MANLE Sayadaw (1842-1921) and Ledi Sayadaw (1 December 1846-27 June 1923) were contemporary Buddhist monk-scholars who made notable contributions to Buddhist doctrine in their discourses and writings which have enriched Myanmar literature.
In the 17 and 24 November 2024 issues of The Global New Light of Myanmar, I have translated and reproduced the original vernacular two poems (in a sense ‘doggerels’) written by the two revered monks. The poem by Manle Sayadaw deals with the disadvantages, indeed one could say negative consequences of drinking tea. On the other hand, Ledi Sayadaw listed the benefits of drinking tea and complimented the tea drinkers. The two poems appeared one after the other in the booklet Selected Burmese Poems for 1st and 2nd-year students at the University of Mandalay first published in October 1986.
It is presumable that the poem by Ledi Sayadaw praising the benefits of drinking tea was composed by him after he came across the elder (in age) Manle Sayadaw’s poem censuring tea drinkers. In the mid-18th to early 20th century when the two poems were supposedly composed there was no postal service, not to say radio or telegrams (perhaps). Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp were much more than a century away in the future. Hence it must have been several weeks or a few months before Ledi Sayadaw came across Manle Sayadaw’s poem listing the negative effects of tea drinking. Or — this is only a guess — were there literary symposia during the last two kings of Upper Burma? In the days of King Mindon (8 July 1808-1 October 1878, reigned 1853-78) and King Thibaw (1 January 1859-19 December 1916, reigned 1878-85) there could be literary symposia in court. The two Sayadaws must have been between the ages of 22 to 44 (Manle Sayadaw) and the ages of 18-39 (Ledi Sayadaw) during the reigns of Mindon and Thibaw. Did either of the two kings request the two revered monks to compose poems about the advantages and disadvantages of drinking tea? Perhaps or perhaps not.
One wonders what ‘triggered’ Manle Sayadaw to compose the ‘anti-tea-drinking poem’ or for that matter on the off-chance that it
was Ledi Sayadaw who first composed the ‘pro-tea-drinking’ poem what prompted Ledi Sayadaw to do so.
I am not aware whether there were — or not — other poems or indeed discourses by the two revered monks where they did not see eye to eye on things not only about tea drinking but also on other mundane as well as religious matters.
The rivalry between two Buddhist monks of the 15th to 16th centuries: Shin Maharatha Ratthasara and Shin Maha Silavamsa Two Buddhist monks contemporaneously flourished in the mid-15th to early-16th centuries. Their contributions to Myanmar literature are also very significant.
Indeed, it could be stated that they are landmarks in medieval Burmese literature. They were Shin (Shin is not a ‘first name’ as such but an honorific denoting, a learned monk) Maha (Maha is also an honorific generally meaning ‘great’) Ratthasara (1468-1529) (hereafter Ratthasara) and Shin Maha Silavamsa (1453-1518) (hereafter Silavamsa). Silavamsa is 15 years older than Ratthasara.
I have ‘wondered’ above whether Manle Sayadaw and Ledi Sayadaw were requested by the two last Burmese kings to compose on the topic of drinking tea.
But over three centuries earlier in the palace of the then Innwa (Ava) kings there were literary symposiums where the two monks Silavamsa and Ratthasara were (shall we say) enjoined to compose poems, prose and other literary genres before a live audience. Myanmar language and literature scholars throughout the centuries have debated and expressed their views on the comparative literary contributions, styles and merits of the two medieval monks.
Scholars have stated their views as to whose literary work Silavamsa or Ratthasara were ‘better’ or ‘superior’. One epigram whose origin this writer does not know states to the effect that Silavamsa’s literary achievements were like diamonds cutting not merely through baskets (Taung Go Ma Phaut) but through the mountains (Taun Go Phaut Thi).
Hence Silavamsa’s literary products were like diamonds (Sain Kyaut A-thwin Thila Win). In comparison or indeed in contrast Ratthathara’s literary prose and poetry are merely thorn-like tools which pierced baskets but not mountains (Taun Go Ma Phaut Taung Go Phaut Thi Hsu Hsauk Pamar Ratta Tha).
From the above statement, it is clear that the writer(s) of the epigram were of the view that Silavamsa was the ‘superior’ literati.
Was Silavamsa superior in all or most of his literary products compared to Ratthasara? In his most recent book titled (in translation) Myanmar Language: References to Sixty Treatises (published November 2024) Saya Maung Khin Min (Danubyu) (born 2 January1942) quoted Bagan Wun Htauk U Tin (1861-1933) who himself referred to Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung (3 February 1822-30 June 1908).
Kinwun Mingyi stated that Silavamsa’s poetry is good in meaning and is inspiring. Kinwun Mingyi stated though that as to rhyme
and cadence Ratthasara was the superior writer (on page 23 of Maung Khin Min’s book). Almost certainly there could be a comparative commentary on the literary contributions of the two scholar monks of the mid19th to early 20th century (Manle Sayadaw and Ledi Sayadaw) as there were perhaps more extensive analyses and commentaries of the two monk-poet-literati of the mid-15th to early 16th century.
Are there any Master’s or doctoral theses in the Myanmar language in the various Departments of Myanmar comparing the literary contributions of Manle Sayadaw and Ledi Sayadaw? If there are any books or treatises comparing the literary flair, styles and contributions of Manle Sayadaw and Ledi Sayadaw in both Myanmar and even in the English language yours truly would appreciate learning from them.

Source- The Global New Light of Myanmar

WHEN I came out of the lift, I found myself on the bridge-like roofed passageway which connected the lift shaft with the pagoda platform. From the passageway, I got a bird’s eye view of the sprawling Yangon City. I espied in the distance some skyscrapers rising starkly into the sky and a medley of red roofs of the houses hidden amongst the greens of the trees.
The entire landscape was bathing dreamily in the golden rays of the rising sun. Our team headed slowly towards the pagoda glistening in the glow of the morning sun. It was a day to be remembered by our family members, for it was the 79th birthday of our beloved mother. We were now on the platform of the Shwedagon Pagoda to celebrate her birthday.
As it was a weekday, there were only a few pilgrims on the pagoda platform. I saw a couple of lovers paying homage to the pagoda, sitting on the victorious ground (atmifajr). Buddhists believe that the victorious ground can bring the fulfilment of our wishes. With this thought in our minds, we also sat down on this sacred ground and paid homage to the pagoda wishing that our mother would enjoy good health, happiness and longevity. Then, leaving behind my mother and sisters who were telling beads in the victorious ground, I walked clockwise round the base of the pagoda. I found shrine rooms housing the Kakusandha Buddha, the Konagamana Buddha, the Kassapa Buddha and the Gotama Buddha at the four cardinal points of the pagoda and some rest houses and pavilions surmounted by a multi-tiered roof round the pagoda platform.
Inside these buildings were some devotees meditating, reciting discourses (Sutta) and doing other religious services. While walking, I had a chance to observe the Shwedagon Pagoda at a close range. I was filled with awe and wonderment at the great height of the pagoda and its excellently artistic works. Its body coated in gold plates was erected on three receding terraces. Its part above the bell-shaped dome was decorated with projected bands, upturned and downturned lotus flowers, banana buds, etc. and tapered towards the spire crowded with a gem-studded sacred umbrella. Its base was encircled by 64 small stupas. Some devotees were pouring water over small seated Buddha images next to the planetary posts near the base of the pagoda. The building on the platform which attracted my attention most was the Rakhine Prayer Hall, a pavilion with a multi-tiered roof. It lies between the southern and western covered stairways.
It was built entirely of wood and richly decorated with elaborate and exquisite floral designs. It is said that it was donated by two Rakhine brokers in 1910. I saw the Buddha Museum next to the entrance to the western-covered stairway. Out of curiosity, I entered it and found the walls and the ceiling depicting some episodes of the Ten Major Jataka Stories. Moreover, many antique Buddhist artefacts like Buddha images, miniature stupas etc made of gold and silver were put on display in the showcases.
Then I weaved my way through the buildings on the platform and noticed some Buddha images and small pagodas standing in the yards behind the rest houses and Tazaungs. Among them were the Shin Saw Pu Buddha images, the Naungdawgyi Pagoda and the Shinmahtee Buddha Image. I also noticed some Nat shrines under the Banyan trees growing at the edges of the top of the pagoda hill. It is thought that the Shin Saw Pu Buddha Image was built by Queen Shin Saw Pu while she was living a peaceful life in a make-shift palace not far from the Shwedagon Pagoda after she had handed over her Hamsavati throne to King Dhammaceti, her son-in-law. Legend has it that the Shinmahtee Buddha Image was built by a monk named ‘Shinmahtee’, who was an alchemist, about 1,000 years ago. The Naungdawgyi Pagoda was built by King Naungdawgyi, a son of King Alaungphaya, during the 18th century AD.
I got into a Tazaung in the northeast corner of the precincts. I found there the historic King Thayawady Bell which was decorated with four-lion figures. It was donated by King Thayawady and it weighs 25,940 visses and 49 ticals or 42 tonnes. It was cast in the year 1204 of the Myanmar Era. Its official name is Mahatisadhaghanta. It measures nine cubits in height, five cubits in diameter at the mouth and 15 cubits in circumference. It contains one hundred lines. This bell inscription is about the eulogy on nine attributes of Lord Buddha, benefits of the life of the monks, birth stories of the Buddha, his donations made at the Shwedagon Pagoda, his aspirations to the Bodhisatta etc.
A little down from the platform, there was a shed in which a three-stone inscription was erected near the entrance to the eastern covered stairway. It was the Shwedagon Stone Inscription inscribed by King Dhammaceti in 1485. It is about the history of the Shwedagon Pagoda: the two merchants brothers Tapussa and Ballikha crossed the ocean, came upon the newly-enlightened Buddha in Majjhimadesa and got eight hair relics. On their return to their native Okkalapa, King Okkala and his mother Meihlamu
had the Shwedagon Pagoda built, enshrining these eight hair relics in the relic chamber.
Then, I walked back to the zayat near the victorious ground where my mother and elder sister were waiting for me. We left pagoda at 11 am. On the way back, we stopped over at a restaurant to celebrate our mother’s birthday. We had lunch merrily there. Then, we returned home straight. To conclude, it was worthwhile to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda. We enjoyed a good time on our mother’s auspicious birthday. Moreover, we could earn the merits and also get historical and archaeological knowledge.

Source- The Global New Light of Myanmar

MORALITY means Sila in the Pali Language. Morality denotes being virtuous and abstaining from evil actions, both physical and verbal. It also prescribes virtuous conduct (Carita Sila, စာရိတ္တသီလ)

In our Theravada Buddhism, Morality is based on abstention or avoidance. Morality, which is based on the observance of abstention decreed by the noble Buddha, is Caritta Sila, စာရိတ္တသီလ

Constant observance of the five precepts, etc. (Niece sila, နိစ္စသီလ) is fulfilled through abstentions.

By moral obligations, certain obligations must be fulfilled. In Buddhist ethics, certain moral obligations are incumbent on one, such as paying respects, welcoming, making obeisance, showing reverence and attending to elders who may be senior in age or in status, and one has to fulfil them.

Observing the precepts in abandoning sensual desire. The eight moral precepts consist of the observance of the following factors: -

(1) Abstaining from killing any living being,

(၁) သူ့အသက်သတ်ခြင်းမှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(2) Abstaining from taking what is not gives

(၂) ပိုင်ရှင်မပေးသော ပစ္စည်းဥစ္စာကို ခိုးယူခြင်းမှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(3) Abstaining from unchastity,

(၃) မမြတ်သောမေထုန်အကျင့်မှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(4) Abstaining from telling lies,

(၄) မဟုတ်မမှန်ရသာစကားတို့ကို ပြောဆိုခြင်းမှရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(5) Abstaining from taking liquors and intoxicants, which can lead one to forgetfulness,

(၅) မူးယစ်မေ့လျော့စေတတ်သော သေရည်သေရက် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးများကို သုံးစွဲခြင်းမှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(6) Abstaining from taking food after mid-day,

(၆) နေ့လွဲ ညစာစားခြင်းမှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(7) Abstaining from dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, seeing shows, wearing flowers and using perfumes,

(၇) ကခုန်ခြင်း၊ သီဆိုခြင်း၊ တီးမှုတ်ခြင်းတို့ကို ကြည့်ရှုနားထောင်ခြင်းနှင့် ပန်းနံ့သာအမွှေးအကြိုင်များကို ပန်ဆင်လိမ်းကျံ တန်ဆာဆင်ခြင်းတို့မှ ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်း

(8) Abstaining from using high and luxurious beds, seats, etc.

(၈) မြင့်သောနေရာ၊ မြတ်သောနေရာတို့ကို အသုံးပြုခြင်းတို့ကို ရှောင်ကြဉ်ခြင်းတို့ဖြစ်ကြသည်။

Morality is always used to prevent and avoid the unbeneficial Akusala Kamma. Two types of actions may be discerned: -

(1) Action which destroys the unbeneficial and produces the beneficial (Kusala Kamma)

(2) Action which destroys the beneficial and produces the unbeneficial (Akusala Kamma)

There are three kinds of action: -

(1) Physical Action (Kaya Kamma) (2) Verbal Action (Vici Kamma) (3) Mental Action (Mara Kamma)

Character is power in our human society. People are social animals, so it is said that when we live together in the form of society, we need a body of laws to keep peace and ensure justice for all members, without which it would be impossible for society

to function. We can say, therefore, that all of us are under the protection of the law. The noble Buddha speaks about a different form of protection, a far superior one. If we earnestly practice them. They are: -

(1) Hiri (ဟီရိ) = Shame at doing evil (Moral Shame, and မကောင်းမှုကိုပြုလုပ်ရန်ရှက်ခြင်း)

(2) Ottappu (ဩတ္တပ္ပ) = Fear of the results of doing evil (Moral Dread, မကောင်းမှုကိုပြုလုပ်ရန် ကြောက်ခြင်း

Hiri is moral shame or conscience. It wises out of an understanding of what is right or wrong, good or bad, and is developed through a constant application of moral vigilance.

A person who practices Hiri does not do anything rashly or without proper forethought but will always exercise precaution in all actions. Before doing anything, he wisely asks himself, “Is it right or wrong?” “Is it good or bad?”. If he finds it to be wrong or bad, he will not do it, no matter what the temptation. If, however, what he intends to do is right and good, he will make an effort to finish the task and will not give up.

Hiri can be compared to the feeling of being over the fire, which a person who loves cleanliness may experience when he sees something disgusting. He may not, for instance, put his hand into a trash bag full of stinking garbage if he can avoid it.

When he comes across a puddle of mud and dirt, he will stop aside to avoid getting himself and his clothes smudged.

Likewise, an individual who practices Hiri feels disgusted with all bad actions, physical, verbal and mental, and endeavours to avoid them as much as possible.

He does not do such things as stamping his feet before his parents, talking impolitely back at them, or having an unkind and unrespectful thought towards them, for he knows that such as bed and unbecoming of a good Buddhist and would make their parents very unhappy indeed.

Ottappa is moral dread or fear of doing something wrong or immoral. It is the result of a firm’s belief in the doctrine of Kamma, which states that a willful action brings about an appropriate consequence sooner or later.

An individual who has Ottappa is afraid to do evil deeds because he knows that they will bring evil results and unhappiness to himself and others. He will not, on the other hand, hesitate to do the right things, firmly believing that the consequences thereof will be pleasant and beneficial. Unfortunately, people tend to do just the opposite of what they should. They are brave to do evil but afraid to do good.

Ottappa can be compared to the fear of a poisonous snake.

Just as an individual avoids the snakebite, knowing that such is fatal, even so, an Ottappal person tries to avoid evil because he knows that consequences are painful. He does not do wrong things even when he is sure that he will not be caught, for he understands that the law of Kamma operates at all times and in all places. For this reason, also he is encouraged to do good even if no one else notices it or acknowledges his good deeds.

In my opinion, if people practice these two virtues, this world will, indeed, be well protected, and there will be less need for law. No evil deed will be committed even in secrecy. The world will thus be a very happy place for us all. Therefore, the two virtues (Hiri and Ottappa) are the highest ethics or morality for world peace forever.

Ref:

(1) A Dictionary of Buddhist Terms (Ministry of Religious Affairs, Myanmar, 2003)

(2) Basic Buddha Course By Phra Sunthorn Plamintr, PhD (Buddha Dhamma Meditation Centre, USA, 1987

Source- The Global New Light of Myanmar