 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Sayadaw" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Asayadaw (Burmese:ဆရာတော်,IPA:[sʰəjàdɔ̀];lit. 'royal teacher', and alternatively spelledhsayadaw,sayado,sayāḍo orsayāḍaw) is aBurmese Buddhist title used to reference the senior monk or abbot of a monastery.[1] The word is a combination ofSanskrit word "acharya" (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 asayadawgyi (ဆရာတော်ကြီး, 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 ofBuddhism 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 passedmonastic examinations.[2]
InBurmese Buddhism, several honorific terms exist for Buddhist monks, reflecting their achievements and how manyvassas they have passed. The most frequently used terms, which are used as prefixes to the monks'Dhamma name, include:
A sayadaw may be known by hisdharma name (ဘွဲ့), a qualified name, or by the name of his monastery. Thus, venerableMingun Sayadaw, who served as "Chief Respondent" at theSixth Buddhist council in Yangon, could be addressed as:
The following is a list of some prominent sayadaws in recent Burmese history.
.svg)