Lably
Skip to content

Amarapura Nikāya

Sri Lankan Buddhist monastic order, originated from Myanmar

  • 8 min read
  • 7 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Sri Lanka, Caste and The Buddha

Lab · Class 6–12Sociology: Individual & SocietyLab · Class 6–12Buddhist Art at Sanchi

History

By the mid-18th century, upasampada – higher ordination as a bhikkhu (monk), as distinct from sāmaṇera or novitiate ordination – had become extinct in Sri Lanka. The Buddhist order had become extinct thrice during the preceding five hundred years and was reestablished during the reigns of Vimaladharmasuriya I of Kandy (1591–1604) and Vimaladharmasuriya II of Kandy (1687–1707). These reestablishments were short lived. During this period the Vinaya was virtually abandoned and some members of the Sangha in the Kingdom of Kandy privately held land, had wives and children, resided in private homes and were called Ganinnanses. On the initiative of Weliwita Sri Saranankara Thera (1698–1778) the Thai monk Upali Thera visited Kandy during the reign of Kirti Sri Rajasinha of Kandy (1747–1782) and once again reestablished the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka in 1753. It was called the Siam Nikaya after a name for Thailand.

However, in 1764, merely a decade after the reestablishment of the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka by reverend Upali, a group within the newly created Siam Nikaya succeeded in restricting upasampada only to the Govigama caste. It was a period when the traditional nobility of the Kingdom of Kandy was decimated by continuous wars with the Dutch rulers of the maritime provinces. In the maritime provinces too, a new order was replacing the old. Mandarampura Puvata, a text from the Kandyan period, narrates the above radical changes to the monastic order and shows that it was not a unanimous decision by the body of the sangha. It says that thirty-two 'senior' members of the Sangha who opposed this change were banished to Jaffna by the leaders of the reform.

The Govigama exclusivity of the Sangha thus secured in 1764 was almost immediately challenged by other castes who without the patronage of the King of Kandy or of the British, held their own upasampada ceremony at Totagamuwa Vihara in 1772. Another was held at Tangalle in 1798. Neither of these ceremonies were approved by the Siam Nikaya which claimed that these were not in accordance with the Vinaya rules. King Rajadhi Rajasinghe (1782–1798) had made an order restricting the right of obtaining higher ordination to the members of a particular caste.

As a consequence of this 'exclusively Govigama' policy adopted in 1764 by the Siyam Nikaya, the Buddhists in the maritime provinces were denied access to a valid ordination lineage. Hoping to rectify this situation, wealthy laymen from the maritime provinces financed an expedition to Siam to found a new monastic lineage.

In 1799, Walitota Sri Gnanawimalatisssa a monk from the Salagama caste, from Balapitiya on the south western coast of Sri Lanka, departed for Siam with a group of novices to seek a new succession of Higher ordination. Two Sahabandu Mudaliyars and the other prominent dayakayas undertook to bear the expenses of the mission and make the necessary arrangements for the journey. But during the trip, they had an incident where the ship suddenly stopped moving. Once it was able to move again, the Dutch-national captain of the ship suggested that Buddhism was in a more flourishing condition in Amarapura, Burma, than in Siam. The monk agreed to the suggestion of the captain and the latter, through the Dutch consul at Hanthawaddy (now Bago, Burma), obtained the necessary introductions to the religious and administrative authorities in Amarapura. The first bhikkhu was ordained in Burma in 1800 by the Sangharaja of Burma, his party having been welcomed to Burma by King Bodawpaya. The members of the mission studied under the Sangharaja for two years.

The initial mission returned to Sri Lanka in 1803. Soon after their return to the island they established a udakhupkhepa sima (a flotilla of boats moved together to form a platform on the water) at the Maduganga River, Balapitiya and, under the most senior Burmese bhikkhus who accompanied them, held an upasampada ceremony on the Uposatha of Vesak. The new fraternity came to be known as the Amarapura Nikaya after the capital city of King Bodawpaya.

Several subsequent trips to Burma by Karava and Durava monks as well, created by 1810 a core group of ordained monks and provided the required quorum for higher ordination of Amarapura Nikaya monks in Sri Lanka. The higher ordination denied to them in 1764 by the Govigama conspirators had been regained and they were soon granted recognition by the colonial British government. However, the radical change of ordination rules by the Siam Nikaya in 1764 and its continuance despite it being contrary to the teachings of the Gautama Buddha, plagues the Sri Lankan Buddhist Sangha, which remains divided on caste lines.

On the contrary, the mostly post 13th Century Dravidian migrant origins of the Durava, Karava and Salagama have been used as a justification for favouring largely pre-13th Century Sinhalese by the Siyam Nikaya.

Sign in to keep reading

6 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Religion

PinyinRomanization scheme for Standard ChineseHindusAdherents of HinduismTraditional Chinese charactersStandardized set of Chinese charactersLiteral translationWord-for-word translation of a textReligionSocial-cultural systemTheologyStudy of the nature of deities and religious beliefs