A sayadaw (, ; , and alternatively spelled ''hsayadaw'', ''sayado'', ''sayāḍo'' or ''sayāḍaw'') is a Burmese Buddhist title used to reference the senior monk or abbot of a monastery. The word is a combination of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

word "

acharya In Indian religions and society, an ''acharya'' (Sanskrit: आचार्य, IAST: ; Pali: ''ācariya'') is a religious teacher in Hinduism and Buddhism and a spiritual guide to Hindus and Buddhists. The designation has different meanings i ...

" (teacher) and the Burmese honorific "taw," which is used to denote nouns of religious or royal significance. 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 Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and also important meditation practitioners. They usually are abbots of monasteries or monastery networks with many resident monks and a lay following. In modern-day Myanmar, monastic abbots are required to have passed

monastic examinations Monasticism (; ), also called monachism or monkhood, is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual activities. Monastic life plays an important role in many Christian churches, especially ...

. In

Burmese Buddhism Buddhism (), specifically Theravāda Buddhism (), is the official and state religion of Myanmar since 1961, and practiced by nearly 90% of the population. It is the most religious Buddhist country in terms of the proportion of monks in the ...

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

vassa ''Vassa'' (, , both "rain") is the three-month annual retreat observed by Theravada Buddhists. Taking place during the wet season, Vassa lasts for three lunar months, usually from July (the Burmese month of Waso, ) to October (the Burmese ...

s they have passed. The most frequently used terms, which are used as prefixes to the monks' Dhamma name, include: *"Bhaddanta" ဘဒ္ဒန္တ *"Ashin" အရှင် *"Shin" ရှင် *"U" ဦး၊ ဥူး *"Upazin" ဥပဇင်း *"Sayadaw" ဆရာတော် *"Sayadawgyi" ဆရာတော်ကြီး A sayadaw may be known by his

dharma name A Dharma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and Pabbajjā, monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The name is ...

(), a qualified name, or by the name of his monastery. Thus, venerable

Mingun Sayadaw The Venerable Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa (, ; 1 November 1911 – 9 February 1993) was a Burma, Burmese Theravāda Buddhist monk, best known for his memory skills and his role in the Sixth Buddhist Council.Sixth Buddhist council The Sixth Buddhist Council (; ; ) was a general council of Theravāda Buddhism, held in a specially built Mahā Pāsāṇa Guhā (Great Cave) and pagoda complex at Kaba Aye Pagoda in Yangon, Burma. The council was attended by 2500 monastics f ...

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

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

) မင်းကွန်းဆရာတော် * U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ * Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa ဆရာတော်ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ * Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa မင်းကွန်းဆရာတော်ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ * Tipitaka Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa တိပိဋကဆရာတော်ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ * tipiṭakadhara Dhammabhaṇḍādharika Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa, တိပိဋကဓရဓမ္မဘဏ္ဍာဓရိကဆရာတော်ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝ့သ reference to being the first monk to be awarded the titles "Bearer of the

Tripiṭaka There are several Buddhist canons, which refers to the various scriptural collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures or the various Buddhist scriptural canons.

" 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 (, ), is a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk, best known for teaching at Yangon Buddhist University in Kyimyindaing Township in Yangon. In December 2011, he met with Hillary Clinton, U ...

Sayadaw U Tejaniya Sayadaw U Tejaniya () 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 attracted a global audience. Personal life Sayadaw U Tej ...

Ledi Sayadaw Ledi Sayadaw U Ñaṇadhaja (, ; 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 ( Abhidhamma) and practice of Buddhism and so was revered a ...

Mingun Sayadaw The Venerable Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasārābhivaṃsa (, ; 1 November 1911 – 9 February 1993) was a Burma, Burmese Theravāda Buddhist monk, best known for his memory skills and his role in the Sixth Buddhist Council.Mahasi Sayadaw Mahāsī Sayādaw U Sobhana (, ; 29 July 1904 – 14 August 1982) was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master who had a significant impact on the teaching of vipassanā (insight) meditation in the West and throughout Asia. In ...

Webu Sayadaw Webu Sayadaw (, ; 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. Early life Ven. Webu Sayadaw was b ...

Mogok Vimala U Vimala (; 27 December 1899 - 17 October 1962), commonly known as the Mogok Sayadaw (), was a renowned bhikkhu and vipassanā meditation master of Theravada Buddhism. Early life He was born Maung Hla Baw to Daw Shwe Ake and U Aung Tun in a ...

Chanmyay Sayadaw The Venerable Chanmyay Sayadaw U Janakābhivaṃsa, (, ; born 24 July 1928) is a Theravada Buddhist monk from Myanmar. Life Early life and studies He was born in Pyinma village, Taungdwingyi Township, British Burma, on Tuesday, 24 July 1928. H ...

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

Sitagu Sayadaw Ashin Nyanissara (; ) 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 and encompasses religi ...

U Pandita Sayadaw U Paṇḍita (, ; also ''Ovādācariya Sayādo Ū Paṇḍitābhivaṁsa''; 28 July 1921 – 16 April 2016) was one of the foremost masters of Vipassanā. He trained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Myanmar. A successor to the ...

Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa Chen Hsin-hung (), nicknamed Ashin () (born 6 December 1975), is a Taiwanese singer and songwriter. He is best known as the vocalist of the rock band Mayday. When Ashin majored in art in college, he began his musical career. He is also the fo ...

* Thi Lung Sayadaw *

Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa The Most Venerable Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa Mahāthēra (), more commonly referred to as the Pa-Auk Sayadaw (), is a Burmese Theravāda monk, meditation teacher and the abbot of the Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Mawlamyine. Most Venerable Āciṇ� ...

Taung Galay Sayadaw The Venerable Taung Kalay (Taung Galay) Sayadaw Ashin Paññāsāmī (Ashin Pyinnathami; , born Saw Phoe Thu on 14 July 1960) is a Karen Buddhist monk, and also known as a prolific writer and historian. Early life Ven. Taung Galay Sayadaw was ...

Ashin Dhammasāmi Ashin Khammai Dhammasāmi (, , born 1964), also known as Oxford Sayadaw, is a prominent Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk. He founded Oxford Buddha Vihara in 2003, where he serves as the abbot. He also serves as the Buddhist chaplain to Oxford U ...

References

External links

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