Thudhamma Nikaya ( my, သုဓမ္မာနိကာယ, ; also spelt Sudhammā Nikāya) is the largest monastic order of monks in Burma. It is one of 9 legally sanctioned monastic orders (''nikāya'') in the country, under the 1990 Law Concerning Sangha Organizations. Thudhamma is considered a more pragmatic order than the Shwegyin Nikaya, with looser rules regarding

Vinaya The Vinaya (Pali & Sanskrit: विनय) is the division of the Buddhist canon ('' Tripitaka'') containing the rules and procedures that govern the Buddhist Sangha (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). Three parallel Vinaya traditions remai ...

regulations and is less hierarchical than the former. Like all the major orders in Burma, Thudhamma Nikaya prohibits monks from engaging in political activity.

Statistics

According to 2016 statistics published by the

State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee The State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka Committee ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် သံဃာ့မဟာနာယကအဖွဲ့, abbreviated Mahana or in Burmese, SSMNC in English) is a government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhis ...

, 467,025 monks belonged to this monastic order, representing 87% of all monks in the country. With respect to geographic representation, the plurality of Thudhamma monks live in

Mandalay Region Mandalay Region ( my, မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Mandalay Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative division of Myanmar. It is located in the center of the country, bordering ...

(19.76%), followed by

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

(16.09%),

Yangon Region Yangon Region(, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in the heart of Lower Myanmar, the division is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, and ...

(15.39%), and

Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...

(9.88%).

Origins

Thudhamma Nikaya was founded in the late 18th century by King

Bodawpaya Bodawpaya ( my, ဘိုးတော်ဘုရား, ; th, ปดุง; 11 March 1745 – 5 June 1819) was the sixth king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, fou ...

, after a series of

Sangha Sangha is a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community"; Sangha is often used as a surname across these languages. It was historically used in a political context t ...

reforms by prior Konbaung kings to purify and unite the Sangha. The name 'Thudhamma' comes from the Thudhamma Council (an ecclesiastical organization founded by Bodawpaya), which in turn is named after Mandalay's Thudhamma Zayats, the meeting grounds for the Council. The office of the Supreme Patriarch ( or '' Thathanabaing''), similar to the position of

Sangharaja Sangharaja (Pāli: ''sangha'' religious community + ''raja'' ruler, king, or prince) is the title given in many Theravada Buddhist countries to a senior monk who is the titular head either of a monastic fraternity ( nikaya), or of the ''Sangha'' t ...

in Thailand and Cambodia, dates back to the 13th century, started by the monk

Shin Arahan , image =Shin Arahan.JPG , caption = Statute of Shin Arahan in Ananda Temple , birth name = , alias = , dharma_name = mnw, ဓမ္မဒဿဳ , birth_date = c. 1034 , b ...

in the

Pagan Kingdom The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...

. The Thathanabaing was responsible for managing the monastic hierarchy and education at monasteries. In 1784, King Bodawpaya assembled the Thudhamma Council, led by the Thathanapaing and four elders ( or ''thera'') to resolve a longstanding issue on the proper wearing of monk's robes (whether one or both shoulders should be exposed). Toward the end of the

Konbaung dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...

, the council, which oversaw religious affairs in the kingdom, including the appointment of monastery abbots, Vinaya regulations, discipline of individual monks, and administration of Pali examination, was expanded to include 8 elders.

Statistics

Origins

References

See also