Buddhism in Myanmar

• 1. Introduction

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  Buddhism in Myanmar shapes nearly every corner of daily life in a country where roughly 90 percent of the population follows the faith. With approximately 48 million Buddhists, Myanmar holds the third largest Buddhist population in the world, after Thailand and China. But sheer numbers tell only part of the story. No other country devotes a higher proportion of its income to religion, and nowhere else does the ratio of monks to ordinary citizens run as deep. The questions worth asking are how that came to be, what it looks like on the ground, and why monks have so often ended up at the center of political upheaval. The answers reach back more than two thousand years, to a time when missionaries first crossed the Bay of Bengal carrying texts written on solid gold plaques.

• 2. Ancient Roots

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  Pali historical chronicles record that the Indian emperor Ashoka dispatched two bhikkhus, Sona and Uttara, to a place called Suvaṇṇabhūmi, meaning "The Golden Land," around 228 BCE. Scholars have placed that destination somewhere in ancient Southeast Asia, with Thaton in lower Burma and Nakon Pathom in Thailand both proposed as candidates.

  By the 4th century CE, most of the Pyu territory had become predominantly Buddhist. What the excavated texts and Chinese records make clear is that Theravada was the dominant strand, even as pre-Buddhist practices persisted alongside it. A 3rd-century Chinese source described a "Kingdom of Liu-Yang" in central Burma where people worshiped the Buddha and "several thousand sramanas" lived.

  The oldest surviving Buddhist texts in the Pali language come from the Pyu city-state of Sri Ksetra. Written on solid gold plaques, these inscriptions are dated from the mid-5th to the mid-6th century. The script used on those plaques closely resembles writing from the Andhra-Kuntala-Pallava region of South India, which suggests that Theravada first arrived in Burma from that part of the subcontinent.

  Scholar Peter Skilling notes firm epigraphical evidence for a dominant Theravada presence in both the Pyu Kingdom of Sriksetra and the Mon kingdom of Dvaravati from roughly the 5th century CE onward, though Mahayana was present as well. Archaeological finds in Sri Ksetra, Pegu, and other parts of ancient Burma also attest to Vajrayana, Mahayana, and Brahmanical Hinduism, with deities including Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Garuda, and Lakshmi appearing especially in Lower Burma.

• 3. Bagan and the Reform Movement

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  Anawrahta, who ruled the Bagan Kingdom from 1044 to 1077, accelerated the spread of Buddhism by conquering the Irrawaddy river valley, including the Mon city of Thaton. His reign brought Mon Buddhist culture, architecture, and writing into the Bamar tradition on a large scale.

  Burmese historical chronicles say Anawrahta was converted to Theravada by a Mon bhikkhu named Shin Arahan. The Ari monks who had previously held influence were known for eating evening meals, drinking liquor, and presiding over animal sacrifices and sexual rites. Anawrahta banished many who refused to conform; some fled to Popa Hill and the Shan Hills. He invited Theravada scholars from the Mon lands, Sri Lanka, and India to Bagan, and he built both the Shwezigon Pagoda and the Shwesandaw Pagoda.

  Yet Anawrahta did not try to eliminate every non-Theravada practice. He permitted and even promoted the worship of traditional Burmese nat spirits within Buddhist temples, apparently as a way to draw the population gradually toward the new religion. The royal court tended to support Theravada, but Hinduism, Ari Buddhism, and nat worship remained influential at least through the 13th century.

  At the peak of the Bagan Kingdom, the capital became a serious center of Pali scholarship. Victor Lieberman notes that monks at Bagan read texts on prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, and medicine, and "developed an independent school of legal studies." Prominent scholars of the era included Aggavamsa Thera, Capata, Saddhammasiri, and Aggapandita, whose work centered on Pali grammar and Theravada Abhidhamma.

  The Mon monk Shin Uttarajiva became a defining figure by leading a realignment with the Mahavihara school of Sri Lanka during the reigns of Narathu, Naratheinkha, and Narapatisithu. Many Burmese monks of the older order refused to join the new Sri Lanka-based lineage, producing a schism that lasted two centuries before the old order died out.

  The scale of royal donations to Buddhist temples grew so large throughout the 13th century, with tax-exempt land grants and even slaves transferred to temples, that the kingdom's economic base eroded. The state grew too weak to reform the sangha or resist the Mongol invasions. The Bagan capital fell in 1287.

• 4. Fragmentation and Reform

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  Dhammazedi, who ruled Hanthawaddy from 1471 to 1492, was himself a former Mon bhikkhu before becoming king. According to the Kalyani Inscriptions, he carried out an extensive reform by sending thousands of Buddhist monks to Sri Lanka to receive ordination and training in the Mahavihara tradition. He also expelled undisciplined monks, including those who owned land or other material wealth.

  The Shan kingdoms of this era supported Theravada Buddhism in imitation of Burmese elites, though Buddhist institutions in Shan territory never wielded the political power they held in Burmese regions. In the same period, Buddhist scholarship produced notable figures in the Kingdom of Ava, including Ariyavamsa, whose Manisaramañjusa and Manidipa became important works. Ariyavamsa also wrote in the Burmese language, making him one of the first scholars to produce Buddhist texts in that vernacular.

  The founder of Hanthawaddy, Wareru, compiled the Wareru Dhammasattha, an influential legal code shaped by both customary Bagan law and Buddhist principles. Meanwhile, forest-dwelling Ari monks continued to practice rites involving alcohol and animal sacrifice, even as a teetotal movement gained ground from the 14th century onward. Surviving inscriptions attest to this movement, and by the 16th and 17th centuries it had largely replaced public alcohol consumption with the drinking of pickled tea.

  These Sinhalese Theravada ordination lineages that spread through Hanthawaddy also reached Mrauk-U, Ava, Toungoo, and Prome, and eventually traveled along trade routes to the Shan realm, Thailand, and Laos. They carried Theravada texts, lowland alphabets, and calendars that laid the groundwork for the standardizing reforms of the Taungoo dynasty.

• 5. Taungoo Standardization

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  Bayinnaung, who reigned from 1551 to 1581, distributed copies of the Pali scriptures, promoted scholarship, and built pagodas across his empire, including the Mahazedi Pagoda at Pegu. He promoted mass ordinations into the Sinhala Sangha at the Kalyani Ordination Hall and prohibited all human and animal sacrifices throughout the kingdom. He specifically forbade the Shan custom of killing slaves and animals belonging to a saopha at his funeral.

  Later in the Taungoo era, King Thalun, who reigned from 1584 to 1648, built numerous monasteries and chedis in Upper Burma and patronized scholars including Tipitakalamkara, Ariyalamkara, and Jambudhaja. Thalun's successor Pindale supported Aggadhammalamkara, who translated major Abhidhamma works including the Patthana and the Dhammasangani into Burmese.

  Rural monasteries called kyaungs multiplied during this period and became a near-universal feature of Burmese village life. By the 18th century, the large majority of village males were learning to read and write in these monasteries. As literacy rose above 50 percent among males, the cost of transcribing Buddhist texts fell and the texts became more widely available.

  The 17th century also saw a controversy over whether monks could wear their robes leaving one shoulder exposed. That dispute would consume the sangha for almost a century, until King Bodawpaya of the Konbaung dynasty finally settled it by ruling in favor of covering both shoulders, unifying the sangha under the Sudhamma Nikaya.

• 6. The Konbaung Reformation

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  Bodawpaya, who lived from 1745 to 1819, pursued thorough religious reform. He appointed a council of sangharajas to maintain monastic discipline and named Maung-daung Sayadaw as sangha head with authority to examine monks and defrock those who failed to meet standards. Monthly vinaya recitations were held across the realm, and regular examinations could result in expulsion for repeated failure.

  Bodawpaya also made massive donations to the Buddhist order: regular food offerings, numerous copies of the Tipitaka, monastery and pagoda construction in the capital of Amarapura, and the creation of animal sanctuaries where hunting was prohibited. He banned liquor, opium, cannabis, and the killing of animals in his capital, and he appealed to the lay population to keep the five precepts and the eight precepts on uposatha days.

  One unexpected outcome of Bodawpaya's outreach was the restoration of the upasampada ordination to Sri Lanka, where it established the Amarapura Nikaya. A key intellectual figure of this era was the sangharaja Nanabhivamsa, who wrote commentaries on the Nettippakarana and a sub-commentary on the Digha Nikaya. During the first half of the 19th century, almost the entire Sutta Pitaka became available in Burmese translation.

  The first vipassana meditation teachers also emerged during the Konbaung period. Medawi, who lived from 1728 to 1816, wrote more than thirty Burmese-language vipassana meditation manuals focusing on the three marks of existence and the five aggregates. Medawi argued that the decline of Buddhism resulted not from people living in degenerate times, but simply from their failure to practice. His ideas planted the seeds for the mass lay meditation movement that would reshape the faith a century later.

• 7. Colonial Crisis and Revival

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  Ledi Sayadaw, who lived from 1846 to 1923, became the defining figure of a vipassana movement that emerged as a direct response to the upheaval of British rule. He traveled widely, founded lay study and meditation groups, and wrote voluminously, including the Paramattha Sankhip, a Burmese verse translation of the Abhidhammatthasangaha. He taught that the study of that text alongside meditation practice allowed even laypersons to attain awakening "in this very life."

  British governance, which formally extended across all of Burma by 1886, was secular. Monks who broke the vinaya went unpunished by the colonial government. Christian missionary schools competed openly for students. Many Burmese Buddhists felt that the Buddhist dispensation, the sasana, was in decline. Schoolteachers, clerks, and merchants stepped forward to assume a role in preserving it that had previously belonged to the king and royal elites.

  The response included waves of Buddhist publishing and preaching, the founding of hundreds of lay Buddhist organizations, and the promotion of Buddhist education. The most influential early nationalist organization was the Young Men's Buddhist Association, founded in 1906, which was the first group to cooperate with politically active monks.

  U Ottama argued that British rule obstructed Buddhist practice and that independence was therefore a religious necessity. He was arrested repeatedly and died in jail. Another strand of this era was the weikza path, a system of esoteric practices including alchemy and spell recitation, whose practitioners aimed not at nirvana but at semi-immortality while awaiting the future Buddha Metteya. The archetypal weikza figures of this era included Bo Min Gaung and Bo Bo Aung. Ledi Sayadaw's teachings later influenced post-colonial figures including U Ba Khin, S. N. Goenka, and Mahasi Sayadaw, through whom Burmese meditation methods spread to the west.

• 8. Monks, Democracy, and Repression

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  U Nu, Burma's first prime minister after independence in 1948, convened the Sixth Buddhist Synod in 1954 at the newly built Kaba Aye Pagoda in Rangoon. Two thousand five hundred monks attended. The council produced a new edition of the Pali Canon, the Sixth Council Tipitaka. On the 26th of August 1961, parliament amended the constitution to make Buddhism the state religion.

  When Ne Win seized power in 1962, he reversed some of U Nu's religious policies and cracked down on activist monks. It was not until 1980-81 that General Sein Lwin finally forced all monks to register with the government and carry identity cards. He also formed the 47-member State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, empowered to disrobe politically active monks. Even prominent figures such as Mahasi Sayadaw were targeted for showing reluctance to cooperate with the new body.

  The 8888 Nationwide Popular Pro-Democracy Protests of 1988 drew monks from the All Burma Monks' Alliance into the streets. During the chaos that followed the military crackdown, Buddhist monks helped organize day-to-day affairs including trash collection, traffic direction, and unofficial policing before the military re-established control in 1989. In late 1990 and early 1991, the army raided 133 monasteries and arrested numerous monks, including senior abbots such as U Thumingala, most of whom were forced to disrobe and sent to labor camps.

  During the Saffron Revolution of 2007, thousands of monks joined protests across the country. The military's crackdown included raids on monasteries and the imprisonment, torture, and killing of monks. U Gambira, leader of the All Burma Monks' Alliance, founded by U Nat Zaw, was sentenced in November 2008 to 68 years in prison, later reduced to 63 years. He was eventually released during a mass pardon on the 13th of January 2012, as part of the 2011-2012 Burmese political reforms, though he was re-arrested at least three times later that same year.

  In 2016, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee reported that the sangha included 535,327 members: 282,347 fully ordained monks and 252,962 novice monks, alongside 60,390 thilashin nuns. The overwhelming majority of monks belong to the Thudhamma Gaing order, which accounts for 87.24 percent of all Buddhist monks, with the more orthodox Shwegyin Gaing representing 9.47 percent.