Thayettaw Monastery

Thayettaw (Burmese: သရက်တောကျောင်းတိုက်, also spelt Thayettaw Kyaungtaik[1]) is a complex of over 60 Buddhist monasteries (kyaung) in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma), located in Lanmadaw Township's 9th ward, immediately north of Yangon Chinatown.[2][3] The monastery occupies a sprawling plot that is bounded by Bogyoke Aung San Road to the north, Anawrahta Road to the south, Phongyi Street to the west, and Myoma School Street to the west.

For the village in Sagaing Region, see Thayettaw, Sagaing.

The complex faces Yangon General Hospital and University of Medicine 1, Yangon, the former of which is the largest public hospital in the country.[3] Owing to its proximity to these medical facilities, Thayettaw monasteries also provide de facto social safety net services (housing, meals, etc.) for impoverished patients seeking treatment in the city.[3] The patients generally come from other parts of Lower Myanmar, namely Ayeyarwady Region, Bago Region, Mon State, and Kayin State.[3]

History

The Thayettaw monastic complex was established on a mango grove on the outskirts of pre-colonial Rangoon, hence the name thayet taw (lit. "mango grove").[4] Stone inscriptions indicate that the complex was founded during the Konbaung dynasty by Dagon mayor U Shangalay and royal messenger and port-officer Maung Tu, who built and donated a monastery to Sayadaw U Mani of Inwa, during the reign of King Tharrawaddy Min.[5] On 11 March 1854, Queen Victoria issued a royal decree that conferred the complex religious freehold title.[5]

As colonial authorities demolished the pre-colonial town of Dagon in favor of a city grid, authorities evicted many monasteries scattered throughout the town, especially around Sule Pagoda;[6] consequently, under the orders of Arthur Phayre, Thayettaw became the site of all the town's displaced Buddhist monasteries.[4] By 1900, Thayettaw housed more than 50 monasteries and zayat (rest houses).[4]

References
  1. Reports on Public Instruction in Burma for the Year 1891-1892. Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma. 1892.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  2. "လမ်းမတော်မြို့နယ်၊ အမှတ်(၉)ရပ်ကွက်ရှိ သရက်တောကျောင်းတိုက်၌ စုပေါင်းသန့်ရှင်းရေးပြုလုပ်". Office of Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services. Retrieved 2020-05-24.
  3. အေးအေးအောင် (2017-12-27). "ဆေးရုံကြီးရဲ့ အခက်အခဲနဲ့ တာဝန်ကို ကူညီထမ်းပိုးပေးနေတဲ့ သရက်တောကျောင်းတိုက်". Kumudra (in Burmese). Retrieved 2020-05-24.
  4. Turner, Alicia; Cox, Laurence; Bocking, Brian (2020-03-31). The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-007310-7.
  5. Narayanan, Yamini (2015-11-19). Religion and Urbanism: Reconceptualising sustainable cities for South Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-75542-5.
  6. "Tourism Information". Embassy of the Republic of Union of the Myanmar, Bangkok. Retrieved 2020-05-24.

See also

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