The King wanted the book to last for five thousand years so paper would not do. In 1860 he started the construction in Mandalay (then the capital of Burma). At the base of the Mandalay Hill still stands the largest book in the world. Its dimensions are staggering: the book has seven hundred and thirty leaves and one thousand six hundred and forty pages. Each one is made from local marble and has around one hundred lines of writing upon it.
It doesn’t end there, though – each of the pages is three and a half feet wide and five feet tall. In order to stand freely these pages are five inches thick. Each of these stone tablets has its own roof and they are all arranged around a central, golden pagoda – known as the Kuthodaw Pagoda. The book itself does not tell the story of Mindon’s life – many persons of royal lineage would no doubt be tempted to give a version of their own history dressed, no doubt, in flowery hyperbole. Each page is contained within its own glistening white pagoda to protect it from the elements.
Together the rows of pagodas form the biggest book in the world - and this is how Kuthodaw is now known. The book contains the Pail Canon, which is a collection of scriptures in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. First written down over two thousand years ago, Mindon felt that these scriptures would be a fitting testament to his life. We know this because the seven hundred and thirtieth leaf of the book records the actions of the king for posterity.