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Title: Shwedagon: Golden Pagoda of Myanmar by Elizabeth Moore, Hansjorg Mayer, Win Pe, U. Win Pe ISBN: 0500974837 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $40.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4

Rating: 4
Summary: An Odd But Beautiful Mishmash
Comment: This book has many wonderful elements, but could have used a good editor to pull those elements together into some kind of meaningful whole. The first 100 pages are photographs of the Shwedagon pagoda itself, the surrounding shrines and images in the pagoda complex, and people worshipping. The pictures themselves are generally wonderful (although a few are out of focus). This photographic section is described as a "circumambulation" of the pagoda, but the pictures do not appear to be in any particular order and jump back and forth confusingly from one side of the pagoda platform to the other. Two pictures of the same shrine may be 25 pages apart. Moreover, the captions often presume knowledge that the reader may not have unless he has skipped ahead and read the text portion of the book.

Following the initial photographic section is a 50-page section of text titled "Shwedagon: Its History and Architecture." This section is also liberally illustrated with photographs, including some from the late 19th or early 20th centuries. The historical information is actually quite brief and the architectural information almost non-existent. Instead, most of this section provides background on Buddhism, the various not-strictly-Buddhist religious practices that are also enshrined on the pagoda platform, and other information helpful to the visitor trying to understand what they are seeing and what is happening at the pagoda. Lots of interesting material here, but it's badly organized and often introduces a topic only to drop it with little real explanation. (For example, the author states that "An intricate system that has little or nothing to do with linear time has determined the location of shrines," but then gives no suggestion as to what that system is, except that it is not "astrology.")

A third section of about 20 pages provides additional information about Theravada Buddhist beliefs and practice, and the significance of the Shwedagon to practicing Buddhists. Though quite brief, this section contains illuminating and moving descriptions of the role of giving in Burmese Buddhism and the power of meditating at the Shwedagon. Unfortunately, because it is so short, this section can only hint at the interesting issues raised by the apparent conflicts between Buddhist theory and Burmese practice.

I am giving the book 4 stars mostly for the photographs, which are beautiful and which provide a range of images that I have not seen elsewhere. The text itself cannot take the place of a good guidebook, although it does provide supplemental information and (in the final section) a different perspective.

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