Stupa

The pagoda is sought out by believers because, according to the legend, it contains eight hairs of the Buddha. These relics were given by the Buddha to two merchant brothers. Over the centuries, many stories have emerged about this event, as well as of how the eight hairs came to be at Shwedagon Pagoda has many different versions. The earliest sources date to the middle of the first millennium. They are written in Pali, an Indo-Aryan language particularly associated with Theravāda Buddhism. Particularly interesting is that the story is localized over time. In other words, whereas in the Pali text the brothers Tapussa and Bhallika came from Ukkala, today's Orissa in India, their home is stated as Yangon from the 15th century onwards. However, even the hair relics that the two brothers received from the Buddha were only added to the canon later. Besides the Pali text, there are also texts carved in stone in Mon – the language of the Mon people living in Myanmar and Thailand – and Burmese from the 15th century on the Shwedagon site. Variations in the narrative show that the texts are not translations of each other, but are based on other sources.