Shwezigon Paya (Burmese: ရွှေစည်းခုံဘုရား) is a Buddhist stupa located in Nyaung-U (ညောင်ဦးမြို့), Myanmar. The pagoda has almost 1000 years of history and is deemed to be the prototype of Burmese stupas. Besides the golden stupa, there are many other things worth seeing.
The pagoda is surrounded by many small temples, most of them are over one hundred years old, and the wooden carvings inside are quite exquisite.
You can see the pagoda is decorated by the patterns of Taoties (Chinese: 饕餮). Taotie is one of the evil creatures in ancient Chinese mythology, it is the fifth son of the dragon king, usually found on ritual bronzes.
These clay pots are filled with drinking water, all pilgrims and tourists can drink it for free, but the tour guide says due to pollution, even the locals do drink distilled water only.
On the outer limits of the pagoda there is a shrine where 37 nats (နတ်) are deified, which is believed to be 900 years old.
The nats are spirits worshipped in Myanmar and neighboring countries in conjunction with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the rest (i.e., spirits of trees, water, etc.).
Worship of nats predates Buddhism in Burma, so the formalizing of the official 37 Nats by King Anawrahta (အနော်ရထာ, 1044–1077) of Bagan, has been interpreted as establishment of Bamar supremacy in this area. Religion and politics are always intricate with each other.
