ကမာၻ႕အၾကီး ေခါင္းေလာင္း

1. ပထမ အႀကီးဆံ ု း = (Tsar Kolokol)ဆာ-ကို လို ကို း (႐ုရွား)၊

2. ဒု ထမ အႀကီးဆံ ု း = အေလးခ်ိန္ ၁၂၈ တန္ရွိ ေမာ္စကု ိၿမိဳ႕မွ ေခါင္းေလာင္း၊
3. တတိယ အႀကီးဆံ ု း = မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္ႀကီး ျဖစ္သည္။

 သို ႔ေသာ္ (Tsar Kolokol)ဆာ-ကို လို ကို း ေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ စိန္ေခၚသည့ ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းတစ္ခု ရွိသည္က ုိ စိတ္၀င္စားဖြယ္
ေတြ႕ရွိရသည္။ ယင္းကာ မြ န္ဘာသာအားျဖင့ ္ ‘ အပိႏၷေသာ္’ သု ိ႔မဟု တ္ ‘ ဓမၼေစတီ’ ေခါင္းေလာင္းပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ စာကု ိ
လု ိေကာေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ၁၈ ရာစု တြင္ သြန္းလု ပ္ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ ေအဒီ
၁၅ ရာစု က သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ႔ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ သျဖင့ ္ ႏွစ္ ၃၀၀ ပု ိ၍ေစာေနသည္ကုိေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာ
င့ ္ ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆံ ု းေခါင္းေလာင္းမ်ားအနက္ ေရွးအက်ဆံ ု း ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္သည္။

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ႐ုရွား ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

ကမၻာ့ အႀကီးဆုံ း ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ ရု ရွားႏု ိင္ငံ ေမာ္စကို ၿမိဳ႕၊ ကရင္မလင္ နန္းေတာ္ရွိ (Tsar Kolokol)ဆာ-ကို လို ကို း ျဖစ္သည္။
ထု ိေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကို လက္မႈပညာရွင္ (၂၀၀) ေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ျဖင့ ္ သြင္းလု ပ္ထားျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ (၆.၁၄) မီတာ (သို ႔) (၂၀.၁၄) ေပျမင့ ္၍
(၆.၆) မီတာ (သို ႔) (၂၁.၆၅) ေပ အခ်င္းရွိ၏။ ထို ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ တစ္ခ်ိန္က အရွင္းလင္း အၾကည္ျမဆုံ းေသာ သံ စဥ္ထြက္ ေခါင္းေလာ
င္းႀကီးျဖစ္ခဲ့သည္။ အျမင့ ္ ၁၉’ ၃”၊ အ၀န္း ၆၀’ ၉”၊ အထူ ၂’ ရွိသည္။ ယခု အခါတြင္မူ ၁၇၃၃ -၃၅ တြင္ သြင္းလု ပ္ခဲ့ေသာ တန္ (၁၈၀) အေလးခ်ိ
န္ရွိ ထို ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္စဥ္က တစ္ေနရာပဲ႔သြား၍ ပဲ႔သြားသည့ ္ အစသည္ပင္ အျမင့ ္ ၇’၊ အက်ယ္ ၈’ ရွိၿပီး
အေလးခ်ိန္ ၁၁ တန္ရွိသည္။

 (ျမန္မာ႔ စြယ္စုံက်မ္း အတြဲ (၂) တြင္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးတစ္ခုလံ ု း၏အေလးခ်ိန္မွာ တန္ ၂၀၀ ေက်ာ္ရွိသည္ဟု ေဖာ္ျပၿပီး
Britanica Emcyclopacedia အတြဲ (၂) တြင္ တန္ ၁၈၀ ရွိသည္ဟု ေဖာ္ျပခဲ႔သည္။ သု ိ႔ေသာ္ Children Emcyclopacedia အ
တြဲ (၂)တြင္ ၂၁၉ တန္ ရွိသည္ဟု ေဖာ္ျပခဲ႔သည္။ )

ကမၻာ႔ဒု တိယအႀကီးဆုံ း ေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္လ ည္း ေမာ္စကု ိၿမိဳ႕မွာပင္ရွိ၍ အေလးခ်ိန္ ၁၂၈ တန္ရွိသည္။

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

Main article: ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

ဓမၼေစတီမင္းသည္ ထု ိေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ ဒဂံ ု (ယခု ရ န္ကုန္) ရွိ ေရႊတိဂံ ု ေစတီေတာ္သု ိ႔ လွဴတန္းခဲ့ သည္။ ေရွးေခတ္စာ မွတ္တ မ္းမ်ား
အရ ၄င္း ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးတြင္ ေၾကးနီ အျပင္ ေရႊ၊ ေငြ တု ိ႔လည္း ပါသည္ဟု ဆု ိသည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္းထဲတြင္ ျမ ႏွင့ ္
နီလာ ရတာနာ တု ိ႔လည္း ျမႇဳပ္ထားသည္ဟု ဆု ိသည္။ ေစတီမ်ား ဥစၥာႂကြယ္ဝ ပံ ု အရ ၄င္းမွာ ျဖစ္ႏု ိင္သည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္
၁၂ ေတာင္ ျမင့ ္ၿပီး ၈ ေတာင္ က်ယ္သည္။ တစ္ၿပိဳင္တည္းမွာပင္ ၅၀၀ ပိႆ ာ ရွိ ေခါင္းေလာင္း အေသး လည္း သြန္းေလာင္း လွဴတန္း ခဲ့ သည္
ဟု ဆု ိသည္။ အပိႏၷေသာ္’ သု ိ႔မဟု တ္ ‘ ဓမၼေစတီ’ ေခါင္းေလာင္းပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္း၏ဘြဲ႕အမည္မွာ ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့ ္
အ၀ိႏၷေဆာက္ ဟု ေခၚသည္။ ေရႊတိဂုံ ေစတီသု ိ႔ လွဴဒါန္းသည့ ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းမ်ားအနက္ ပထမေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္သည္။
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္ ေစာက္ ၁၂ ေတာင္ရွိ၍ ေၾကးပိႆ ာခ်ိန္ ၁၈၀၀၀၀ (တစ္သိန္းရွစ္ေသာင္း) ရွိသည္။ ၄င္းကု ိတန္ဖြဲ႕ပါက ၂၉၀ တန္ ရွိသည္။
ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ စာကု ိလု ိေကာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းထက္ မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းတစ္ခုစာပို ၍ ႀကီးမားေန
သည္က ုိ အံ ႔ၾသဖြယ္ေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။ ဒီအတု ိင္းဆု ိလွ်င္ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္း ကု ိ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆံ ု းေခါင္းေလာင္းအျဖစ္ သ
တ္မွတ္ရေ ပမည္။

စာကု ိလု ိေကာေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ၁၈ ရာစု တြင္ သြန္းလု ပ္ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ ေအဒီ ၁၅
ရာစု က သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ႔ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ သျဖင့ ္ ႏွစ္ ၃၀၀ ပု ိ၍ေစာေနသည္ကုိေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ ဓမၼေစ
တီေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆံ ု းေခါင္းေလာင္းမ်ားအနက္ ေရွးအက်ဆံ ု း ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္သည္။

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္း သမို င္း

ယခု အခါ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆုံ းေခါင္းေလာင္းအျဖစ္ သတ္မွတ္ထ ားေသာ စာကု ိလု ိေကာေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ စိန္ေခၚသည့ ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းတ
စ္ခု ရွိသည္က ုိ စိတ္၀င္စားဖြယ္ ေတြ႕ရွိရသည္။ ယင္းကာ မြ န္ဘာသာအားျဖင့ ္ ‘ အပိႏၷေသာ္’ သု ိ႔မဟု တ္ ‘ ဓမၼေစတီ’ ေခါင္းေလာင္းပင္ျဖ
စ္သည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္း၏ဘြဲ႕အမည္မွာ ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့ ္အ၀ိႏၷေဆာက္ ဟု ေခၚသည္။

အခါတစ္ပါး ဓမၼေစတီမင္းႀကီးသည္ အမတ္ေလးဦးကု ိ အိမ္ဦးေရ စာရင္းေကာက္ရန္တာ၀န္ေပးခဲ႔သည္။ အမတ္မ်ားက အိမ္စာရင္းသာမက အိမ္တုိင္းမွ

ေၾကးကု ိပါ ေကာက္ခံ ခဲ႔ရာ ေၾကးစင္ တစ္သန္းႏွင့ ္ ရွစ္သိန္း ရရွိခဲ႔သည္။ မင္းႀကီးက ေၾကးပါ ေကာက္ယ ူခဲ႔ေသာ အမတ္ေလးဦး အား
အျပစ္ဒဏ္ေပး၏။ ေၾကးမ်ားကု ိ ကာယကံ ရွင္မ်ားအား ျပန္ေပးေစသည္။ ပု ိင္ရွင္မ်ားက ျပန္မယူ ပဲ မင္းႀကီး သင့ ္ေတာ္သလု ိသာ အသံ ု း ျပဳရန္ေ
လွ်ာက္ထားေလသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ ဓမၼေစတီမင္းႀကီးသည္ ဤေၾကးမ်ားျဖင့ ္ အမတ္ႀကီး ဗညားအိမ္ကုိ အႀကီးအမွဴး ခန္႔၍ ေခါ
င္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္ေစသည္။

အမတ္ႀကီးသည္လ ည္း ဆရာတု ိ႔ အခါေပးသည့ ္အတု ိင္း တေပါင္းလဆန္း ၈ ရက္ၾကာသာပေတးေန႔ သိဟ္လ ဂ္တြ င္ ပြဲႀကီးသဘင္ျပဳ၍ ေခါ
င္းေလာင္းႀကီးကု ိ ျပဳလု ပ္ေတာ္မူသည္။ သို ႔ေသာ္ ေခါင္းႀကီးမွာ ထူ းထူ းျခားျခား အသံ မျမည္ပဲ ရွိခဲ႔သည္။

ေခါင္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္စဥ္ ေလာကဥာဏ အမည္ရွိေဗဒင္ဆရာတစ္ဦးက ေခါင္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္ၿပီးလွ်င္ အျပစ္အနာအဆာမရွိ ေခ်ာေမာ လိ

မ္႔မည္။ သို ႔ေသာ္အသံ ကာ ျမည္မည္မဟု တ္ဟု မင္းႀကီးအား ေလွ်ာက္၏။ မင္းႀကီးက အေၾကာင္းစုံ ေမးျမန္းရာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျပဳလု ပ္ရန္
ဆရာတု ိ႔ေပးေသာအခါသည္ နကၡတ္ေျခာက္လ ုံးျဖစ္သည္။ ေျခာက္လုံးမွာ မိေက်ာင္းနကၡတ္ျဖစ္သျဖင့ ္ မိေက်ာင္းမွာလွ်ာမရွိ၍ အသံ မျမည္
ႏု ိင္ေခ်။ မင္းႀကီးလည္း ေခါင္းေလာင္းကို ‘ အပိႏၷေသာ္’ ဟု ဘြဲ႕အမည္ေပးၿပီး ေရႊတိဂုံ ရင္ျပင္တြ င္ ခ်ိတ္ဆြဲထားေစသည္။ ေရႊတိ
ဂုံ ေစတီသု ိ႔ လွဴဒါန္းသည့ ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းမ်ားအနက္ ပထမေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္သည္။

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ကမာၻ႕အၾကီးဆံ ုးေလာ

ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္ ေစာက္ ၁၂ ေတာင္ရွိ၍ ေၾကးပိႆ ာခ်ိန္ ၁၈၀၀၀၀ (တစ္သိန္းရွစ္ေသာင္း) ရွိသည္။ ၄င္းကု ိတန္ဖြဲ႕ပါက ၂၉၀ တန္ ရွိသည္။
ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ စာကု ိလု ိေကာေခါင္းေလာင္းထက္ မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းတစ္ခုစာပို ၍ ႀကီးမားေန
သည္က ုိ အံ ႔ၾသဖြယ္ေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။ ဒီအတု ိင္းဆု ိလွ်င္ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္း ကု ိ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆံ ု းေခါင္းေလာင္းအျဖစ္ သ
တ္မွတ္ရေ ပမည္။

စာကု ိလု ိေကာေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ၁၈ ရာစု တြင္ သြန္းလု ပ္ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ ေအဒီ ၁၅
ရာစု က သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ႔ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ သျဖင့ ္ ႏွစ္ ၃၀၀ ပု ိ၍ေစာေနသည္ကုိေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ ဓမၼေစ
တီေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ကမၻာ႔အႀကီးဆံ ု းေခါင္းေလာင္းမ်ားအနက္ ေရွးအက်ဆံ ု း ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္သည္။ေရွးက်ၿပီး ႀကီးက်ယ္ေသာ
ေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ သြန္းလု ပ္ ခဲ႔ေသာ မြ န္တို႔၏ ေၾကးသြန္းအတတ္ပညာမွာ ဂု ဏ္ယ ူဖြယ္ရာ ျဖစ္သည္။

သု ိ႔ေသာ္ ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းအေၾကာင္းမလွပုံ မွာ ခရစ္သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၆၀၈ ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ ေပၚတူ ဂီလူ မ်ဳိး ဖိလစ္ဒိုဘရစ္တုိ႔က ဓမၼေစတီ ေ
ခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ အေျမာက္သြန္းလု ပ္ရန္ေဖာင္ျဖင့ ္ သန္လ်င္သို႔ သယ္ေဆာင္ခဲ႔သည္။ ေဒါပုံ ျမစ္အကူ းတြင္ ေဖာင္နစ္ၿပီး ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး ေ
ရထဲနစ္ျမွဳပ္သြားသည္မွာ ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္း ေရေအာက္ေရာက္ေနသည္မွာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၄၀၀ နီးပါးရွိေခ်ၿပီ။

မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္ႀကီး

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] မင္းကြန္း ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

ျမန္မာႏို င္ငံ တြင္ လက္ရွိအႀကီးဆုံ း ေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္း ႀကီးျဖစ္သည္။ ယင္းေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ ဘု ိးေတာ္ဘုရားလ
က္ထက္ ( ၁၇၈၂ - ၁၈၁၉ ) က ၁၇၉၀ ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ႔သည္။ ကု န္းေဘာင္ေခတ္မဟာရာဇ၀င္တြ င္ သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၁၇၀ ျပည့ ္ႏွစ္၊ ကဆု န္လ ဆန္း
၅ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ႔သည္ဟု ဆု ိပါသည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္း၏အတု ိင္းအတာ ကု ိလည္း အ၀အခ်င္း ၃၁ ေတာင္ ၄ သစ္ (၁၆ ေပ၊
၁.၄ လက္မ)၊ လုံ းပတ္ ၃၃ ေတာင္ ၁ မု ိက္ ၄ သစ္ (၅၀ ေပ ၁.၄ လက္မ)၊ ေစာက္ ၁၃ ေတာင္ ၁ မု ိက္ ၄ သစ္ (၂၀ ေပ ၃ လက္မ) ရွိသည္ဟု ေ
ဖာ္ျပခဲ႔သည္။ တန္ ၈၀ ရွိသည္ဟု အဂၤလိပ္တုိ႔က ခန္႔မွန္းခဲ႔ၾကသည္။ သု ိ႔ေသာ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္း၏အေလးခ်ိန္မွာ ေၾကးပိႆ ာ ၅၅၅၅၅ ရွိ
သျဖင့ ္ ၄င္းကု ိ တန္ဖြဲ႕ပါက ၉၀.၅၂ တန္ရွိသည္။
ဂ်ပန္ ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ဂ်ပန္ ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

က်ိဳတို ၿမိဳ႕ ခ်ီယြ န္အင္ ေက်ာင္းေတာ္တြ င္ တည္ရွိေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ (၁၆၃၃) ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္သြင္းလု ပ္၍ (၇၄) တန္ အေလးခ်ိန္ရွိ၏။ ဂ်ပန္တြ
င္ အေလးခ်ိန္အမ်ားဆုံ း ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးျဖစ္၏။ ၄င္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကို ထု ိးခတ္ရန္ ရဟန္း (၁၇)ပါး လု ိအပ္မည္ျဖစ္သည္။

ရြန္ဂဲ (လ္)ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] တ႐ုတ္ ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

တရု တ္ျပည္အေ ရွ႕ပု ိင္း ရွန္ေဒါင္းျပည္နယ္ ဂ်ီနန္းၿမိဳ႕အေရာက္တြ င္ မင္ မင္းဆက္ (၁၃၆၈-၁၆၄၄) လက္ထက္ လြန္ခဲ့ေသာႏွစ္ေပါင္း (၆၀၀) ခန္႔က
သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ့ေသာ ရြန္ဂဲ (လ္) အမည္ရွိ ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကို ေတြ႔ရ၏။ ထို ေၾကးသြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ (၄၅)
တန္ အေလးခ်ိန္ရွိ၍ (၆.၇၅) မီတာအျမင့ ္ရွိ၏။ (၃.၃) မီတာ အခ်င္းရွိ၍ (၀.၂၂) မီတာထူ ၏။ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး၏ အတြင္းအျပင္ မ်က္ႏွာစာအျပ
ည့ ္တြ င္ တရု တ္အ ကၡရာ (၂၂၇, ၀၀၀) ျဖင့ ္ ထြင္းေဖာ္ထားေသာ ဗု ဒၶက်မ္းဂန္လာ သု တၱန္မ်ားကို ေတြ႔ရွိရသည္။
[ျပင္ဆင္ရန္ ] ကို းကား
 ေမာ္စီ ဘေလာ့ ဂ္ [1]
 ႏု ိင္ခင္ေမာင္ေလး၏ တိမ္ျမဳပ္ေပ်ာက္ကြယ္ေနသည့ ္ မြ န္တို႔၏ ၿမိဳ႕ျပႏု ိင္ငံ မ်ား

နစ္ျမွဳပ္ ေပ်ာက္ဆံ ု း ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

 Posted by myo aung on March 23, 2010 at 5:00pm
 View myo aung's blog

နစ္ျမွဳပ္ ေပ်ာက္ဆံ ု း ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး

ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး-----From Myanmar Online Encyclopedia

ေခါင္:ေလာင္းေတာ္ဘြဲ ႔ အဝိႏၵေဆာက္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္

အေလးခ်ိန္ ၁၈၀၀၀၀ ပိႆ ာ (တန္ခ်ိန္ ၂၉၀)
အတု ိင္းအတာ အဝ(၈)ေတာင္၊ ေစာက္ (၁၂) ေတာင္
သြန္းလု ပ္သည့ ္ေန႕ သကၠရာဇ္ (၈၃၇) ခု ႏွစ္၊ တေပါင္းလဆန္း(၈)ရက္၊ ၾကာသေတးေန႔
ေရႊတီဂုံ ေစတီေတာ္သုိ႔ တင္လႉသည့ ္ေန႔ သကၠရာဇ္ (၈၃၈) ခု ႏွစ္၊ သီတင္းကၽြတ္လျပည့ ္ေန႔
ေဒါပုံ ျမစ္လည္တြ င္ နစ္ျမဳပ္သြားသည့ ္ႏွစ္ သကၠရာဇ္ (၉၇၄)ခု ႏွစ္
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး ေရထဲနစ္ျမွဳပ္သြားသည္မွာ ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း (၄၀၀)
နီးပါးရွိေခ်ၿပီ

ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္ ကမၻာ့ အႀကီးဆံ ု း ေခါင္းေလာင္းအျဖစ္ သတ္မွတ္ထ ားေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းကို စိန္ေခၚသည့ ္

ေခါင္းေလာင္းတစ္ခု ျဖစ္သည္။ ယင္းကား မြ န္ဘာသာအားျဖင့ ္ 'အပိႏၷေသာ္'
သို ႔မဟု တ္ 'ဓမၼေစတီ' ေခါင္းေလာင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္း ဘြဲ႕အမည္မွာ
ျမန္မာဘာသာအားျဖင့ ္ 'အဝိႏၵေဆာက္'ဟု ေခၚပါသည္။ ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္
ဇာကို လို ေကာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းထက္ မင္းကြန္းေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္ႀကီးတစ္ခုစာ ပို ၍
ႀကီးမားေနသည္ကို အံ့ ၾသဖြယ္ရာ ေတြ႕ရွိရသည္။ ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းကို
ကမၻာ့ အႀကီးဆံ ု း ေခါင္းေလာင္းအျဖစ္ သတ္မွတ္ရ မည္ ျဖစ္ေပသည္။ ထု ိ႔အျပင္
ဇာကို လို ေကာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ (၁၈) ရာစု တြင္ သြန္းလု ပ္ေသာ
ေခါင္းေလာင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ ေအဒီ ၁၅ ရာစု က
သြန္းလု ပ္ခဲ့ေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္း ျဖစ္သျဖင့ ္ ႏွစ္(၃ဝဝ) ပို ၍ ေစာေနသည္ကို
ေတြ႕ရွိရသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္ ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းသည္ ကမၻာ့ အႀကီးဆံ ု း
ေခါင္းေလာင္း ျဖစ္သင့ ္ေပသည္။

ေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္ႀကီးကု ိ ဆယ္ယ ူရရွိမည္ဆိုပါက မြန္အမ်ဳိးသားတု ိ႔၏ ယဥ္ေက်းမူ အေမြအႏွစ္

ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးႏွင့ ္ပက္သက္သည့ ္ အေသးစိတ္ အခ်က္အ လက္တ ုိ႔ကု ိ ျပည္သ ူမ်ားသု ႔ိ
အေသအခ်ာတင္ျပနို င္မည္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ၄င္းအျပင္ တရု ပ္တုိ႔၏ ေၾကးသြန္အတတ္ပညာထက္
ႏွစ္ေပါင္း(၁၅၀၀)ခန္႔ ေစာသည့ ္ မြ န္တုိ႔၏ ယု ိးဒယားနု ိင္ငံ ဘန္းခ်ိဳင္းေဒသ
ေၾကးသြန္အတတ္ပညာအတြက္ႀကီးမားေသာ သက္ေသ အေထာက္အ ထားတစ္ခု ျဖစ္လာမည္။

ေရႊတိဂံ ု ေစတီေတာ္

ျမန္မာ့ သမု ိင္းတြင္ မြ န္တို႔၏မဂဒူ းမင္းဆက္တြ င္ ၁၆ ဆက္ေျမာက္ မြ န္ဘုရင္ ဓမၼေစတီမင္း သည္ ဟံ သာဝတီ
(ယခု ပဲခူ း) မွ အု ပ္စုိးၿပီး ၁၄၈၀ ခု တြင္ လူ ဦးေရ စစ္တမ္း ေကာက္ယ ူခဲ့ သည္။
ဓမၼေစတီမင္းႀကီးသည္ ဥပု ိက္၊ သမႏၲရာဇ္၊ ဘု ရင္ရာဇာ၊ စြႏၲရာဇာ အမတ္ေလးဦးကို
အိမ္ဦးေရစာရင္း ေကာက္ယူရန္ တာဝန္ ေပးခဲ့ သည္။ အမတ္မ်ားက အိမ္စာရင္းသာမက
အိမ္တုိင္းမွ ေၾကးကု ိပါ ေကာက္ခံ ခဲ႔ရာ ေၾကးစင္ တစ္သန္းႏွင့ ္ ရွစ္သိန္း
ရရွိခဲ႔သည္။ မင္းႀကီးက ေၾကးပါ ေကာက္ယ ူခဲ႔ေသာ အမတ္ေလးဦး အား အျပစ္ဒဏ္ေပး၏။
ေၾကးမ်ားကု ိ ကာယကံ ရွင္မ်ားအား ျပန္ေပးေစသည္။ ပု ိင္ရွင္မ်ားက ျပန္မယူ ပဲ
မင္းႀကီး သင့ ္ေတာ္သလု ိသာ အသံ ု း ျပဳရန္ေလွ်ာက္ထားေလသည္။ ထု ိ႔ေၾကာင့ ္
ဓမၼေစတီမင္းႀကီးသည္ ဤေၾကးမ်ားျဖင့ ္ အမတ္ႀကီး ဗညားအိမ္ကို အႀကီးအမွဴ း
ခန္႔ေတာ္မူသည္။ အမတ္ႀကီးသည္လ ည္း ေဇယဗာဟု ၊ ပဲခူ းသဥတၱရာ၊ နႏၵစည္သ ူေက်ာ္၊
သံ ဃရာဇာ စသည့ ္ ဆရာတု ိ႔ အခါေပးသည့ ္ အတု ိင္း တေပါင္းလဆန္း (၈)ရက္၊
ၾကာသပေတးေန႔ သိဟ္လဂ္တြ င္ ပြဲႀကီးသဘင္ ႀကီးစြာျပဳ၍ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကို
သြန္းလု ပ္ေစသည္။

အမတ္ႀကီးသည္လ ည္း ဆရာတု ိ႔ အခါေပးသည့ ္အတု ိင္း တေပါင္းလဆန္း (၈)ရက္၊ ၾကာသာပေတးေန႔ သိဟ္လ ဂ္တြ င္ ပြဲႀကီးသဘင္ျပဳ၍
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကု ိ ျပဳလု ပ္ေတာ္မူသည္။ သို ႔ေသာ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ
ထူ းထူ းျခားျခား အသံ မျမည္ပဲရွိခဲ႔သည္။ (သမု ိင္းအရ ထု ိေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကု ိ
နကၡတၱေဗဒသေဘာအရ မေကာင္းေသာ ၁၄၈၄-ခု ၊ ေဖေဖာ္ဝါရီလ (၅)ရက္ေန႔တြင္
စတင္သြန္းခဲ့ ၿပီး အသံ မမည္ဟု ဆု ိသည္။) ေခါင္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္စဥ္ `ေလာကဥာဏ´
အမည္ရွိ ေဗဒင္ဆရာတစ္ဦးက ေခါင္းေလာင္းသြန္းလု ပ္ၿပီးလွ်င္ အျပစ္အနာအဆာမရွိ
ေခ်ာေမာလိမ္႔မည္။ သို ႔ေသာ္အသံ ကာ ျမည္မည္မဟု တ္ဟု မင္းႀကီးအားေလွ်ာက္၏။
မင္းႀကီးက အေၾကာင္းစုံ ေမးျမန္းရာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းျပဳလု ပ္ရန္
ဆရာတု ိ႔ေပးေသာအခါသည္ နကၡတ္ေျခာက္လ ုံးျဖစ္သည္။ ေျခာက္လ ုံးမွာ မိေက်ာင္းနကၡတ္
ျဖစ္သျဖင့ ္ မိေက်ာင္းမွာ လွ်ာမရွိ၍ အသံ မျမည္ႏု ိင္ေခ်။ မင္းႀကီးလည္း
ေခါင္းေလာင္းကို မြ န္ဘာသာျဖင့ ္ အပိႏၷေသာ္ဟု ဘြဲ႕အမည္ေပးၿပီး
ေကာဇာသကၠရာဇ္(၈၃၈)ခု ႏွစ္၊ သီတင္းကြၽတ္လျပည့ ္ေန႔တြင္ ေရႊတိဂုံ ရင္ျပင္တြ င္
ခ်ိတ္ဆြဲလွဴဒါန္း ေရစက္ခ်ေတာ္မူသည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကု ိ ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့ ္
“အဝိႏၵေဆာက္ ’’ဟု အမည္ရသည္။ (ေရႊတိဂံ ု ေစတီေတာ္ တည္ရွိရာ ကု န္းေတာ္ေပၚတြင္
ပထမဦးဆံ ု းလွဴဒါန္းေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းမွာ ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးပင္
ျဖစ္သည္။ ယခု အခါ ေရႊတိဂံ ု ကု န္းေတာ္ေပၚရွိ ေခါင္းေလာင္းစု စု ေပါင္း
(၂၉)လံ ု းရွိသည္။ သု ေတသန= ေမယာအမ္တီ)

ေရွးေခတ္စာ မွတ္တ မ္းမ်ားအရ ၄င္း ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးတြင္ ေၾကးနီ အျပင္ ေရႊ၊ ေငြ တု ိ႔လည္း ပါသည္ဟု ဆု ိသည္။
ေခါင္းေလာင္းထဲတြင္ ျမ ႏွင့ ္ နီလာ ရတနာတု ိ႔လည္း ျမႇဳပ္ထားသည္ဟု ဆု ိသည္။
ဓမၼေစတီမင္း ဥစၥာႂကြယ္ဝ ပံ ု အရ ၄င္းမွာျဖစ္ႏု ိင္သည္။ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္
၁၂-ေတာင္ ျမင့ ္ၿပီး ၈-ေတာင္ က်ယ္သ ည္။ တစ္ၿပိဳင္တည္းမွာပင္ ၅၀၀ပိႆ ာရွိ
ေခါင္းေလာင္းအေသးလည္း သြန္းေလာင္းလွဴတန္း ခဲ့ သည္ဟု အဆု ိရွိသည္။

ေနာင္ ႏွစ္တစ္ရာ ၾကာၿပီးေနာက္ ၁၅၈၂ ခု တြင္ အီတလီေက်ာက္က ု န္သည္ `ဂစပါရု ိ

ဘယ္ဘီ´သည္ ေရႊတိဂံ ု ဘု ရား သု ိ႔ေရာက္ရွိခဲ့ ၿပီး ေရႊတိဂံ ု ဘု ရားကု ိ အေသးစိတ္
မွတ္တ မ္းတင္ခဲ့သည္။ သူ ေရးခဲ့ သည္မွာ "ကြၽႏ္ု ပ္ ေတြ႕ခဲ့ ရသည္မွာ
အလြန္ခမ္းနားေသာ ခန္းမႀကီးထဲတြင္ အလြန႔္အလြ န္ ႀကီးမားေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး
ရွိၿပီး အတု ိင္းအတာအားျဖင့ ္ ေျခာက္လွမ္ း ႏွင့ ္ သံ ု းဖန္ ရွိၿပီး အထက္မွ
ေအာက္သုိ႔ စာလံ ု းတစ္ခုႏွင့ ္ တစ္ခုပူ းကပ္ေနေသာစာမ်ား အျပည့ ္ေရးထားၿပီး
ဖတ္ရမည္ပံ ု မေပၚေပ။"
၁၅၃၀-ခု တြင္ မြ န္ဘုရင္မ်ား၏ အာဏာစက္ က်ဆင္းလာၿပီး ၁၅၃၅-ခု တြင္ ေအာက္ျပည္သည္ အထက္ျပည္ႏွင့ ္ ျခားနားသြားသည္။ တစ္ခ်ိန္တည္ းမွာ
ဥေရာပကု န္သည္ ႏွင့ ္ စြန္႔စားရွာေဖြသူ မ်ား ေအာက္ျမန္မာျပည္ သု ိ႔
ေရာက္လာၾကသည္။ ၁၅၉၀-ခု ႏွစ္မ်ားတြင္ ေပၚတူ ဂီလူ မ်ိဳး စြန္႔စားရွာေဖြသူ
`ဖီလစ္ဒီဘရု တ္တ ုိ ရနီကု တ္´အား စီရမ္(သန္လ်င္)တြင္ ေအာက္ျမန္မာျပည္
အု ပ္ခ်ဴပ္သူမ်ားက ကု န္သြယ္ရံ ု းဖြင့ ္ခြင့ ္ ေပးလု ိက္သည္။ ၁၆၀၀-ခု တြင္
သူ ၏ၾသဇာမွာ ျမစ္ေၾကာင္းတစ္ေလွ်ာက္ ေဘးပတ္ဝန္းက်င္ အပါအဝင္ ဒဂံ ု အထိ
ေရာက္သည္။
ခရ စ္သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၆၀၈-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ ေပၚတူ ဂီလူ မ်ဳိး ဖိလစ္ဒိုဘရစ္တိုသည္ ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကု ိ အရည္ႀကိဳ၍
အေျမာက္သြ န္းလု ပ္ရန္ ေတာင္ေပၚမွ လိွမ့ ္ခ်၍ ျမစ္ကမ္းနားထိ ဆင္မ်ားျဖင့ ္ဆြဲ ကာ
ပု ဇြန္ေတာင္ ေရလက္ၾကားတြင္ ေဖါင္ေပၚသု ိ႔ တင္ခဲ့သည္။ ေဖာင္ျဖင့ ္
သန္လ်င္သို႔ သယ္ေဆာင္ခဲ႔သည္။ သု ိ႔ေသာ္ ပဲခူ းျမစ္၊ ရ န္ကုန္ျမစ္ႏွင့ ္
ငမု ိးရိပ္ေခ်ာင္း သုံ းသြယ္ဆ ုံဆည္းရာ ေဒါပုံ ျမစ္ ေနရာတြင္ ေဖာင္ပ်က္ၿပီး
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးမွာ ေရေအာက္သုိ႔ က်သြားခဲ့ သည္။ ဖိလစ္ဒိုဘရစ္တိုလည္း
ေရေအာက္သို႔ ပါသြားခဲ့ သည္။ ေပၚတူ ဂီတု ိ႔လည္း ၄င္းကို ခု ိးယူ ျခင္းေၾကာင့ ္
အထိနာသည္။ ေပၚတူ ဂီ ဂတ္ရံ ု းအား ေဒါသထြက္ေသာ ဗမာမ်ားက တု ိက္ခုိက္ခဲ့ၿပီး
မွတ္တ မ္းမ်ားအရ ေပၚတူ ဂီေခါင္းေဆာင္မွာ ဝါးရင္းတု တ္ျဖင့ ္ တစ္ခ်က္ျခင္း
ရု ိက္၍ တေျဖးေျဖးျခင္း ေသေစသည္ ဟု ဆု ိသည္။ ေဒါပုံ ျမစ္အကူ းတြင္ ေဖာင္နစ္ၿပီး
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး ေရထဲနစ္ျမွဳပ္သြားသည္မွာ ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္း ေရေအာက္နစ္ျမွဳပ္ေနသည္မွာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း (၄၀၀)
နီးပါးရွိေခ်ၿပီ။

ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးျမဳပ္ေနေသာေနရာ
ဆယ္ယူရန္ ႀကိဳးပမ္းမႈမ်ား
ရ န္ကုန္ရွိ သမု ိင္းအေထာက္အ ထားမ်ားအရ ၁၈၀၀-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးက်ရာေနရာတြင္
ဝဲကေတာ့ ထု ိးသည္ဟု ပါသည္မွတပါး ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား ဆယ္ယ ူမႈ
မရွိေခ်။ ယခု ေခတ္ လူ ႀကီးမ်ားပင္ ၄င္းဝဲကေတာ့ ကု ိ မ်က္ျမင္ကုိယ္ေတြ႕ရွိသည္ဟု
ဆု ိၾကသည္။ ျမစ္မွာ မနက္ေပ။ ေပ-၄၀ သာရွိၿပီး ေရေအာက္ရႊံ ညႊန္မ်ားမွာ ေနာက္ထ ပ္
ေပ-၄၀ ေလာက္ ရွိမည္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ၄င္းရႊံ ညႊန္မ်ားထဲတြင္ ေခါင္းေလာင္း ရွိေပမည္။
ဘု ိးေတာ္ဘုရားေခါင္းေလာင္း (ေခၚ) ေခါင္းေလာင္းအေသးသည္လ ည္း ၿဗိတိသွ် သု ိက္သ မား (British Prize Agent)
မ်ားက ၁၈၂၆-ခု တြင္ ေရႊတိဂံ ု ေစတီေတာ္ မွခ်ကာ ျမစ္ထဲက်ခဲ့ ျပန္သည္ ။ သု ိ႔ေသာ္
ၿဗိတိသွ်တု ိ႔ စြန႔္လႊက္ခဲ့ေသာ္ ၄င္းေခါင္းေလာင္းအား ရြာသားမ်ားက
ဆယ္ယူခဲ့ ၿပီး ေစတီေတာ္ထက္ သု ိ႔ ျပန္ပုိ႔ခဲ့ သည္။
ၿဗိတိသွ် တု ိ႔ ႀကိဳးပမ္းမႈ
ၿဗိတိသွ်တို ႔ ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းၾကီးအား ဆယ္ယူရန္ အႀကိမ္ၾကိမ္ ၾကိဳးစားေသာ္လည္းမေအာင္ျမင္ခဲ့ေပ။ ျမန္မာတု ိ႔က
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား မူ လတည္ရွိရာ ေရႊတိဂံ ု ေစတီေတာ္သုိ႔ ျပန္ပုိ႔လွ်င္
ကူ ညီမည္ဟု ဆု ိသျဖင့ ္ ၿဗိတိသွ်တု ိ႔လည္း မစဥ္းစားပဲ ေခါင္းညႇိပ္ခဲ့သည္။
ျမန္မာတု ိ႔တြင္ ဉာဏ္နီဉာဏ္နက္ရွိသည္။ ေရငု တ္သမားမ်ားက ေခါင္းေလာင္း၏
ေအာက္တြ င္ ဝါးလံ ု းေခါင္းမ်ား တစ္လံ ု းျခင္း သယ္ယူထဲ့ ၿပီး စု ေပါင္းတဲြခ်ည္က ာ
ေရေပၚေပၚေစမည္။ ၄င္းႀကိဳးစားခ်က္သ ည္ ထု ိအခ်ိန္က ျမန္မာတု ိ႔ အမ်ဳိးသားေရး
ရေစခဲ့ သည္။
ျမန္မာ အစု ိးရ ႀကိဳးပမ္းမႈ
ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးကို ရွာေဖြရန္ စတင္လံ ႈ႕ေဆာ္သူမွာ သမို င္းပညာရွင္ ေဒါက္တ ာ ေဒၚရီရီ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
ျမန္မာ အစု ိးရသည္ အဂၤလိပ္ ေရငု တ္၊ ဇီဝ၊ ေရွးေဟာင္း ႏွင့ ္ စြမ္းအင္ ပညာရွင္
မု ိက္ဟက္ျခာ (Mike Hatcher)
အား ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား ေဖာ္ယူ၍ ေစတီေတာ္သုိ႔ ျပန္လည္ပ ုိ႔ေဆာင္ရန္ အကူ အညီ ရယူ ခဲ့ ပါသည္။ ဂ်ပန္၊ ၾသစေၾတးလ်ႏွင့ ္ အေမရိကန္
တု ိ႔ပါဝင္ေသာ
၄င္းလု ပ္င န္းကု ိ ဟက္ျခာက သေဘာတူ ခဲ့ ပါသည္။ ဗု ဒၶသာသနာ ထြန္းကားေရး
အက်ိဳးေဆာင္ ရစ္ခ်တ္ဂရီက အားတက္သေ ရာ ပါဝင္၍ ရံ ပံ ု ေငြရွာခဲ့ သည္။
၄င္းလု ပ္င န္းကု ိ အျပည္ျပည္ဆ ုိင္ရာ အဆင့ ္ထိ စိတ္ဝင္စားေစသည္မွာ သံ သယရွိစရာ
မလု ိပါ။ ဂ်ာမန္ရုပ္ရွင္ကုမၸဏီ တစ္ခုကလည္း ၄င္းစြင့ ္စားခန္းကု ိ
ရု ပ္ရွင္ရ ုိက္ကူးမည္ ျဖစ္ၿပီး "ဒီတူ းေဖၚေရးသာ ေအာင္ျမင္ခဲ့လွ ်င္
ဗု ဒၶဘာသာနဲ႔ပတ္သက္၍ ဒါဟာ ခရ စ္ယာန္မွာ လု ိတရခြက္ (Holy Grail) ရသလု ိပါပဲ"ဟု
ဆု ိခဲ့ သည္။

ဘာသာေရး ကု ိင္းရႈိင္းေသာ ျမန္မာတု ိ႔ကမူ ဗု ဒၶ၏ ျမင့ ္ျမတ္ေသာ္ အေမြကု ိ ျပန္လည္ထိ န္းသိမ္းျခင္းျဖင့ ္ ျမန္မာ ႏု ိင္ငံ ၏ ကံ
ျပန္လည္ ေကာင္းမြန္ လာလိမ့ ္မည္ဟု ယံ ု ၾကည္ၾကသည္။ ဓမၼေစတီ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား
ဆယ္ယူျခင္းသည္ ျမင့ ္ျမတ္ေသာမင္းႏွင့ ္ သူ ၏ျပည္သ ူျပည္သ ားမ်ား၏ ဆံ ု းရံ ႈးေနေသာ
အေမြကု ိ ျပန္လည္ရ ရွိၾကမွာ ေသခ်ာပါသည္။ ထို ႔ျပင္ ၄င္းေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးတြင္
ေရးထု ိးထားေသာ ေခါင္းေလာင္းစာမ်ားက သမု ိင္းႏွင့ ္ ဘာသာစကားပညာရွင္ တု ိ႔အတြက္
အဖု ိးမျဖတ္ႏု ိင္ေသာ အေထာက္အ ထားပင္ ျဖစ္ေပမည္။ *
(၁၉၉၇-ခု ႏွစ္၊ စက္တ င္ဘာ (၂၉)ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ဓမၼေစတီမင္း ေခါင္းေလာင္းေတာ္
ရွာေဖြဆယ္ယ ူေရးလု ပ္င န္း ညႇိႏိႈင္းအစည္းအေ၀းပြဲကို ရ န္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕၊
ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္ခန္းမရွိ ရ န္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္စည္ပင္သာယာေရး ေကာ္မတီ
အစည္းအေ၀းခန္းမ(၄)၌ က်င္းပခဲ့ သည္။)
မု ိက္ဟက္ျခာႏွင့ ္ ၄င္း၏အဖဲြ႔မ်ားက ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား ဆယ္ယူျခင္း လု ပ္င န္းကု ိ ၂၀၀၁-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ စရန္
ရည္ရြယ္ခဲ့ၿပီး ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး၏ ေနရာကု ိ အတိအက် စရွာရန္ သတ္မွတ္ခဲ့သည္။
ဘီဘီစီ၏ သတင္းေၾကျငာခ်က္ေၾကာင့ ္ လူ အမ်ား ၄င္းဆယ္ယ ူျခင္း လု ပ္င န္းကု ိ
စိတ္ဝင္စားခဲ့ ေသာလည္း မျဖစ္ေျမာက္ခဲ့ေပ။ ထင္ဆခ်က္အ ရ ၂၀၀၀-ခု ႏွစ္၊ ဇြ န္လတြင္
၄င္းအဖဲြ႕သည္ အင္ဒုိနီးရွား ဆယ္ယ ူေရး ျပႆ နာေၾကာင့ ္ ၾကံ့ ၾကာခဲ့ ျခင္း
ျဖစ္ဟန္တူသည္။
ထု ိဆယ္ယူျခင္း လု ပ္င န္းသာစခဲ့ လွ်င္ ေရငု တ္သ မားမ်ားသည္ ညၾကည့ ္မွန္ တက္ထ ားေသာ ေခါင္းစြက္မ်ားျဖင့ ္ အတူ copper sulphate ရွာေဖြေရး
ကိရိယာမ်ားျဖင့ ္ ေခါင္းေလာင္းကု ိ ရွာမည္ျဖစ္သည္။
ဦးစံ လင္း၏ ႀကိဳးပမ္းမႈ
ဓမၼေစတီေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးအား ေစတနာရွင္ ဦးစံ လင္းက ျမန္မာ့ နည္း၊ ျမန္မာ့ ဟန္ျဖင့ ္ ျပန္လည္ဆ ယ္ယူကာ
ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီး၏ မူ လေနရာ ေရႊတိဂုံ ကု န္းေတာ္ျမတ္ေပၚသို ႔ အျမန္ဆံ ု း
ျပန္လည္တ င္လွဴႏို င္ရန္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာသို ႔ ခြင့ ္ျပဳခ်က္ ေတာင္းခံ လွ်က္ရွိသည္။
ဦးစံ လင္းသည္ ၄င္း၏ ကို ယ္ပိုင္ေငြျဖင့ ္ ၁၉၉၇-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္တစ္ႀကိမ္၊
၁၉၉၈-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္ႏွစ္ႀကိမ္၊ ၁၉၉၉-ခု ႏွစ္တြ င္တစ္ႀကိမ္၊ စု စု ေပါင္း
ေလးႀကိမ္တိတိ ဆယ္ယ ူေရးအတြက္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ဖူ းသည္။ ဦးစံ လင္းသည္
ေရငု တ္က ၽြမ္းက်င္သူတစ္ဦး ျဖစ္ၿပီး ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးရွိသည့ ္ေနရာကို
ကို ယ္တိုင္ေရငု တ္၍ ရွာေဖြခဲ့ ဖူ းသူ တပ္မေတာ္(ေရ) အၿငိမ္းစား ၀န္ထမ္ းတစ္ဦး
ျဖစ္သည္။
ဦးစံ လင္း၏ အဆို အရ ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀကီးသည္ ပု ဇြန္ေတာင္ေခ်ာင္း၀ရွိ ေရေအာက္ေျမေအာက္ (၅၂)ေပတြင္ နစ္ျမဳပ္လွ်က္ရွိေနၿပီး ေခါင္းေလာင္းႀ
ကီးႏွင့ ္
အတူ
* ေပၚတူ ဂီ သေဘၤာပ်က္ ႏွစ္စီး၊
* အျခားေခါင္းေလာင္းတစ္လံ ု း၊
* ဥာဏ္ေတာ္ ခု ႏွစ္ေတာင္စီရွိ ေရႊသားအစစ္ရပ္ေတာ္မူ ဗု ဒရု ပ္ပြားေတာ္ ႏွစ္ဆူ
* ေက်ာက္သံ ပတၱျမားမ်ားပါသည့ ္ ေသတၱာ (၁၁)လံ ု း ယေန႔ထက္တိုင္ရွိေနသည္ဟု
ဆို ၏။
ဦးစံ လင္း၏ သေဘာထား
ျမန္မာ့ နည္း၊ ျမန္မာ့ ဟန္၊ ျမန္မာ့ အဆင့ ္ျမင့ ္ နည္းပညာျဖင့ ္ ျပန္လည္ဆ ယ္ယူကာ
ေရႊတိဂုံ ကု န္းေတာ္ျမတ္ေပၚသို ႔ အျမန္ဆံ ု း ျပန္လည္တ င္လွဴႏို င္ရန္၊
တို င္းျပည္ႏွင့ ္ လူ မ်ဳိးဘာသာ၊ သာသနာအတြက္ ေစတနာအရင္းခံ ၍ မိမိအသက္ကို
မငဲ့ ကြက္ပဲ ေဆာင္ရြက္မည္ျဖစ္သည္။ ႏို င္ငံ ေတာ္မွစက္ယႏၱရား
ပံ့ ပို းမႈလို အပ္ကာ ေသာင္တူးစက္ (သို ႔) ေရယာဥ္တစ္စီး အဓိက လို အပ္ပါသည္။
၂၀၁၀-ခု ႏွစ္အတြင္း အၿပီးေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္ ရာထားပါသည္။ အခု ႏွစ္မိုးရာသီတြင္
လု ပ္င န္းေဆာင္ရြက္မွာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး မို းတြင္းတြင္ ေခ်ာင္းထဲသို ႔
ေရငု တ္ဆ င္းရသည္မွာ ေရေအာက္ေျခရွိ ၾကမ္းျပင္သည္ သမံ သလင္းလို ေျပာင္ရွင္ းေန၍
ျဖစ္သည္၊ ေႏြရာသီတြင္ ႏႈန္းေျမမ်ား ထူ ထပ္ေန၍ အဆင္မေျပႏို င္ဟု ဆို သည္။
ကု ိးကား
1. http://wikimyanmar.co.cc/
2.http://www.russianbells.com/interest/biggest.html

3.http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar-museum/largest-underwater-bell.htm↑

The Great Sunken Bell of Dhammazedi

4. ျမန္မာ့ အလင္း(၃၀.၉.၉၇)
5. လွ်ပ္တျပက္ဂ်ာနယ္ ၂၀၁၀-ခု ႏွစ္၊ မတ္လ(၅)ရက္ေန႔ထု တ္

1. Rangoon, Burma - ~655,000 lbs

* "Bell of Dhammazedi", pitch?, ~180,000 vis, maker?, February 1484
* formerly in Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon;
now lost at the bottom of the river.
* Cast by order of King Dhammazedi, 9th of the Mon kings of Burma.
Stolen from the pagoda in 1608; sank in the river when the raft
which was carrying it broke apart; may be recoverable.
1 vis = 1.65 kg (approximately), giving a total weight of 297
metric tonnes.

The Great Mingun Bell

King Dhammazedi's bell may or may not be lost forever, but even if it is, the world's largest accessible and ringing bell is
still not in Russia.
That title is owned by Burma's Mingun Bell, which rings near the city of Sagaing, at the Mingun pagoda, some 11 km (7
miles) upriver from Mandalay, in the center of Burma, on the opposite bank of the Ayeyarwaddy and accessible only by
river. A 45-minute boat trip to Mingun is very pleasant with plenty of life on the river to see.
The World’s Three Largest Bells

Russia's famous Tsar-Kolokol is the largest bell in the world, of course, but it is broken. Apart
from that, if you inspect our list of bells larger than 1,000 puds (36,000 lbs, or about 18 metric
tons or more), you'll probably be surprised to see that the world's biggest working bells are not in
Russia, but in Burma, Korea, and Japan. Another is under water, but there has lately been some
talk of trying to locate and raise it. Yet another was lost in World War II. Only then, sixth or
seventh down the list, do we find Trinity-Sergius Lavra's "Tsarsky Kolokol", or "Royal Bell".

One day we hope to tell more about Asia's fascinating bells, but it's interesting to compare what
we've been able to learn so far, with the Russian giant:

The Great Sunken Bell of Dhammazedi

Burmese chronicles relate that King Dhammazedi, 9th

of the Mon kings of Burma (now known as Myanmar),
who reigned at Hanthawaddy (Bago) from 1464
onward, had ordered a census of households in his
kingdom sometime around the year 1480. However, his
over-zealous ministers not only counted the
households; they also taxed them— thus obtaining
some 180,000 vis (293.4 metric, or about 600 US tons)
of copper. King Dhammazedi was not pleased and so,
to allay his wrath, the ministers proposed to have the
copper cast into a bell. That was how the biggest bell in
history came to be. The chronicles also note that the
date chosen for the casting of the Bell, 5 February
1484, was astrologically inappropriate and that the Bell
had an unpleasant sound.

He presented the bell to the Shwedagon Pagoda in

Rangoon (then known as Dagon). According to texts of
the time, the bell metal included silver and gold as well
as copper and tin. The bell is also said to have been
encrusted with emeralds and sapphires. In view of the opulence of the pagoda itself, the story is
likely true. The bell itself was said to be twelve cubits high and eight cubits wide. Another,
smaller bell of 500 vis (about 5/6 of a ton) was cast at the same time and also offered to the
Buddha.

A century later, in 1583, Venetian gem merchant named Gasparo Balbi visited ancient Dagon
and described the Shwedagon Pagoda at length. He wrote, "I found in a fair hall a very large bell
which we measured, and found to be seven paces and three hand breadths and it is full of letters
from the top to the bottom, so near together that one touches the other, but there was no Nation
that could understand them."

By 1530 the Mon kings were in decline and in 1535 Lower Burma had become subject to Upper
Burma. At the same time, European traders and adventurers had begun to make contacts in
Lower Burma. So in the 1590s, with the authority of the rulers in Upper Burma, a Portuguese
adventurer, Filipe de Brito y Nicote, set up a new trading post at Syriam and by 1600 had
extended his power across the river to Dagon and the surrounding countryside.

Thus in 1608 De Brito removed the Dhammazedi bell from the Shwedagon Paaoda, rolled it
down the hill to a raft in the Pazundaung Creek and had it hauled by elephants to the river. The
the bell and raft were lashed to his flagship for the journey across the river to Thanlyn (Syrian) to
be melted down and made into ships cannons.

However, at the confluence of the Bago and Yangon Rivers off what is now known as Monkey
Point, the raft broke up and the bell went to the bottom, taking Filipe de Brito's ship with it—
justly, we think. The Portugeuse suffered for their bungled looting, too— their entire garrison
was killed in an attack by angry Burmese, and records suggest the Portuguese leader died a slow
death on bamboo stakes.

All accounts of the history of Rangoon insist that Dhammazedi's bell was never recovered and
until the late 1800's the top of it could still be seen above water at low tide. Some witnesses
today tell of being rowed out to the bell site by their elders to watch the water eddy over the top
of the submerged bell. The river isn't especially deep, (40 feet), but at the bottom there is 40 feet
more of mud. The bell is somewhere in the mud.

A smaller bell, known as the Bodawpaya, was also taken from the Shwedagon Pagoda by British
Prize Agents in 1826 and lost in the river. However, it was abandoned by the British and
recovered by the local inhabitants and returned to the pagoda.

There are other great bells on view on the Shwedagon, but they are much later than Balbi"s time.

King Singu, had a 24.6 metric (50 US)-ton bronze bell, 2.1 m high and 2.0 m wide at the mouth, cast
and offered to the Shwedagon on 17 January 1779. Known as the Mahagandha Bell, it can be found
today on the northwest side of the main pagoda platform. The British pillaged the pagoda during their
1824 to 1826 wartime occupation and tried to carry the bell to Calcutta, but fell victim to the same fate
as de Brito: this bell, too, sank into the river.
 The British failed in several attempts to raise it. The Myanmars said they would raise the bell on the
condition it would be returned to its original resting place in the pagoda, and the British, thinking
nothing would come out of the attempt, agreed. But the Myanmars had an ingenious plan. Divers tied
countless bamboo poles underneath the bell and floated it to the surface. The undertaking helped to
instill the Myanmars with nationalism during the years of British occupation.

The other bell, 42.5 metric (85 US) tons in weight, 4.3 m high and 2.2 m wide at the mouth, was
cast and donated by King Tharrawaddy on 19 February 1843. It is known as the Mahatissada and
is located at the northeast corner of the pagoda enclosure.

Dhammazedi's Bell To Be Recovered?

The Burmese government has asked an English marine biologist / archaeologist /

adventurer (you know the type) named Mike Hatcher and his team to raise the bell;
they want to see it restored to the Pagoda. Hatcher has agreed to undertake the
project, which has involvement from Japanese, Australian and American
companies. Richard Gere, a committed and active supporter of Buddhist ideals, is
involved in raising funds. The project would undoubtedly inspire curiosity at an
Mike Hatcher international level. The German film company which will be shooting the
expedition says, "Should the salvage operation succeed, the reaction in the
Buddhist world would be comparable to finding the Holy Grail in the Christian
West."

One of Burma's most sacred religious relics, it is believed that its restoration in the pagoda will
bring good fortune back to Myanmar. Certainly, recovery of King Dhammazedi"s Bell— the
offering of a devout king and his people to one of Myanmar"s most sacred shrines— would
restore a lost heritage to the Myanmar people. In more ways than one, in fact´ for the bell"s
inscription would provide valuable material for historical and linguistic scholarship.

The project is not without its opponents: Some pro-democracy campaigners say the salvage
operation might be misconstrued as an endorsement by the international community of
Myanmar's military dictatorship, and should wait until talks with the regime have progressed or
until such time as a democratic government is in place.

One of seven salvage projects forecast for Mike Hatcher and his team in 2001, Mike's team was
slated to begin the search for the precise location of the Dhammazedi Bell in March that year.
After a flurry of excitement stirred up by BBC's announcement of the project, however, it
apparently did not get off the ground, perhaps (we speculate) due to complications involved in
his discovery in June 2000 of a huge sunken wreck in Indonesian waters, with the largest
collection of porcelain ever found.

If the project ever does go forward, divers will use personal mounted sonar with night vision
goggles and copper sulphate detectors to locate the bell, since the mud around all that bronze
would have a high concentration of copper sulphate. About nine months after the survey they
expect to lift the Bell from the river. To do this, they will have to build a small version of a North
Sea Oil platform in the muddy rapids of the confluence of two rivers, and assemble a large crane
to lift the bell out of the water. Once it is lifted, they will construct a railway to transport it uphill
about half a mile to the Shwedagon Pagoda. This final operation will take about four months.

The Great Mingun Bell

King Dhammazedi's bell may or may not be lost

forever, but even if it is, the world's largest accessible
and ringing bell is still not in Russia.

That title is owned by Burma's Mingun Bell, which rings near the city of Sagaing, at the Mingun
pagoda, some 11 km (7 miles) upriver from Mandalay, in the center of Burma, on the opposite
bank of the Ayeyarwaddy and accessible only by river. A 45-minute boat trip to Mingun is very
pleasant with plenty of life on the river to see.

This bell was cast by King Bodawpaya on 28 April 1808 and is about 13 feet tall. It weighs
55555 peik-thar, or 90.55 metric tons (about 200 US tons). (Peik-thar are a traditional unit of
weight equalling 3.6 lbs (1.63 kg)— that's what the five characters that look like 9's on the side
of the bell in the picture to the right mean.)

The pagoda itself was the main jewel in the crown of an ambitious building campaign sponsored
by King Bodawpaya (ruled 1782-1819). The largest brick temple in Asia, its outline broods over
the western bank of the Irrawaddy River from the hamlet of Mingun. Its base is 256 feet square
and it rises some 150 feet. It is now viewed as little more than a curiosity, enhanced by dramatic
fissures in its wall created by an earthquake in 1839-- visitors can even climb to the top by a
modern stairway mounted on the most ruined corner fo the monument, though no access to the
summit existed originally.

The Mingun is Asia's, and indeed, the world's, largest bell. Cast by Bodawpaya to complemlent
the huge pagoda, it stands in its original location some 50 yeards to the northeast of the pagoda.
The pagoda is still considered unfinished, since it is without a tower, but historians believe King
Bodawpaya may have intended to sacrifice height for girth from the very beginning, and thus it
may have been considered finished by the king himself. Pagodas were built to venerate sacred
objects interred beneath them-- in fact, the word "pagoda" derives from *dagaba* (relic
chamber), a term adopted into English after it was encountered in Buddhist Sri Lanka.

The Tsar-Kolokol III

The world's largest bell is the Tsar Bell III (Tsar-Kolokol) in Moscow. It
is called Tsar Kolokol "III" because it was cast three times, and more
metal was added each time. The present incarnation was cast in 1733-35,
and weighs about 400,000 pounds (180 tons).

Resting at the foot of the Ivan Velekij Bell Tower, the bell is a mute
testimony to the grand days of the Romanov Dynasty— and to the
weakness of all human endeavor. Tsarina Anna I commissioned the bell
in 1734, fulfilling the dream of her grandfather, Tsar Alexei. At 6.14
meters high and 6.6 meters in diameter, it was to be the biggest and
clearest sounding bell in the world.

The casting of this enormous bell was performed by a team of nearly

200 craftsmen under the supervision of Ivan Motorin and his son
Mikhail, who cast many of Russia's other great bells.

Their crowning achievement was destined only for tragedy, however.

During the great fire of 1737 it still lay in its casting pit, and burning
timber from the structure above it fell into the pit. Bronze has a
relatively low melting point, so the question was whether to let it burn
and risk melting it, or to pour water on it and risk cracking it by cooling
it too fast. The latter risk was chosen and, as feared, because of uneven
cooling, the red-hot bronze did crack and a chunk weighing 11.5 tons
broke off. This chunk alone weighs more than most bells in the world.

The broken Tsar Bell remained in the earth for almost 100 more years
after that, until the architect Auguste Montferrand raised it in 1836 and
placed it on its present granite pedestal. The surface of the bell is finely
worked in relief with decorative patterns, embossed pictures, and
inscriptions.

Sadly, two hundred tons of silence are all that remain. For a time, the
bell served as a chapel. There has apparently been some talk of recasting
it. Some Old Believers are of the opinion that this would be a bad sign,
as this bell is slated to ring Blagovest on Judgment Day!

Tsar Cannon

Cannons and bells have always had a curious relationship— bells are
melted down to make cannons in times of war, and cannons are melted
town to make bells in times of peace. So we ought to mention that just
outside the Kremlin's Cathedral Square where the Tsar-Kolokol sits, you
also find the stunningly huge cannon pictured at the right. The Tsar
Cannon, built in 1586, is considered the largest cannon in the world,
sixteen feet long, weighing 85,000 pounds, with a caliber of 890 mm.
Tsar Theodore I, Ivan the Terrible's son, commissioned master bronze craftsman Andrei Chekov
to cast the giant bronze weapon to better protect the Kremlin.

The Tsar Cannon is thus quite a bit older than the Tsar Bell. The gun carriage and the cannon
balls lying nearby are decorative, for the cannon itself was designed to fire not cannon balls but
grapeshot. However, in actuality, it proved to be impractical to use.

KING DHAMMAZEDI’S BELL

 "At the foot of the first stairs at Dagon I found in a fair hall a very large Bell, which we
measured and found to be seven paces and three handbreadths. It is full of letters from
top to bottom and so near together that one touches the other."
 There are two large bells on the platform of the Shwedagon Pagoda and both carry
inscriptions, but none is the large bell seen and measured by Gasparo Balbi, a gem
merchant of Venice who visited the Shwedagon in 1583.
 The bells on view on the Shwedagon are much later than Balbi’s time. The 24.6 tonne
bell at the northwest corner, 2.1 metre high and 2.0 metre wide at the mouth, was cast and
offered to the Shwedagon by King Singu on 17 January 1779. The other bell – 42.5 tonne
in weight, 4.3 metre high and 2.2 metre wide at the mouth and located at the northeast
corner – was cast by King Tharyarwady on 19 February 1843.
 The bell which Balbi saw was much larger and cast by King Dhammazedi, 9th in the line
of Mon kings who reigned at Hanthawaddy (Bago) from 1364.
 Dhammazedi was not of royal descent but came to the throne of Hanthawaddy by set of
circumstances in which Shinsawbu, granddaughter of Hanthawaddy’s first King Banya
U, figured prominently. Widowed at the age of 25 after bearing her cousin-husband three
children, Shinsawbu was given in marriage four years later to Thihathu, King of Inwa, to
establish peace between the two kingdoms of Hanthawaddy and Inwa. At Inwa she met
and befriended two young monks who had come from Hanthawaddy to study there and
came to develop a maternal affection towards them. One of the young monks was
Dhammazedi.
 The kingdom of Inwa was going through turbulent times and Thihathu was killed three
years after Shinsawbu’s arrival. After a stay of seven years in Inwa, and feeling herself
neglected at the Court, Shinsawbu decided to return to Hanthawaddy. She accomplished
her purpose with the help of the two young monks and, impressed by their abilities, she
persuaded them to leave the monkhood after their arrival in Hanthawaddy. To
Dhammazedi she also gave one of her daughters in marriage.
 A failure of the succession in the male line brought Shinsawbu to the throne of
Hanthawaddy in 1463. Aged 58, she took the name Banya Htaw, "Old Queen," and left
much of the affairs of state to her son-in-law and heir-apparent Dhammazedi while she
devoted herself to works of merit at the Shwedagon Pagoda.
 Dhammazedi succeeded Shinsawbu in 1470 at the age of 56. His early life as a monk
brought about a bent towards learning — he knew many languages and was well-versed
in the Tipitaka, astrology and medicine – as well as a deep piety. A great promoter of
Buddhism, one of his most notable efforts was to re-establish the monkhood of
Hanthawaddy on a firmer basis. This he did by sending a mission to Sri Lanka and
 establishing an ordination centre on the site of the present Kalayani Thein in Bago – for
the re-ordination of monks in the Mahavihara tradition of Sri Lanka.
 The Kalyani Inscription, now broken into several fragments, records Dhammazedi’s
efforts to establish the ordination centre. He has also left behind a great many other
inscriptions recording his efforts to promote Buddhism. Indeed, his is one of the great
collections of Mon inscriptions—the other is that of King Kyansittha (1084-1113) of
Bagan—which are of value in the historical study of the Mon language.
 One of the most important of Dhammazedi’s inscriptions is the Shwedagon Inscription,
now at the northeastern extremity of the platform of the Shwedagon Pagoda. In Pali, Mon
and Myanmar, it gives the history of the Shwedagon and the works of merit performed on
it by the kings of Hanthawaddy, in particular Shinsawbu and Dhammazedi himself.
 But the Inscription does not cover all. The works of merit performed by Shinsawbu and
Dhammazedi are filled out by the chronicles. In some of these works Dhammazedi
excelled Shinsawbu. For the gilding of the Shwedagon, Shinsawbu offered her weight in
gold, 41 kilograms; Dhammazedi offered the weight of his queen and his heir-apparent.
Shinsawbu presented a 2.8 tonne bell to the Shwedagon; Dhammazedi offered two bells –
a small 0.8 tonne bell to be hung on the upper platform "to strike in offering to the
Buddha," and a large one, 3.7 metre wide at the mouth, 5.5 metre high and 293.4 tonne in
weight.
 The measurements of King Dhammazedi’s Bell given in the chronicles agree more or less
with that given by Balbi. But the weight is a problem. The Mingun Bell – the largest bell
in Myanmar and cast by King Bodawpaya on 28 April 1808—is 5.1 metre wide at the
mouth, 6.2 metre high and weights 90% tonne. Why would the smaller King
Dhammazedi’s Bell weigh more than three times as much? Is there an error somewhere
in the chronicles?
 The chronicles, giving the story of how the great Bell came to be cast, relates that
Dhammazedi ordered a numbering of the households in the kingdom but over-zealous
ministers, exceeding the order, collected a tax from the households and obtained 180,000
viss (293.4 tonne) of copper. Then, to allay his wrath, they proposed that the copper be
used to cast a bell and that was how the great Bell came to be cast. The chronicles also
note that the date chosen for the casting of the Bell, 5 February 1484, was astrologically
inappropriate and that the Bell had an unpleasant sound.
 Is King Dhammazedi’s Bell as heavy as the chronicles say it is? Is its sound indeed an
unpleasant one? An answer is not possible because the bell has not been available for
viewing or striking in modern times.
 In 1600 Filipe de Brito de Nicote, a Portuguese mercenary in the employ of Minrazagri,
King of the Rakhine kingdom of Mrauk-U, built the fortress of Santiago do Syriam at
Thanlyin across the river from Yangon and maintained himself there until 1613 to take
advantage of the lucrative trade of the Bay of Bengal and play a part in the power politics
of the early 17th century. Looking to strengthen his defences and casting cannon for the
purpose, he took possession of King Dhammazedi’s Bell and tried to transport it to
Thanlyin. However, he lost it in the river and the great Bell has been there ever since.
 Recovery of King Dhammazedi’s Bell, the offering of a devout king and his people to
one of Myanmar’s most sacred shrines, would restore a lost heritage to the Myanmar
people. There would also be an added boon—the Bell’s inscription will be valuable
material for historical and linguistic scholarship.
 

Tun Aung Chain

Great Oriental Bells of Asia

and the Pacific Rim

Here are listed 25 existing and former Oriental-profile great bells of Asia and the Pacific Rim, in
descending order by weight.  The format of each entry is explained in a key at the bottom of this
page.

A companion page lists Western-profile great bells in the same region.

Bells in italics no longer exist.

1.   Rangoon, Burma - ~655,000 lbs

 "Bell of Dhammazedi", pitch?, ~180,000 vis, maker?, February 1484

 formerly in Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Rangoon;
now lost at the bottom of the river.
 Cast by order of King Dhammazedi, 9th of the Mon kings of Burma.
Stolen from the pagoda in 1608; sank in the river when the raft which was carrying it broke
apart; may be recoverable.
1 vis = 1.65 kg (approximately), giving a total weight of 297 metric tonnes.
 Links:
> Illustrated page about the world's three largest bells (this is #1); note that one of the weights
given there (600 US tons) is incorrect.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

2.   Osaka, Japan - ~251,000 or 310,000 lbs

 un-named, pitch not recorded, ~114000 kg, maker unknown, 1902 or 1903
 Shi-tenno-ji Temple
Osaka, Japan
 Oriental profile; melted down in 1942 for its metal.
 Links:
> Photo from russianbells.com
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

3.   Pingdingshan City, China - 254,000 lbs

  "Lucky Bell", pitch unknown, 127 US tons, Tianrui Group, 2000
 Fodushan Scenic Area
Pingdingshan City, Hunan Province, China
 Oriental profile; height 318 inches (8.108m), diameter 201 inches (5.118m);
now the heaviest working bell in the world.
 Links:
> Description and photo from russianbells.com
> Stock photo, with description
> A travel page has a detailed description of the bell, but no photo.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the miscellaneous bellfoundries.

4.   Mingun, Burma/Myanmar - ~200,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 55555 peik-thar, anonymous, 1790

 Mingum sull'Irravaddy / Mingoon / Mingun (near Mandalay)
 Western profile but without soundbow, and therefore listed both here and on the companion
page.
About 366 cm high and 495 cm diameter.
1 peik-thar (approximately 1 vis) = 1.63 kg, giving an equivalent weight of 90.554 metric tonnes.
Was the largest soundable bell in the world.
 Links:
> Illustrated page about the world's three largest bells (this was #2), from russianbells.com
> Ray's Bell Page #1 has a photo of this bell.
> Photo blog article (in French) with several photos of this bell.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

5.   Kyongju, South Korea - ~159,000 lbs

 "Emilee" (or "Emille"), D#, ~72000 kg, maker unknown, 771

 National Museum
Kyongju, South Korea
 Oriental profile, about 280 cm high and 227 cm in diameter;
was formerly in the temple of Pondok in this city.
Was once ranked as the third-heaviest soundable bell in the world.
 Links:
> A page on Asian Bells includes a photo of this bell.
> Photo from russianbells.com
> John Ketteringham's recording of this bell
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

6.   Beijing (Peking), China - ~123,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 56000 kg, Yao Kuang-Hsiao (or Ya Kuang-Hsia), 1404

 The Bell Tower (Zhong Lou)
at north end of Dianmenwai street
 Oriental profile with slight flare in 8-scalloped rim;
height about 500 cm (plus nearly 200 cm for its suspension loop), diameter about 450 cm;
 the only survivor of 5 to 9 great bells made in 1402-1423 by the same founder.
Also estimated at 63 tonnes.
 Links:
> About the bell .
> Photo of the Bell Tower
> Photo of the bell in the Bell Tower
> History and photos of the Drum and Bell Towers
> Photo of the base of the bell
> Photo of The Bell Tower and The Drum Tower
> Tour guide page, with extensive descriptions and exterior photos of the towers (but none of
the bell)
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the miscellaneous bellfoundries.

7.   Beijing (Peking), China - ~102,500 lbs

 "Yong Le", pitch?, 46.5 tonnes, anonymous, c.1420

 Da Zhong Si (Great Bell Temple) Museum
 Diameter 330 cm
Named for the emporer during whose reign this bell was cast.
 Links:
> Photo of the bell
> Photo from www.russianbells.com
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

8.   Nara, Japan - ~96000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 96000 lbs, anonymous, 732

 To-dai-ji (temple)
 Possibly recast in 1239.
Diameter 271 cm.
Also reported as 35 tonnes.
 Links:
> Photo from www.russianbells.com
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

9.   Yangon, Myanmar - ~84000 lbs

 "Maha Tissada" (Three Voice), pitch?, 42 tons, anonymous, 1841

 Northwest pavilion
Shwe Dagon Pagoda
Yangon, Myanmar (was Rangoon, Burma)
 [no remarks yet]
 Links:
> The official history of the pagoda tells the story of this bell and a smaller one (see below.
> Those histories are recounted in an extensive description of the pagoda.
> On the floor plan of the pagoda, this bell is at #37.
> Photo of the Maha Tissada bell
 > Photo of the Maha Tissada bell
> Photo of the Maha Tissada bell
> Photo of the Maha Tissada bell
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

10.   Kyushu, Japan - ~82000 lbs

 "Flying Dragon", A, 37500 kg, maker? (Kyoto), 1977

 Rengein Tanjyoji Temple
Kyushu
Japan
 Diameter 288cm, height 455cm
Claimed as the biggest temple bell in the world; but clearly is not the heaviest.
 Links:
> English-language page about the bell; follow the "try to ring" link at the bottom of the page to
see more description and a sound option.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

11.   Hwacheon-gun, Korea - ~82000 lbs

 "World Peace Bell", pitch?, 37.5 tons, maker?, 2005

 World Peace Park
Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon Province
 "shaped like a Buddhist Bell from the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C.-A.D. 936), measuring 2.5 meters
wide and 4.7 meters high"
Cast "from metal from empty cartridges used during the Korean War (1950-53) and the conflict
zones of some 30 regions including Palestine, Ethiopia and Colombia."
Also reported as 21 tonnes, diameter 223 cm, at Imjingong.
 Links:
> Article with two photos of the bell and one of its location.
> News article about the dedication of the World Peace Park
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

12.   Ninh Binh, Viet Nam - ~80,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 36 tonnes, maker? (in Hue), 2009

 Bai Dinh Spiritual Centre
Gia Sinh Commune
Gia Vien district
Ninh Binh, Viet Nam
 Links:
> News article (Ap.2009) about the pagoda at Bai Dinh Spiritual Centre mentions this bell,
describing it as the heaviest in Viet Nam, cast in Hue (country's centre of bronze casting), of
bronze and gold.
> News article about this and a smaller bell for the same place
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.
13.   Kyoto, Japan - ~77,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 35 tonnes, anonymous, 1614

 Hoko-ji Monastery
Kyoto, Japan
 Oriental profile
One of the two largest bells cast in Japan before the 20th c.
Diameter 276 cm.
Also reported as nearly 30 tons.
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

14.   Kyoto, Japan - ~77,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 35 tonnes, anonymous, 1636

 Chion-In Temple
Kyoto, Japan
 Oriental profile
One of the two largest bells cast in Japan before the 20th c.;
at 274 cm diameter, it has been claimed to be the largest Buddhist temple bell in Japan.
Also reported as nearly 30 tons.
 Links:
> Photo from russianbells.com
> Ray's Bell Page #1 has a photo and sound clip of this bell.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

15.   Ninh Binh, Viet Nam - ~60,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 27 tonnes, maker? (in Hue), 2008

 Bai Dinh Spiritual Centre
Gia Sinh Commune
Gia Vien district Ninh Binh, Viet Nam
 Links:
> News article about this and a larger bell for the same place
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

16.   Beijing (Peking), China - ~55,000 lbs

 name?, pitch?, 25 tonnes, anonymous, c.1420

 Da Zhong Si (Great Bell Temple) Museum
 Iron; Oriental profile presumed
Diameter 240 cm
 Links:
> Other links are listed under the larger bell in this place, above.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

17.   Yangon, Myanmar - ~51,000 lbs

  "Maha Ganda" (Sweet Voice), pitch?, 23 tonnes, 1791
 Northeast pavilion
Shwe Dagon Pagoda
Yangon, Myanmar (was Rangoon, Burma)
 Also reported as cast between 1775 and 1779.
 Links:
> On the floor plan of the pagoda, this bell is at #19.
> Photo of the Maha Ganda bell
> Photo of the Maha Ganda (or Maha Gandha) bell
> Photo of the Maha Ganda bell
> Other links are listed under the larger bell in this place, above.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

18.   Nanking (Nanjing), China - ~50,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 22.6 tons, maker?, 1389

 Civic Bell Tower
Nanking, China
 Oriental profile presumed; height 360 cm, diameter 240 cm;
cast by order of the first Ming Dynasty emperor.
(Three other bells, made about the same time and presumably similar, have disappeared.)
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

19.   Nanking (Nanjing), China - over 40,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, over 20 tons, maker?, 712

 Unknown
Nanking, China
 Oriental profile, scalloped rim, diameter 2 meters;
cast by order of the emperor Hsüan Tsang;
possibly of Korean workmanship.
(Until "recently", a similar bell was in Canton, China.)
 Links:
>
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

20.   Kunming, China - ~31,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 14 tonnes, maker?, c.1410

 Golden Temple
 Remarks?
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

21.   Pyong-Yang, Korea - ~20,000 lbs

  "name"?, pitch?, about 10 tons, maker?, 1727
 city center
Pyong-Yang, Korea
 [No remarks yet]
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

22.   Con Dao Island, Viet Nam - ~18,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, 8 tonnes, maker? (in Hue), 2008

 (unknown)
 Height 4.6m, diameter 3.3m
Also described as 9.4 tonnes
 Links:
> Viet Nam News article about the casting of this bell; to be completed by July 27, 2008.
> Another news article gives a different weight for the bell.
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

23.   Seoul, Korea - ? lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, reported weight?, maker?, 1468

 Chong-ro (ancient main central intersection)
Seoul, Korea
 Oriental profile presumed; height 280 cm, diameter 228 cm
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

24.   Seoul, Korea - ? lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, reported weight?, maker?, 1462

 Buksoo Palace grounds
Seoul, Korea
 Oriental profile presumed; height 250 cm, diameter 172 cm
 Links:
> Where this bell lies in the total sequence of output of the unidentified bellfoundries.

25.   Lantau Island, Hong Kong - over 12,000 lbs

 "name"?, pitch?, over 6 tons or over 2000 catties, maker?, 1937?

 Po Lin Monastery
Ngong Ping Road
 Remarks?
 Links:
> The Wikipedia article about the monastery does not mention this bell.
> The Website of the monastery (English language version) says nothing about the bell, and
gives no clue as to where it might
Great Bell of Dhammazedi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The Great Bell of Dhammazedi is believed to be the largest bell in the world.[1] It was cast in
1484 by the Mon monarch, Dhammazedi, and was located in Shwedagon Pagoda of Yangon,
Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).

Contents
 1 Description
 2 Theft from Shwedagon Pagoda
 3 Current status
 4 References
 5 See also

[edit] Description
The bell was said to be twelve cubits high and eight cubits wide. The metal used for the bell
included silver and gold as well as copper and tin. It is believed to have weighed around 300
tonnes. Click here to see a drawing of the bell as it appeared while still at the Shwedagon
Pagoda.

Prior to the casting of the bell, During the time that the bell was to be cast, King Dhammazedi's
astrologer advised him to postpone the date, since he believed it was astrologically at the time of
"Crocodile Constellation", and there would not be any sound. After the bell was completed, it
reportedly gave an unpleasant sound.

During the 1500s, Gaspar Bulby, a Venetian gem merchant, visited the Shwedagon Pagoda and
wrote in his diary about the King Dhammazedi Bell. His description of the Great Bell said that it
had writing engraved from top to bottom around its circumference that he could not decipher at
that time. Reference Book, History of Rangoon (Dagon) 1938 Library of Congress.

[edit] Theft from Shwedagon Pagoda

In 1602, Portuguese warlord and mercenary, Philip de Brito removed the Dhammazedi bell from
the Shwedagon Pagoda and carried it through the Bago River to his stronghold of Thanlyin (also
known as Syriam). However, the ship carrying the bell supposedly sank into Yangon River,
along with the bell. De Brito was impaled on a wooden stake when Burmese forces under
Anaukpetlun recaptured the town in September 1613.
[edit] Current status
Numerous individuals have tried to save the bell, thus far without success. Professional deep sea
diver, James Blunt, has made 115 dives to find the bell, using sonar images of objects in the area
for guidance.[2] Making it even harder to find is the fact that there are also 3 shipwrecks in the
area. The water is muddy and visibility is extremely poor under the surface. The Dhammazedi
Bell is thought to be buried in 25 feet of mud. The great Bell rests between the East Indianman
Komine and Konning David, along with small pieces of the De Britos galleon.

In 2000, the Burmese government has asked an English marine biologist / archaeologist /
adventurer named Mike Hatcher and his team to raise the bell; they want to see it restored to the
Pagoda. Hatcher has agreed to undertake the project, which has involvement from Japanese,
Australian and American companies. Richard Gere, a committed and active supporter of
Buddhist ideals, is involved in raising funds. The project would undoubtedly inspire curiosity at
an international level. The German film company which will be shooting the expedition says,
"Should the salvage operation succeed, the reaction in the Buddhist world would be comparable
to finding the Holy Grail in the Christian West."

One of Burma's most sacred religious relics, it is believed that its restoration in the pagoda will
bring good fortune back to Myanmar. Certainly, recovery of King Dhammazedi"s Bell— the
offering of a devout king and his people to one of Myanmar"s most sacred shrines— would
restore a lost heritage to the Myanmar people. In more ways than one, in fact´ for the bell"s
inscription would provide valuable material for historical and linguistic scholarship.

The project is not without its opponents: Some pro-democracy campaigners say the salvage
operation might be misconstrued as an endorsement by the international community of
Myanmar's military dictatorship, and should wait until talks with the regime have progressed or
until such time as a democratic government is in place.

One of seven salvage projects forecast for Mike Hatcher and his team in 2001, Mike's team was
slated to begin the search for the precise location of the Dhammazedi Bell in March that year.
After a flurry of excitement stirred up by BBC's announcement of the project, however, it
apparently did not get off the ground, perhaps (we speculate) due to complications involved in
his discovery in June 2000 of a huge sunken wreck in Indonesian waters, with the largest
collection of porcelain ever found.

If the project ever does go forward, divers will use personal mounted sonar with night vision
goggles and copper sulphate detectors to locate the bell, since the mud around all that bronze
would have a high concentration of copper sulphate. About nine months after the survey they
expect to lift the Bell from the river. To do this, they will have to build a small version of a North
Sea Oil platform in the muddy rapids of the confluence of two rivers, and assemble a large crane
to lift the bell out of the water. Once it is lifted, they will construct a railway to transport it uphill
about half a mile to the Shwedagon Pagoda. This final operation will take about four months.