Kyatikyo’s Gold Rock

Tibor Krausz

My first glance of it is a postcard-perfect vision: Perching precariously on a rock ledge, the goldleaf-plated boulder looms picturesquely out of swirling mist. Stray beams of the late-afternoon sun, escaping through a peep in the murky churn of monsoon-bearing clouds, glance off the rock and paint it in iridescent lavender. Balancing atop it perches a small stupa ending in a conical Burmese umbrella resembling a wizard's pointy hat.

Beholding the golden rock shimmering so ephemerally against a backdrop of lowering skies is like witnessing a sacred epiphany straight out of Buddhist iconography. Then again what else should you expect? The Gold Rock of Kyaiktiyo, any Burmese will tell you, is a perennial miracle.

The lumpy pear-shaped boulder with its perky stupa on top appears set to topple over any minute and crash into the jungle below; yet some mysterious force seems to be holding it back from freefall into oblivion by anchoring it firmly to its ledge. The gravity-defying boulder, a local guide buttonholes me with the proud explanation, is held in place by a hair of the Buddha entombed within it.

During His long sojourn millennia ago in spreading His new creed to the ancestors of the Burmese, the Buddha allegedly left behind a single hair of his sacred locks, which came to bestow magical powers on this lowly boulder that volunteered to take it upon itself the task of shielding the Enlightened One's gift from the elements.

"Take off your shoes! Take off your shoes!" The chorused injunction greets me as soon as I make to enter the large mosaic-tiled platform that serves as an alfresco antechamber to the Gold Rock. Fervently devout, Burmese Buddhists consider the immediate environs of any sacred site (of the thousands scattered around the country) to be outer sanctuaries which mortals can enter only barefoot.

Defying the increasing drizzle, worshippers are kneeling and kowtowing before the Gold Rock, one of the nation's most revered contemporary "miracles," a few hours' drive from Yangon, the capital. The visitors are lighting joss sticks and murmuring whispered pleas to the Buddha for his benevolent intercession on behalf of individual supplicants.

During the festival season in December and January thousands upon thousands of pilgrims clamber up the steep, snaking uphill track leading to the Gold Rock; yet even off-season like today in blowy damp weather, some enterprising locals feel beholden to pay a visit to this holy site.

On closer inspection the Gold Rock turns out to be lying securely on a flat broad surface, needing no magical counterbalance to stay in place -- so much so that it would take quite an earthquake to lever it into the void beneath. Yet the kind of rationalist skepticism that takes the better of me the visiting Westerner does not in the least trouble reverential locals.

It's a magical place all around, two younger men in tartan longyis (Burmese sarongs) assure me enthusiastically. They sidle up to me as I seek shelter from the persistent drizzle under the low-lying branches of a gnarled sacred tree. It is home to a pantheon of forest nats (spirits): a lavish doll house-like shrine has been placed on a pedestal under the eaves of the old tree to afford spirits a sanctuary in the locals' effort to win the nats' beneficence as much as stop them from doing mischief.

The two men are clearly delighted to chat up a stranded foreigner: Westerners are rare sights in these outlying rural parts. They regale me with stories of a local zawgyi (alchemist) who disappeared forever into the adjoining verdant jungle, the better to indulge his passion for turning into animals -- now he turns into a tiger, now he turns into an eagle. How about that sodden squirrel over there? I tease them. "Maybe he's turned into that squirrel too!" they deadpan, then snicker.

As the drizzle lays off a bit, I decide to head back downhill. Lining the forest footpath are bamboo shacks peddling a hodgepodge of dead animals by way of magically potent curatives. Monkey skulls, bear paws, tiger tails, whole bats, cobras, tarantellas, and jet-black palm-size scorpions are lumped together in plastic washtubs tipped so as to offer passersby a good view of their contents.

Jelled in a paste of blood, bodily fluids and magical potions, the dead animals appear freshly obtained from a witch's cauldron. "What do they cure?" a vendor with snake-skin charms wrapped around his biceps parrots my query. "Ever'thing! Ever'thing!" Cancer? "Yes!" Diabetes? "Yes!" Heat rash? "Of course!" Then he turns quizzical: "Why do you have so many illness?"

Shortly thereafter, I am besieged by men hawking amulets. On their palms lie coin-size ceramic and bronze medallions bearing images of meditating buddhas. This, they assure me, here protects against bullet wounds; this here against theft; this here against headstrong females....

I buy a couple. Even for a visiting unbeliever, there's no harm in trying to co-opt indigenous spirits.