Ananda Temple In Paganism

Ananda Temple in Pagan

While thousands of visitors flying to Burma every year to see the dazzling pagodas, shrines, and stupas, the Buddhist architecture in Burma is known to more and more people around the world and opens a gate for those interested to explore more about its culture and origins. Bagan as the earlier capital of Burma houses over 10000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries; with its complexity in political and cultural contexts, it is of great value to study and compare different Buddhist temples in Pagan. Therefore, this essay mainly focuses on the significance of Ananda Temple as it is in the transition state between Early Pagan Period and Middle Pagan Period. This essay also analyzes how Ananda influences other later

It also served as a medium for King Kyanzittha to promote Buddha’s teachings and educate people of Theravada Buddhism. Ananda Temple is the transitional temple type as it denotes “the end of Early Period and the beginning of Middle Period.” Its uniqueness also exhibits the ambition and motivation of the King to use religious beliefs to unite people under Buddhist doctrine.

First, Ananda Temple’s transitional feature lies in its brighter interior with the enhanced design of base wall windows. Like other temples in the Early Period, Ananda is a single-storey building. However, the exterior base wall has two rows of window openings, which produces an illusion that there are two storeys. Furthermore, the builders removed the lattice fillings that are used in early Mon temples in the two rows of windows, so that it allows more light to shine through and makes the interior brighter. The cross passage between the outer and inner ambulatories has the same openings as the outer ambulatory, so it offers visitors an unexpected view of the interior. The reason is that King Kyanzittha wanted the educational programme of relief sculptures in the outer ambulatory outer wall to be seen in a good light because he believed the impact art could propagate his religious faith to reform. The inner ambulatory still follows previous temples’ concept,

It is the best-preserved temple at Pagan and stores about 1500 images both on the exterior and the interior. In the corridors between ambulatories, there are over 1000 large sandstone images carved in high relief kept on seven levels of niches above the ground, illustrating events from the historical Buddha's life.The rich collection of Buddhist images in the Ananda temple demonstrates the great devotion of King Kyanzittha in Theravada Buddhism.

In addition, Ananda Temple is also unique in its glazed Jataka plaques. This is the only gu-type temple at Pagan that has a complete glazed set of Jataka plaques. It is a bold try for the ceramists at that time to glaze on sandstone. This extraordinarily bold step King Kyanzittha took demonstrates his firm belief in Theravada Buddhism and his determination to convey Buddhist doctrine to his people in a unique visual