Bells in Myanmar.

The love of bells in Myanmar is somewhat remarkable. Every large pagoda has some dozens of them, of all sizes, hanging round the skirts of the pagoda, the image-house, and sacred posts.

Most of them have long Pali inscriptions on them recording the praises of the Buddha and the aspirations of the donators. This inscription runs round the rim of the great bell at the ‘Kyaikthanlan’ pagoda at Mawlamyine. Most of the bells have a fine tone, and a flick with the finger is sufficient to cause a vibration through the whole twenty five tons of metal in Mahaganda Bell.

The shape of the Myanmar bells comes straight down to the mouth like a barrel not expanding at the rim, like those of European make, but their tones are very sweet. In Myanmar, Bells are entirely reserved for pagodas. There is no Myanmar who doesn’t have a bell in his house. The bells on the more sacred shrines are very often entirely gold or silver. Several on the Shwedagon pagoda are of gold, studded with precious stones and are worthy many hundred U.S. dollars a piece.
In 1853, the British troops had tried to carry off the sacred Sintgumin Bell from Shwedagon Pagoda and got it on board of a ship. Unfortunately, the vessel turned over, and the great bell was capsized into the mud at the bottom of the Yangon River. Fortunately, the Burmese people succeeded in salvaging the Bell from the bottom of the River and replaced it on the Shwedagon Pagoda.

On his return journey from the north in 1557, King Bayintnaung (1551–1581) set up the great bronze bell at the Shwezigon Pagoda at Bagan.

The great bell, weighing 89 tons, built by Bodawpaya in the name of Mingun Bell is the third largest ringing bell all over the world but the larger two in Russia cannot be rung.