The Hswagata Buddha Tooth Relics Preservation

1.1 Birth of Siddhartha Gautama  Siddhartha Gautama, who would become known as the Buddha, was born in 563 BCE in Lumbini, a serene grove located in present-day Nepal. His father, King Suddhodana, was the ruler of the Shakya clan, while his mother, Queen Maya, was revered for her grace and piety.  According to tradition, Queen Maya dreamt of a white elephant entering her womb—a divine sign that foretold the birth of a great leader (M. I, 87).  On the full moon day of Vesak, Queen Maya gave birth while resting under a sal tree (D. III, 156).  Legends recount that the newborn Siddhartha took seven steps and declared,  "I am born for enlightenment" (D. I,81; “Ahañca, bhikkhave, jātoti,”).  The birth of Siddhartha was celebrated throughout the Shakya kingdom, but a prophecy soon changed the atmosphere. A wise sage, Asita, predicted that the prince would either become a universal monarch or a spiritual teacher who would free humanity from suffering (D. I,85...

 In Buddhist scriptures, the concept of relics ( dhātu sarīraṃ ) holds profound spiritual and symbolic significance. Among these, the relics of long-lived Buddhas such as the "Kakusandha Buddha" are celebrated for their miraculous, indivisible nature. The scriptural reference, "Dīghāyuko Buddhānaṃ dātu sarīraṃ suvaṇṇakkhandho vīya ekaghanam tiṭṭhati," encapsulates this idea, illustrating the extraordinary qualities of the Buddha’s relics. This essay explores the meaning of this passage and its spiritual implications. The Relics of Long-Lived Buddhas The term Dīghāyuko Buddhānaṃ refers to Buddhas with exceptionally long lifespans, such as the Kakusandha Buddha, who lived for 40,000 years. Upon His Parinibbāna (final passing), His bodily relics did not disintegrate or scatter, as is often the case with other Buddhas. Instead, they remained unified, whole, and intact—described metaphorically as being "like a solid block of gold" ( suvaṇṇakkhandho vīya ). Thi...

 The seven indivisible relics: The sacred thread (Sin Kye Chaung): Four in number. The small golden staffs (Sata Dar Tha): Four in number. The hip bones (Dwe Akwa): Two in number. Seven in Total: When combined, they are the seven indivisible relics. These Relics: "Ima Dhatu Yaw": These relics, "Asam Bhinnana": Are indivisible. If Separated: "Bhinna Wa Dhatu Yaw": Once broken or separated, They are no longer indivisible. The Resting Places of the Sacred Relics: The sacred thread and hip bones are placed as follows: Sin Kye Chaung (Sacred Thread): In the island of Lanka (Sri Lanka), known as Siha Ladipe . Dwe Akwa (Hip Bones): The left hip bone is in Brahma’s celestial realm ( Brahma Loke Wa Ma Kan ). The right hip bone is also on the island of Lanka ( Dakina Ka Hu Siha Ladepe ). All of these sacred relics are thus placed in these locations.

Professor Dr. Yin Yin Than, esteemed head of the Faculty of Myanmar Language at the University of Foreign Languages in Yangon, has shared a remarkable experience that underscores the profound significance of Buddha relics in Buddhist practice. One serene evening, while engaged in personal worship within her home’s designated worship room, she encountered an extraordinary phenomenon that would deeply impact her spiritual journey. During her worship, Professor Than was suddenly captivated by a sound reminiscent of countless bees buzzing. Intrigued yet bewildered, she turned her attention towards the sacred Buddha Shining Place in her home. To her astonishment, she witnessed cascading relics descending from the canopy above—an ethereal sight that evoked a sense of joy and divine presence. This moment of serendipity filled her heart with happiness and awe, leading her to collect the fallen relics with reverence. This experience not only enriched Professor Than’s personal worship routine...

Amhākaṃ buddhadhātussa gandhakuṭismiṃ ārakkha puggalā, ārakkha bhikkhū, ārakkha devatā, nāgā, supaṇṇā, kumbhaṇḍā, yakkhādi puggalā ca averā hontu, abyāpajjā hontu, anīghā hontu, sukhī attānaṃ pariharantu, dukkhā muccantu, yathāladdhasampattito māvigacchantu, kammassakā. အမှာကံ ဗုဒ္ဓဓာတုဿ ဂန္ဓကုဋိသ္မိံ အာရက္ခ ပုဂ္ဂလာ, အာရက္ခ ဘိက္ခူ, အာရက္ခ ဒေဝတာ, နာဂါ, သုပဏ္ဏာ, ကုမ္ဘဏ္ဍာ, ယက္ခာဒိ ပုဂ္ဂလာ စ အဝေရာ ဟောန္တု၊ အဗျာပဇ္ဇာ ဟောန္တု၊ အနီဃာ ဟောန္တု၊ သုခီ အတ္တာနံ ပရိဟရန္တု၊ ဒုက္ခာ မုစ္စန္တု၊ ယထာလဒ္ဓသမ္ပတ္တိတော မာဝိဂစ္ဆန္တု၊ ကမ္မဿကာ။