WHY THERE ARE SO MANY PAGODAS AT PAGAN

(The Ancient City of Myanmar)

Long ago, when the people of Bagan were poor, there lived a monk, who was an alchemist trying to discover the Philosopher's Stone. His alchemistic experiments were costly, and he had to rely on his patron, the king, for financial support. The monk followed step by step the instructions given in an old parchment book. The instructions were many and various, and weeks and months passed. The royal treasury became empty, and the people refused to pay any more taxes, saying that the king was merely wasting his gold on an impostor. The monk at last reached the final instruction: “Then put the lump of metal in acid, and it will at last be the Philosopher's Stone.”

He appeased the people with the promise that after one more experiment, the Stone would be ready, and the people paid up their taxes to the king. The monk put the lump of metal, which was the result of all the earlier experiments, in acid. Seven days elapsed, but the lump of metal remained as before. The monk went to the king to acquaint him with the fact that the experiment had failed. The people heard that the experiment had failed, and thought that the monk had come to the king to ask for more gold, so they surrounded the palace, demanding that the monk be punished as an impostor and a cheat. The king was in a quandary for he knew that the monk was no impostor, but on the other hand he did not know how to pacify the people. The monk himself solved the problem by putting his own eyes out.

He then stood before the people and said, “My sockets are now gaping, and do you not consider that I am punished enough?” The people were satisfied that justice had been done, and ceased their clamor.
For days the monk sat in his laboratory in the anguish of disappointment. At last he felt so bitter against the science of alchemy that he got up and broke all the jars and instruments. Then he told the little novice, who had been his assistant in all his experiments, to throw the useless lump of metal into the latrine. The little novice did as he was ordered. At nightfall the little novice noticed that the latrine seemed as if on fire and he went running to the monk, shouting, “Master, master, look, the latrine must be full of fairies or ghosts!”

“Remember that I am blind!” replied the monk. “Describe to me the phenomenon.” When he had listened to the novice's description of the brightly lit latrine, the monk realized that the lump of metal had at last become the Philosopher's Stone. He realized also that the scribe who wrote the parchment book had written in mistake “acid” for “night-soil”.
The novice picked up the Philosopher's Stone from the latrine and gave it to his master. Then the novice was told by the monk to go to a meat-stall and get the two eyes of a bull or a goat. But as it was now late in the evening the meat had been sold out, and only one goat's eye and one bull's eye remained, which were bought and taken to the monastery by the little novice. The monk put the two eyes above his empty sockets and touched them with the Philosopher's Stone, and at once the eyes entered the sockets. He recovered his full vision, although one eye was big and one was small.

‘I shall be known from today as "Monk Goat-Bull",' said the monk jokingly to the novice. Then he went to the king's palace, and told the king of his good fortune. He announced his intention of leaving the world of human beings the next morning and requested the king to melt all his lead and brass' in huge pots in front of the palace at sunrise “You can tell your subjects to do likewise,” said the monk as he left the palace to return to his monastery. Although it was past midnight by this time, the king sent his men to wake up the city by sound of gong, and to tell the people that they should melt all their lead and brass in huge pots in front of their houses at sunrise. When the sun appeared Monk Goat-Bull came forth from his monastery, attended by the novice. He went first to the palace and then to all the houses, and threw his Philosopher's Stone into every pot. The Stone jumped back into his hand every time, its mere touch having turned the lead in the pots into silver and the brass to gold. From that time onward the people of Bagan became very rich, and with such a lot of gold and silver at their disposal they built the countless pagodas that still stand at Bagan today.

When he had passed every house Monk Goat-Bull, still attended by his novice, went to Mount Papa (One of the famous mount extinct volcano). As they stood at the foot of the hill the creepers from the mountain-side lowered themselves, and gently lifted the master and pupil to the mountain top. The ground roots formed them-selves into six medicine balls, and the monk swallowed three. The other three he gave to the novice, who, however, could not put them in his mouth, for to him the roots looked like human flesh, and the juice from them looked like human blood. “What ails you, pupil?” asked the monk.
“It is human flesh and human blood,” replied the novice with a sob.

“It is not,” said Monk Goat-Bull. “Have I ever told an untruth?” But the novice was seized with nausea, when he tried to swallow the medicine balls. “It is clear that you are not fated to share my, success in alchemy,” said the monk sadly, “and we must say farewell here.” The novice bade a tearful farewell to his master, who gave him a piece of gold as a parting gift. The creepers then gently twined themselves around the novice's body and lowered him to the foot of the hill.
The novice felt lost in the world without his master and, instead of going back to the monastery, he went to his widowed mother. “Mother, cook me my breakfast,” he asked.
“Son, you know that I am poor and I have no money to buy the rice,” replied the mother. The novice remembered the little gold piece his master had given as a parting gift and, taking it out of his pocket, he gave it to his mother. When his mother was leaving the house, he felt a gold piece in his pocket. “Mother, mother,' he cried, did I give you the gold piece?”
“Here it is, my son,” replied the mother showing the gold piece in her hand. The novice took out the gold piece from his pocket and gave it to his mother. But when he again felt in his pocket, there was another gold piece in his pocket. He took it out, and gave it to his mother. But again there was a gold piece in his pocket. This went on until the mother had ten gold pieces in her hand, and still there was a gold piece in the novice's pocket. Then only did the novice realize that his beloved master Monk Goat-Bull had given him a perpetual gift of gold.

Photo Credit: Google Image
Author: Maung Htin Aung
Steemed by: Henry Aung (Kachin)