Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s14.18

v6.c41.s14.18

The Mingun-payā is the other huge pagoda commenced by Bodauhpayā, who spent twenty-five years over it and died in 1819, leaving it incomplete. It represents the square form borrowed from early Indian Buddhism. ‘It stands on a basement of five successive terraces, of little height, the lower terrace forming a square of 450 feet. From the upper terrace starts the vast cubical pile of the pagoda, 230 feet square in plan, and rises, in a solid mass, to the height of about 100 feet, with slightly sloping walls. Above this it contracts in successive terraces, three of which had been completed, raising the mass to a height of 165 feet at the time the work was abandoned.’² ‘If completed, it would have risen to the height of 500 feet. It is even now a solid mass containing between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 cubic feet of brick work. Had it been carried out, it would have been the tallest building in the world.’³