Salay

Salay lies beside the Irrawaddy south of Pagan, in the dry country of central Burma. It grew as a satellite of the Pagan kingdom in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and remained a place of Buddhist learning and worship. Old monuments recall its ties to the royal capital upstream. Among the town's revered images is the Man Buddha, housed in a temple at Salay. The river connects this religious centre with the settlements and shrines of the wider Irrawaddy valley.