The Soolay Pagoda, Rangoon Town

Photograph of the Sule Pagoda at Rangoon (Yangon), taken by J. Jackson in c.1868, part of an album of 43 views of Burma (Myanmar) from the Sladen Collection. The Sule Pagoda stands at the junction of Dalhousie (now Mahabandula) Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Rangoon, and Sule Pagoda Road. The 48-metre tall gilded zedi or stupa is unusual in that its octagonal shape continues up through the bell and inverted bowl, forms which are normally circular. The spire is composed of a hti or umbrella and a flag-like vane. Around it stand five dagun-daing, tall prayer-posts decorated with the traditional hintha bird and a long streamer. The pagoda was established as the central landmark of Rangoon when the city was rebuilt by the British in the mid-19th century and the streets were laid out in a geometrical grid pattern around the shrine.