the emotion it embodies, I realise that I am undertaking
a task that is beyond my power of performance.
Many' who live within the sweep of its shadow, but
seldom visit it, will not understand my estimate of it;
for the truth is that the Shway Dagon Pagoda has
never yet been sufficiently appraised. This much may
at least be said of i t ; it is the greatest cathedral of the
Buddhist faith ; it can be compared only with the
great shrines of the earth. And if in many obvious
respects they surpass it, in one it surpasses them all;
for every one of them, with all its beauty, is covered
in some form with a roof, whereas in the Shway Dagon
there is architecture which has learnt how to "make
of its dome a dazzling firmament. That is the great
fact about this pagoda, which it takes some time to
find out. Once it is realised, the whole' mighty fabric
falls into its true perspective. It is no longer the
main edifice, a mass of dead brickwork; but the great
shaft of a temple of which the blue sky and the stars
by night are the vaulted roof. Let the reader when he
goes there remember this, and he wrill find his delight,
his admiration, his understanding of the great fane
much enhanced.
THE PAGODA ON A FEAST DAY
To . the occasional visitor there: must always seem
a plenitude of worshippers at the pagoda ; but in truth
its life ebbs and flows from day to day and season to
season. It reaches its height at the full moon of
128'
TH E N EW “ TAZOUNG
VOL. I. K