These 729 inscribe marble slabs are arranged like a book and set up in serial and pagination order in the spacious precinct of Maha Lawka Marazein Pagoda which King Mindon built in A.D. 1857, to the north east of his palace.
On these marble slabs, editing Tipitakas ( the teaching of the Buddha ) were recorded at the 5th Synod held in Mindon's Capital Mandalay.
Tipitakas are of three categories, three Treatises of Suttas ( Discourses ), five Treatises of Vinaya ( Disciplines ) and seven Treaties of Abhidhamma ( Buddhist Philosophy ).
The total number of marble slabs on which the Tipitakas were inscribed amounts to 729; 410 slabs record the Suttas, 111 slabs record the Vinaya and 208 slabs record the Abhidhamma. 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 1458 pages weighing 520 tons; a colossus book of height and thickness.
They all surrounded the Maha Lowka Marazein Pagoda in the center. Each inscribe marble slab is housed in a brick structure designed on the reliquary of the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha at Kandy Sri Lanka. Buddhist, 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.
