ABSTRACT
Kakku (or alternatively Kekku), is a label for a site encompassing approximately one square mile hosting a complex of pagodas (used here interchangeably with the word stupa to denote Buddhist structures with flared conical shapes) covering almost 3.1 hectares laid in a diamondshaped pattern meant to resemble the outline of the Buddha’s footprint. The site lies alongside a river in the mountains 42 kilometres southeast of Taunggyi (see Figure 11.1). It is managed by a gawbaka, or committee, selected by the leadership of the Pa’oh people who claim the site as their own. Meetings with the gawbaka indicate some uncertainty regarding the origins of Kakku, with the committee noting the existence of several different histories. As a spiritual site, they note that within the Pa’oh culture the site itself has a significance outside Buddhism, with the land seen as a domain of nats, or spirits in Pa’oh animist beliefs. Buddhism arrived in the region via Theravada monks during the third century BC under the reign of King Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty. A version of the Kakku’s history posits that the complex resulted from an edict from Ashoka to construct 84,000 pagodas throughout his empire, and began with an initial stupa that in the following centuries was expanded by successive additions. Another version of the history asserts that construction began in the twelfth century AD under King Alaung Sithu of the Bagan dynasty. The gawbaka note that for both histories there seems to be consensus that the modern complex only took form with an acceleration of stupa building in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries AD. The committee indicates that oral histories suggest Kakku at one time had more than 7,000 stupas, but that a census only counted 2,478 (see Figure 11.2). This number, however, is subject to change, as there continue to be efforts to excavate and restore parts of the complex. In the current era, the complex serves as a sacred site for locals and pilgrims following varying degrees of animist and Buddhist faith, both Pa’oh or otherwise.
