Have you ever seen the biggest book in the world? If you don’t know, I would like to show you the place where the world biggest book is kept. It is located in Upper Myanmar, here in Mandalay in the precinct of Kuthodaw Pagoda at the foot of Mandalay hill.

It is a kind of book which no needs to be afraid of being mislaid or lost. So every one can come and study it really.

So let’s view together.

King Mindon, who ruled the Kingdom in Upper Myanmar for 25 years from A.D 1853 to 1878 was peaceful and extremely pious king, devoting most of his time to learning and religious and social welfare works.

This marble book of slabs still stand prominently up to date, among the many good religious deeds committed by king Mindon.

The fifth synod held nearly two thousand years after the Fourth synod, took place at Mindom’s capital Mandalay, in A.D 1871, lasting for over Five months. Over 2400 learned monks from home and abroad participated in it by reciting and editing Tipitakas.(the teaching of the Buddha) orally. The edited text of the Tipitaka was recorded on marble slabs.

Tipitakas are of three categories three Treaties of Suttas(Discourses), five Treatises of Vinaya (Disciplines) and seven Treatises of Abhidamma (Buddhist Philosophy).

The total number of marble slabs on which the Tipitakas were inscribed amounts of 729. Among them 410 slabs record the suttas, 111 slabs record the Vinaya and 208 slabs record the Abhidhamma.

Fifty scribes inscribed the test of edited Tipitakas on the surface. It took the whole day for each scribe to finish inscribing 10 to 12 lines. Learned monks supervised the inscription works and thoroughly checked the inscribed pages. It took 7years 6 months and 14 days to finish inscribing the 729 slabs.

Each marble slab measures 5 feet and 6 inches high, 3 feet and 6 inches wide and 6 inches thick, with inscriptions on both faces. If these 729 marble slabs were to be bound into book form it would form a marble book of 364 feet and 6 inches thickness with 1,458 pages weighing 520 tons, a colossus book of height and thickness.

These 729 inscribed marble slabs are arranged like a book and set up in serial and pagination order in the spacious precinct of Maha Loka Marazein Pagoda which king Mindon built in A.D 1857, to the north-east of his palace city. In the innermost square has 42 inscribed slabs, the middle squares has 168 and the outer 519. They all surround the Maha Loka Marazein Pagoda in the centre.

Buddhists, clergy and laity alike from far and near, come to this place to refer to the inscribed text whenever they have any differences.

Were the editors of the Guinness Book of world records aware of this the largest Marble book in Mandalay, they ought to have revised their previous entry.