Two pious merchant brothers from the Mon country of Lower Burma, Tapussa and Bhallika (တပုဿ၊ ဘလ္လိက), met the Buddha in northern India soon after he had attained enlightenment, and were entrusted with eight sacred hair relics.

The Buddha then explained to them the origin of the hill's name: ages before, it was the home of a giant centipede who devoured elephants and piled their tusks (Pali singa) high (Pali uttara) on the peak.

Eventually Sakra, a deity of Vedic origins, took pity on the king and cleared the jungle from the hill.

It was because he was only 36 million years old, and therefore did not remember the visits of the earlier Buddhas (which, according to Buddhist cosmology, happened eons in the past).

[citation needed] Following the British capture of Rangoon in the Second Anglo-Burmese War, the hill became a military encampment, a status it retained until the 1920s.