Naungdawgyi Pagoda

The Naungdawgyi or Elder Brother Pagoda is a smaller version of the Shwedagon. Its origins are obscure. Some claim that the King Ukkalapa (the founder of the Shwedagon) built the pagoda on the site where the sacred hairs of the Buddha were first placed on their arrival, while others contend that Tapussa, elder of the two merchant brothers who received the hairs, went once again to the Buddha and received another sacred hair which he enshrined in a pagoda close to the Shwedagon. Hence its name, the Elder Brother Pagoda. The pagoda was enlarged several times, lastly by U Mun Htaw, a Mon and the wealthiest of the Myanmar engaged in the timber trade at Mawlamyine, in 1876.