Editing Burma (section)

== Buddhism in Burma ==

Theravada Buddhism has been practiced in the territory of modern Burma since at least the first millennium CE, and by the twentieth century it was professed by roughly 85 to 90 percent of the population, including many members of ethnic-minority communities such as the Shan and Mon.<ref name="matthews">Matthews, Bruce (1999). "The Legacy of Tradition and Authority: Buddhism and the Nation in Myanmar". In: Harris, Ian (Ed.), ''Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia'': 26–53. Continuum, p. 27.</ref> The formative period of Burmese Buddhist statecraft was the Pagan dynasty (1044–1287), whose royal inscriptions articulate a distinctively Burmese ideal of Buddhist kingship. King Alaungsithu's inscription of 1141 and King Kyanzittha's Shwezigon Pagoda inscription of 1098–99 both present the monarch as a bodhisattva-cum-''cakkavatti'' (universal Buddhist ruler) whose accumulated merit and material generosity, redistributing rice, wealth, and irrigated land to all subjects, were themselves the means by which he would ultimately "become the Buddha that saves and redeems all beings."<ref>Sarkisyanz (1961), "U Nu's Buddhist Socialism," pp. 54–55, translating and discussing the Alaungsithu and Kyanzittha inscriptions.</ref> Under this Ashoka-derived model, the purpose of the state was to secure the economic and social conditions, above all leisure from want, that would allow the population to pursue meditation and merit-making (''kutho'') toward liberation (''nibbana'').<ref name="sark61" />

The monastic order (''sangha'') was, from 1368 onward, headed by a royally appointed primate (''thathanabaing'') who supervised doctrinal orthodoxy and monastic discipline on the crown's behalf, in a relationship of mutual legitimation between the Buddhist "church" (''sasana'') and the throne.<ref name="matthews" /> By the early twentieth century the ''sangha'' was divided into roughly ten sects or "fraternities" (''gaings''), of which the Thudhamma, comprising close to 90 percent of monks, was overwhelmingly dominant, alongside smaller reformist and ascetic groupings such as the Shwegyin, Hngettwin, and Dwara.<ref name="matthews" />

British annexation, completed in three Anglo-Burmese wars between 1824 and 1886, dismantled this arrangement. Colonial administrators adopted a policy of religious "neutrality" and declined, after the death of the last royally appointed ''thathanabaing'' in 1895, to appoint a successor; the office lapsed for decades, leaving the ''sangha'' without central authority or its traditional royal protector, even as Buddhism continued to be widely understood as the primary marker of Burmese identity.<ref name="matthews" /> Burma's administrative incorporation as a province of British India, its opening to mass Indian immigration, Christian missionary activity, and the erosion of the ''sangha'''s economic base combined to produce what Manuel Sarkisyanz described as an "ideological crisis" of Burmese Buddhism, experienced as the loss of the country's traditional "cosmic prototype."<ref>Sarkisyanz (1965), ''Buddhist Backgrounds'', p. 99, 107; cited in Matthews (1999), "Legacy of Tradition," p. 29.</ref>

After independence, Prime Minister U Nu made the public restoration of Buddhism a central plank of government, establishing a Buddhist Sasana Council, hosting the Sixth Buddhist Council (''Chattha Sangayana'') at Rangoon in 1954–56 to mark the 2,500th anniversary (Buddha Jayanti) of the Buddha's ''parinibbana'', and sponsoring the mass lay ''vipassana'' meditation movement associated with the monk Mahasi Sayadaw.<ref>Su, Khine Thant (2022). "Buddhist Socialism and National Identity in Colonial and Postwar Burma: An Analysis of U Nu's Political Thought". In: Galway, Matthew, & Marc H. Opper (Eds), ''Experiments with Marxism-Leninism in Cold War Southeast Asia'': 107–136. ANU Press, pp. 108–111.</ref> The 1962 military coup of General Ne Win reversed this pattern of state sponsorship, formally separating religion and state, before an unexpected reversal in 1980, when the ruling junta convened a second ''sangha'' council that imposed a unified, hierarchical monastic structure (the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee) under effective state supervision, a structure that has persisted, with modification, under successive governments to the present.<ref>Matthews (1999), "Legacy of Tradition," pp. 35–36.</ref>