Hngettwin Nikaya ( my, ငှက်တွင်နိကာယ, ), officially Catubhummika Mahāsatipaṭṭhana Nikāya ( my, စတုဘုမ္မိက မဟာသတိပဋ္ဌာန် နိကာယ) is the name of a monastic order of monks in Burma, primarily in Mandalay. Founded in the mid-19th century by the abbot of the Hngettwin Monastery, it is one of 9 legally sanctioned monastic orders (nikaya) in the country, under the 1990 Law Concerning Sangha Organizations. Hngettwin Nikaya is a very orthodox order, with a minimalist and austere approach to Buddhist rituals found in Burma, not recognizing any rituals inconsistent with Buddhist doctrine, including nat spirit worship. For instance, members of this order do not worship or venerate the image of Buddha, but rather his memory and teachings.

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 ...

, 1,445 monks belonged to this monastic order, representing 0.27% of all monks in the country, making it the fourth smallest legally-sanctioned monastic order. With respect to geographic representation, the plurality of Hngettwin monks are based in

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, ...

(31.90%), followed by

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

(24.57%), Ayeyarwady Region (17.92%).

Statistics

References

See also