A sayadaw ( my, ဆရာတော်, ; , and alternatively spelled ''hsayadaw'', ''sayado'', ''sayāḍo'' or ''sayāḍaw'') is a Burmese Buddhist title used to reference the senior monk or abbot of a monastery. Some distinguished sayadaws would often be referred to as a ''sayadawgyi'' (, as a sign of reverence. The terms "sayadaw" and "sayadawgyi" originally corresponded to the senior monks who taught the former Burmese kings. These sayadaws may be influential teachers of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

and also important meditation practitioners. They usually are abbots of monasteries or monastery networks with many resident monks and a lay following. In

Buddhism in Burma Buddhism ( my, ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), specifically Theravāda Buddhism ( my, ထေရဝါဒဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), is the State religion of Myanmar since 1961, and practiced by nearly 90% of the population. It is the most rel ...

, several honorific terms exist for Buddhist monks, reflecting their achievements and how many

vassa The ''Vassa'' ( pi, vassa-, script=Latn, sa, varṣa-, script=Latn, both "rain") is the three-month annual retreat observed by Theravada practitioners. Taking place during the wet season, Vassa lasts for three lunar months, usually from July ...

s they have passed. The most frequently used terms, which are used as prefixes to the monks' Dhamma name, include: *"Bhaddanta" *"Ashin" *"Shin" *"U" *"Upazin" *"Sayadaw" *"Sayadawgyi" A sayadaw may be known by his dharma name (), a qualified name, or by the name of his monastery. Thus, venerable

Mingun Sayadaw The Venerable Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa ( my, မင်းကွန်းဆရာတော် ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ, ; 1 November 1911 – 9 February 1993) was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist ...

, who served as "Chief Respondent" at the

Sixth Buddhist council The Sixth Buddhist Council ( pi, छट्ठ सॅगायना (); my, ဆဋ္ဌမသင်္ဂါယနာ; si, ඡට්ඨ සංගායනා) was a general council of Theravada Buddhism, held in a specially built cave and p ...

in Yangon, could be addressed as: * Mingun Sayadaw (in reference to his home monastery at

Mingun Mingun ( ) is a town in Sagaing Township of Sagaing Region, north-west Myanmar (Burma), located 11 km up the Ayeyarwady River on the west bank from Mandalay. Its main attraction is the ruined Mingun Pahtodawgyi. Mingun Pahtodawgyi The Ming ...

) * U Vicittasarabhivamsa * Sayadaw U Vicittasarabhivamsa * Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasarabhivamsa * Tipitaka Sayadaw U Vicittasarabhivamsa * Tipitakadhara Dhammabhandakarika Sayadaw U Vicittasarabhivamsa, in reference to being the first monk to be awarded the titles "Bearer of the

Tripiṭaka ''Tipiṭaka'' () or ''Tripiṭaka'' () or ''තිපිටක'' (), meaning "Triple Basket", is the traditional term for ancient collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures. The Pāli Canon maintained by the Theravāda tradition in ...

" and "Treasurer of the Dhamma"

List of prominent Sayadaws

The following is a list of some prominent sayadaws in recent Burmese history. *

Shwe Nya War Sayadaw U Pinnyasiha (), commonly known as the Shwe Nya Wa Sayadaw ( my, ရွှေညဝါဆရာတော် ဦးပညာသီဟ, ), is a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk, best known for teaching at Yangon Buddhist University in Kyimyindain ...

Sayadaw U Tejaniya Sayadaw U Tejaniya ( my, ဆရာတော် ဦးတေဇနိယ) is a Theravādin Buddhist monk of Chinese descent and the meditation teacher at the Shwe Oo Min Dhamma Sukha Forest Center in Yangon, Myanmar whose teachings have attrac ...

Ledi Sayadaw Ledi Sayadaw U Ñaṇadhaja ( my, လယ်တီဆရာတော် ဦးဉာဏဓဇ, ; 1 December 1846 – 27 June 1923) was an influential Theravada Buddhist monk. He was recognized from a young age as being developed in both the theory ( ...

Mahasi Sayadaw Mahāsī Sayādaw U Sobhana ( my, မဟာစည်ဆရာတော် ဦးသောဘန, ; 29 July 1904 – 14 August 1982) was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master who had a significant impact on the teaching of vipa ...

Webu Sayadaw Webu Sayadaw ( my, ဝေဘူ ဆရာတော်, ; 17 February 1896 – 26 June 1977) was a Theravada Buddhist monk, and vipassanā master, best known for giving all importance to diligent practice, rather than scholastic achievement ...

Mogok Vimala U Vimala ( my, ဦးဝိမလ; 27 December 1899 - 17 October 1962), commonly known as the Mogok Sayadaw ( my, မိုးကုတ်ဆရာတော်), was a renowned bhikkhu and vipassanā meditation master of Theravada Buddhism. Earl ...

Chanmyay Sayadaw The Venerable Chanmyay Sayadaw U Janakābhivaṃsa, ( my, ချမ်းမြေ့ဆရာတော် ဦးဇနကာဘိဝံသ, ; born 24 July 1928) is a Theravada Buddhist monk from Myanmar. Life Early life and studies He was bo ...

* Thamanya Sayadaw * Maha Bodhi Ta Htaung Sayadaw * Ashin Sandadika *

Sitagu Sayadaw Ashin Nyanissara ( my, ဉာဏိဿရ; ) best known as Sitagu Sayadaw (), is a Burmese meditation teacher and prolific Buddhist scholar. He is also the founder of Sitagu International Buddhist Academy. His work as a teacher began in 1977 a ...

U Pandita Sayadaw U Paṇḍita ( my, ဆရာတော် ဦးပဏ္ဍိတ, ; also ''Ovādācariya Sayādo Ū Paṇḍitābhivaṁsa''; 28 July 1921 – 16 April 2016) was one of the foremost masters of Vipassanā. He trained in the Theravada ...

Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa Ashin Nandamālābhivaṃsa ( my, အရှင် နန္ဒမာလာ ဘိဝံသ) (born 22 March 1939), commonly known by his position as Rector Sayadaw ( my, ပါမောက္ခချုပ် ဆရာတော်), is a Burmes ...

* Thi Lung Sayadaw

References

External links

Buddhism Concepts - What is a Sayadaw?
{{Buddhism topics Burmese Buddhist titles Religious leadership roles