the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (2010) and the opening up of the country in the following years. Motivated by increasingly diverse audiences, the new museum is a good example of a ‘shrine/museum’ (Paine 2013, 2017, 213), as it aimed to address both devotees and tourists. Yet the new displays also demonstrated the contingent nature of Buddhist ritual and museum practice in Myanmar (Tan 2020). Pagoda museums therefore add to the rich corpus of museum-making at Buddhist sites in the region and more widely in Asia (Gabaude 2003, Paritta 2006, Suzuki 2007, Mathur & Singh 2015, Clark 2016, McDaniel 2017, Gamberi 2019). And they are an important part of the on-going discussion about religion in museums more generally. The challenges shared by pagoda museums and their state-funded counterparts in Myanmar resonate with those faced by museums around the world who have endeavoured to exhibit Buddhist art and material culture (Grimes 1992, Chuang 2000, Gaskell 2003, Tythacott 2011, 2017; Paine 2013, 2017; Sullivan 2015).
Abundant and diverse displays
While inscriptions, chronicles and oral histories are rich in detail about the kinds of gifts that have been made to monasteries and temples over the centuries, less is known about how the notion of the ‘museum’ emerged in these contexts. The term ‘museum’ in neighbouring Thailand is phiphitthapanthasathan or ‘a site that houses a variety of things’, and was first recorded in the late 1880s (Paritta 2006,151). The Burmese term pya daik, literally ‘display building’ usually glossed as ‘museum’, was preceded by paribawga daik or ‘utensils building’, a keeping space at the Shwedagon Pagoda that was recorded in 1919 (Tan 2020, 34). Another early example is the Shwesandaw Pagoda Museum in Pyay where a signboard states it originated as a ‘colonial era prayer hall and museum’ in 1900. However, knowledge of the museum as a colonial construct had existed earlier in 1872 when the first Burmese diplomatic mission to Europe included numerous visits to museums and stately homes (Bagshawe 2006). The first colonial museum was also established that year in Rangoon by Sir Arthur Phayre, Chief Commissioner of British Burma (1862). However, this struggled to sustain a permanent home for his personal collection, while monasteries (traditional centres of learning) and pagodas thrived on the accumulation of donations during the late 19th century. In fact monasteries were needed by the Archaeological Survey of Burma (established 1902) to help develop small site museums in the early 1900s (U Aung Kyaing, 4 January 2016).
An encounter at ‘Lingayama’s Monastery’ published in 1882 by the journalist and colonial administrator Sir James George Scott, also known as Shway Yoe, demonstrates that collecting and display practices unique to Buddhist merit-making rituals were well established by this time. A large number of photographs and souvenir printed ephemera collected during a diplomatic trip to Europe had been donated to the monastery by U Gaung, the chief minister or Kinwun Mingyi who had headed the delegation. Shway Yoe’s observations convey the sense of abundance and eclecticism of a shrine display, not dissimilar to the pagoda museums of today:
In addition to the photographs, there is a great collection of engravings, some of them very valuable; and mixed up with these are to be found some very queer items – old hotel bills, advertisements of gigantic hosiery establishments…circus play-bills, shilling view guides, some sheets of the Graphic, the front page of the wrapper of Punch, and a few railway tickets. These are all carefully preserved, along with many other gifts of the home-keeping pious; rolls of yellow cloth, Dutch clocks, betel-nut boxes, spare spittoons, and begging-pots, rugs, and pots of honey. The images of the kyaung, contrary to the usual custom, are placed in a glass case in the centre of the room, instead of the east end. This situation is due to their value, most of them being of silver or gold, and one or two studded with precious stones
(Shway Yoe 1963,132–33).
His comment about ‘queer items’ being ‘mixed up’ with other more valuable ones, underlines the diverse and unfamiliar juxtapositions to be found in pagoda museum displays. Yet the observation that all the gifts were well looked after conveys a sense of their collective significance and how diverse groups of things acquire new meaning as ritual objects, constituted as meritorious through the practice of generosity or dana. The ritual of giving is motivated by the belief that the merit or kutho earned by the donor contributes to a better rebirth. This ritual of exchange reaffirms that one’s social status in this life results from its practice during a previous life, and ensures the continuity of this progress in the next (Schober 1996,197–98). Moreover merit-making entails a reciprocal relationship with the Buddha whose realm is understood to be a ‘field of merit’ to be cultivated and experienced as a state of joy (Crosby 2014, 120). One of the reasons for abundant and diverse displays is that merit-making is a shared experience that not only reaffirms the worthiness of the recipient but also signifies an intention to share the merit accrued by the donor (Spiro 1982, 126). Diverse displays appeal to visitors in many different ways while inviting them to ‘cash in’ on the donors’ associated merit (Strong 2015, 123). At the Shwedagon Pagoda Museum the displays were even more diverse than those viewed by Shway Yoe, and included royal donations such as elements from the spire (the most sacred area of the stupa), Buddha images and relics, paintings of the Jātaka or stories of the Buddha’s previous lives, personal offerings such as sporting trophies, locks of hair and jewellery, colonial porcelain and diplomatic gifts such as the clock given by President Obama after his visit in 2014 among others (Figure 2, 3). And finally the ever-accumulating collection reinforces the belief that merit-making is protected by the Pali canon’s code of conduct, the Pāṭimokkha, which will endure even after the religion declines after 5,000 years (Strong 2004, 221-23).
Figure 2. Golfing trophy, 2 September 2015. Photo: Heidi Tan, courtesy Shwedagon Pagoda Board of Trustees.
Figure 3. Viewing military medals and colonial crockery, 2 September 2015. Photograph: Heidi Tan, courtesy Shwedagon Pagoda Board of Trustees.
Ritual continuity
The reciprocal relationship with the Buddha is also reflected in Shway Yoe’s other observation, that the more valuable gifts including adorned Buddha images were housed in a glass case at the centre, rather than placed more traditionally at the eastern end of the room. Security issues have long threatened sacred sites in Southeast Asia and pagoda museums are often situated next to or within trustees’ offices for surveillance. Nonetheless, important images and relics are frequently displayed behind glass and/or reinforced barriers (Paritta 2006, 159). However, the need to ‘see’ and venerate images militates against these visual obstructions and where veneration is permitted, a pagoda museum display easily becomes a kind of shrine-display. At the Kyanthagyi Pagoda in Mandalay, the Gandhakuti Daik or Perfumed Chamber Building houses a large donation of gilded Buddha images that was installed in 1987. Displayed within an extensive floor-to-ceiling teak showcase, the largest images at the centre are shrouded by offerings of colourful tinsel, flowers and Thapye-pan or ‘Victory Leaves’ placed on a permanent plinth along the exterior of the case (Fig. 4). Photographs of the donors commemorate their meritorious deed and mats encourage devotees to meditate, pray, and make offerings (Tan 2020, 61).
Figure 4. Gandhakuti Daik shrine-display, Kyanthagyi Pagoda, 29 September 2015. Photo: Heidi Tan.
This contrasts with the strict protocols at the Shwedagon Pagoda Museum, where forms of lingering such as sitting or sleeping are forbidden. However, the museum has always had a permanent shrine which encourages devotees to step into the museum, barefoot, as an extension to their circumambulation of the stupa. Situated along the eastern wall of the museum with easy access from the pagoda platform, the shrine houses an auspicious grouping of the Five Buddhas including Mettaya the Buddha of the Future (Fig. 5). The shrine offers ritual continuity and as Ohnmar Myo noted, the ability to ‘see’ Buddha images is a major motivation to visit pagoda museums (Tan 2020, 71). Similarities exist with the South Asian context where distinctions between temple and museum are often blurred and darśan operates as a mode of seeing the deities (Gamberi 2019, 205). While ‘seeing’ the Buddha varied among visitors and their modes of religious practice, responses to the shrine’s encasement behind glass in 2015 were also divergent. For Naing Soe, the shrine was an essential means to pay respects to the Buddha before commencing the visit, in the same way that visiting a friend’s home required first paying homage at the family’s shrine. Daw Baby Ohn also sensed the authenticity of the shrine as a quiet space conducive to meditation on the Buddha’s spiritual qualities rather than his physical or material attributes. Yet others questioned the shrine’s authenticity and the framing of ritual activities within rendered them a spectacle as devotees and visitors alike gazed in from outside (Tan 2020, 62–64).
Figure 5. Shrine titled ‘Devotional Place’ enclosed by glass, 30 August 2015. Photo: Heidi Tan, courtesy Shwedagon Pagoda Board of Trustees.
A ‘systematic’ pagoda museum
Built into the hillside along the north-western periphery of the pagoda platform, the museum offers devotees an extended circumambulatory pathway around the stupa. In 1992 among its stated aims was the display of ‘art objects’ that could be studied and would increase visitors’ respect and faith. By 2013 a renovation work plan articulated a twofold objective – to promote learning about Buddhism and the veneration of sacred objects (Tan 2020, 53). The response to new audiences resulted in the incorporation of bilingual text panels and captions, while greater international engagements resulted in the pagoda’s submission in 2018 to UNESCO’s Tentative List for eventual nomination as a world heritage site. The museum could now be visited in multiple ways, a result that resonated with museums elsewhere including the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, where tourists view displays of gifts to the Dalai Lama, while Tibetan Buddhists respectfully remove their shoes to circumambulate and venerate the sacred icons and thangkas (Clark 2016,12).
However, during the period of renovation the museum also aimed to display the whole collection, estimated at 2,590 objects, to improve security and avoid the need for storage (Tan 2020, 53). The ‘systematic’ approach to collections management underway since 1992, was now expanded to include the displays. While these remained object-heavy, new thematic displays shifted the focus from a pre-occupation with donors and their diverse groups of donations, to arrangements by material, historical significance and other discrete categories of knowledge. Objects collectively referred to as ‘ancient things’, could now be activated to produce formalised knowledge about the pagoda, its history, and Burmese arts and crafts for example. This transition to thematic was a stark reminder of how a ‘thing’ becomes a ‘museum object’ (Pearce 1994,10) and new meanings are acquired with the construction of different ‘interpretive spheres’ (Tythacott 2011,7). The volunteer keeper U Maung Maung Gyi and a team of staff worked closely with Daw Nu Mra Zan, then museum consultant at the Department of Archaeology and National Museum (DOA), to distil ideas and agree on the selection of objects. Using the spatial divide of the modern three-storey building, the new themes reified hierarchical relationships between the different kinds of gifts:
Second Floor:
1. Shwe Dagon Pagoda’s Gold Robe Plaques
2. Diamond Bud and Vane of Shwe Dagon Pagoda
3. Bells of Shwe Dagon Pagoda
4. Devotional Place
5. Gold Stupas and Buddha Statues
6. Ivory, Jade Stupas and Buddha Statues
7. Silver Stupas and Buddha Statues
8. Audio Visual Room
First Floor:
1. Buddha’s Footprint and Varieties of Donated Gems
2. Honourable Titles and Medals
3. Specially Adorned Devotional Donated Items
4. Foreign Visitors’ Contributions
5. Shwe Dagon Pagoda’s History and Architecture
Ground Floor:
1. Myanmar Traditional Handicrafts and Customary Utilities
2. Audio Visual Orientation Room
Historical objects collected from the upper levels of the stupa were arranged at the centre of the main hall on the uppermost floor, surrounded by numerous displays of Buddha images grouped according to material categories. This centripetal configuration around a sacred centre or field of merit recalls Shway Yoe’s observation of Buddha images surrounded by gifts. Like a microcosm of the stupa outside, directional signs encouraged clockwise circumambulation while devotees scrutinised the displays and performed momentary gestures of prayer before the more potent objects – the spire elements donated by King Mindon (r. 1853–78) and gold plaques with donor inscriptions.
The ‘pagoda museum’ effect
Buddha image donations are considered the highest form of merit-making among lay donors (Schober 2001,112). The collecting and repair of old images dates back to the early 17th century if not earlier, just as the stupa itself has been continuously repaired, enlarged and re-gilded since the late 14th century (Than Tun 1983, 78, 104; Moore 1999, 22, fn.23). And offerings of gold leaf applied to the images remain an important ritual undertaken by devotees at the shrines around the stupa. The museum renovation also included the regilding of its numerous images, which was undertaken by the pagoda’s Gold Jewellery Department. The gleaming figures shone like their counterparts in the shrines outside, thus activating the museum’s aim to inspire potential donors (Tan 2020, 51). Alison Bastian discusses the ‘overwhelming spiritual experience’ and the ‘visual overload’ of images she encountered in the northern shrine at the pagoda (Bastian 2014, 31–32). The sense of ‘religious fervour’ she equates with the ‘clustering’ of images is palpable at this shrine where devotees constantly stop to gild images (Fig. 6).
Figure 6. Devotees offer gold leaf, northern shrine, Shwedagon Pagoda, 10 February 2016. Photo: Heidi Tan.
Haptic and other sensory engagements are largely absent within the museum’s displays, but the emphasis on ritual engagement constitutes an experience that sits somewhere between the ‘museum effect’ identified with seeing in the Western art museum (Alpers 1991), and the ‘temple effect’ the alternative way of seeing known as darśan (Davis 1997). In his examination of ‘devotional’ behaviour and other forms of sensory engagements, Mark Elliot proposes that such ‘side effects’ offer an alternative to these other ways of seeing, and highlights the innovative potential that indigenisation offers museums in India (Elliot 2006). His example of the Indian Museum in Kolkata entrenched in postcolonial attitudes contrasts starkly with the pagoda museum which is much closer in proximity to its ritual source, the stupa, and is increasingly challenged to sustain both ritual care and museum practices sanctioned by international protocols. The result is a curatorial practice that draws on the meritorious mode of seeing and a museum that extends the space for merit-making at the pagoda. The ‘pagoda museum effect’ privileges ‘seeing’ regilded Buddha images and implicitly engages visitors in the sharing of merit. A similar dynamic is observed in the way that bells are struck at the pagoda and those who hear its sound share in the merit of the person who struck them. Interestingly the bells’ reverberations intermittently permeate the pagoda museum, and augment the ‘pagoda museum effect’.
Unlike the Indian Museum’s disdain of visitors’ ritual behaviour, the ‘pagoda museum effect’ and its resonance with devotees is calibrated from within. According to U Maung Maung Gyi, regilding is a necessary means of keeping images looking shiny and fresh, and continual improvement of their appearance was considered a sign of respect to the Buddha and his teachings. The ‘pagoda museum effect’ is therefore most keenly felt on the upper floor where the sense of religious fervour is palpable and does not always sit easily with the new thematic approach. For example, a rare sandstone image collected from the northern shrine may be displayed thematically with other stone images, while stylistic and material attributes that confer rarity remain hidden beneath the regilded exterior (Fig. 7). And finally, the ‘pagoda museum effect’ is underpinned by the view espoused by U Maung Maung Gyi that the gifts are ultimately considered to be the Buddha’s own belongings, and his role as ‘volunteer’ rather than curator is therefore performed as a meritorious service, a gift of time and labour to the Buddha (Tan 2020, 78, 94,107).
Figure 7. Gilded sandstone Buddha image (top right), late 16th–mid 18th century, retrieved from the northern shrine, 19 August 2016. Photo: Heidi Tan, courtesy Shwedagon Pagoda Board of Trustees.
Recent ruptures to daily life brought about by the Covid pandemic, and further compounded in Myanmar by the military coup of 1 February 2021, make it timely for this project, Gods’ Collections, to address the issues of collecting and curating in religious museums and their wider contribution to museology. Issues of voice, the decentring of narratives about religion in the museum, and recentring of localised museum practices such as the pagoda museum, have still to be fully studied and discussed not only in Myanmar but in all regions where such possibilities remain for the time-being in a liminal state of lockdown.
Acknowledgement
I thank colleagues, friends and many other informants who shared personal experiences and in particular the Shwedagon Pagoda Trustee Board and Department of Archaeology and National Museum for their continual support.
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Heidi Tan is Lecturer in Curating and Museology with the School of Arts, SOAS University of London, having completed her PhD in 2020 on the topic: ‘Meritorious Curating and the Renewal of Pagoda Museums in Myanmar’. A founding curator of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, she was responsible for developing the Southeast Asian collections and a series of special exhibitions on Buddhist art in collaboration with regional museums. Heidi is also co-editor of the research journal Pratu (www.pratujournal.org) and a co-convenor of the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme research seminar series.
