Ghosts in the Architecture

A few years back while researching the founding of Mandalay under King Mindon of Myanmar (early 1800's), I came across a reference regarding the foundations of the palace at Mandalay.

The story went that four pregnant women were murdered and buried at the four compass point entrances of the inner palace. The foetuses along with their scorned mothers were then expected to rise again as angry ghosts that would protect these entrances from those that were not permitted access. And this was a common practice by all accounts. Why these wronged spirits would want to help out those that wronged them is beyond me...

Apparently the practice had been banned by the good King Mindon but all soureces said that this did occur at Mandalay even though the Buddhist king renounced the practice. There was some skepticism in the sources too that said something about the King just looking good by outlawing the practice although noone in the their right mind during the late days of the court of the Burmese Kings would live somewhere without ghosts 'built in' to the architecture.

King Mindon's son Thibaw did a bit of work adding ghosts to the palace compound after Mindon's death. More on that grusome tale another time...