Earlier this year workers took down several of Shwedagon’s smaller hti for annual repairs. Pic: Hein Latt Aung

A MAJOR investigation into the damage caused to Shwedagon Pagoda by last May’s Cyclone Nargis will accompany the annual offering of gold leaf, said an official of the pagoda’s board of the trustees.

Both will begin on September 1.

The pagoda official, U Tun Shwe, said the scaffolding would be set up next week and would take nearly one month. “We will draw up a list of the damage to the pagoda from top to bottom as soon as the scaffolding is set up,” he said.

The extent of storm damage to the inner part of the hti, the umbrella, is unknown, though the exterior seems not to be affected, he said.

Where the gold leaf is torn it will be replaced, and the lotus flower structure on the pagoda will be renovated, he added.

“We had planned to rebuild that part before, but we postponed it. Now we have to renovate it in its entirety, including the interior and the sculptures, and re-cover it in gold leaf,” he said.

The expense of the structural renovation of the pagoda in concrete is estimated about K3.4 billion, and there will be unknown additional costs at the end of the damage-listing project, he said adding that it would take more than six months.
“We have collected one viss of gold (1 viss equals 1.6 kilograms, or 3.6 pounds) and 45 tical. We are grateful to the people who returned the nugget of gold and jewels to us that was missing from the pagoda,” he said “and we have received more than 80 tical of gold donated to the pagoda.”

He said it was hard to estimate the amount of jewels and gold bell used in the decoration of the pagoda’s umbrella, or the cost if its replacement.

“I am sure the expenditure of the projects will be met, though it is a large amount because Shwedagon is so magnificent, and enshrines the relics of four Buddhas,” he said.