Mae Lamu Pagoda

Mae Lamu Pagoda

= Nadi Nain =

Long long ago in a certain place which is now included in the greater Yangon area, a lone hermit while roaming in a tidal forest accidently found a mangrove tree bearing an unusually large fruit. He took the fruit back to his make-shift monastery and later it surprisingly produced a cute baby girl. The hermit nurtured and brought up the child and named her Mae Lamu as she was born of a mangrove fruit. So her name Mae Lamu generally means Maid of the Mangrove. She grew up into a beautiful girl and while fetching water for the monastery she met with Sakkra or Indra, the King of the Celestial Empire. The Celestial King fell in love with her which was a love at fi rst sight and asked the permission of the hermit to marry his daughter. They got married and Mae Lamu gave birth to a boy child.

The baby boy eventually became the king of Okkalapa city state which is now the Yangon city and its surrounding areas. It was during his reign that two merchants conveyed Buddha's hair relics to Myanmar from India after seeking Dhamma from Him. With the help of the king of Okkalapa the two merchants built the legendary Shwedagon Pagoda and enshrined Buddha's hair relics it is reliquary. Today, statues representing Mae Lamu or the Maid of the Mangrove and her heavenly spouse,the Celestial King, can be found at the southwest corner of the Great Shwedagon Pagoda.

The Yangon extension project involving the establishment of new satellite towns including North Okkalapa began in 1959.During the clearing of land near the Ngamoeyeik tidal stream which is included in the area of the new township of North Okkalapa, the stump of a ruined pagoda concealed under an overgrowth of hardwood trees was discovered.

In due course a donor came forward and the work of building a new pagoda began at this site. While clearing the ruins and doing land preparation work before the start of pagoda construction work, a casket containing a mini statue of a young woman was discovered from the reliquary of the ruined pagoda. The small sculpture was said to be the precise resemblance of the Mae Lamu statue on the Shwedagon Pagoda.Hence the new stupa is named Mae Lamu Pagoda.

Thanks to the legend of Mae Lamu the new pagoda at the old site has come back into life. Now located in North Okkalapa, a satellite town about 10 miles from the city centre, Mae Lamu Pagoda is famous for the huge images depicting Buddha’s earlier lives. In addition to its works of art in stucco of various episodes in the life of the Buddha, a stylized mangrove fruit is also featured at the pagoda. There is also a reclining Buddha Image. A religious land of spire pagodas and large sculptures, it also has a spacious ground where visitors love to stroll around.

The annual pagoda festival is held according to Myanmar calendar or the traditional lunar calendar, and generally falls in December. It is one of the most famous pagoda festivals of Yangon involving such activities as round-the-clock recitation of Holy Scriptures by monks and nuns all along the festival days, offering of provisions and cash and kind to monks, daylight festivities and evening entertainment programs – plays, amusing stage shows and movies.

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