From Tinselman come these images of the extraordinary Kyaik-htiyo pagoda in Myanmar, which is said to have been built 2,400 years ago. The pagoda rests on top of a large rock, which has been completely gilded in gold, and which in turn balances precariously on the edge of a much larger rock:
By gently rocking the boulder a thread can be passed underneath; seemingly appears as if the additional weight of a few pounds, or a strong wind, would send it sliding down from the place it has occupied for unknown centuries watching over three thousand feet into the sloping valley beneath and we know what freakish law keeps it in its position.
Anyway pious Buddhists attribute it to the power of the relic enshrined in the pagoda.
This relic is a hair of Gotama given to a hermit residing on the mountain by the Buddha himself as he was returning from the second heaven of the Nats whither he had gone to preach the law to his mother.
However, barring any natural disasters, the pagoda probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The stone hasn't moved for hundreds of years; perhaps the single hair of Lord Buddha, upon which the pagoda is erected, is somehow keeping this gargantuan rock from slipping away...?
From www.kirchersociety.org
