TODAY

The late Win Sein Tawya abbot had built, beginning 1992, the world’s largest Reclining Buddha Image (180 m long & 30 m high) at his monastery lying 20 km to the south of Mawlamyine. Inside the gigantic image are sections depicting Buddha’s Chronicles and the purgatories through statues and paintings. On the approach road to the monastery are 500 Buddhist-monk statues, each holding an alms-bowl and with a different facial expression. The remains of the abbot (d.24 April 2015, aged 95) lies behind glass at Tharwara Nibban Hall inside the monastic compound, to be paid homage to by visiting public.