Buddhist sects in Myanmar

There was an early schism into four sects during the Pagan period,^[1]: 66 which was later ended by the purification effort of a Hanthawady king, according to the Kalyāṇi Sima stone inscriptions.^[2] Throughout the Ava period and early Konbaung period, new schisms emerged between city sect and forest sect,^{[1]: 67–69} and between one-shoulder covering sect and both-shoulder covering sect.^{[1]: 69–70} The defeat of the one-shoulder covering sect resulted in a unified order,^[3] but new sects broke out again in the late Konbaung period and throughout the British rule.

• Purima Saṃghā
  • lineage of Shin Arahan, lineage from Sudhuim
• Pacchima Saṃghā
  lineage of disciples of Chapada who studied as novices and were ordained as full monks in Sri Lanka. Chapada Thera caused a schism in Burma upon his return, and his friends from Sri Lanka who came together with him caused further schism later:
  • lineage of disciples of Sīvali^[a]
  • lineage of disciples of Tāmalinda
  • lineage of disciples of Ānanda^[b]

• Gāmavāsī Bahucāra Festive Monastery Sect
• Araññavāsī Forest Monastery Sect

• Ayondaw Sect
• Atin Sect / Ton Village Sect
• Gāmavāsī Hat-wearing Sect

Nine Sangha sects had been registered with the Department of Religious Affairs by 1 February 1980.^[4][5] The Law Relating to Sangha Organization, enacted by the SLORC junta in 1990, explicitly recognizes only these nine sects and prohibits the formation of new sects. However, the law allows the existing sects to merge.^[6] The official list of the Nine Major Sects of Saṃghā (သံဃာဂိုဏ်းကြီးကိုးဂိုဏ်း) is as follows:^[4][5][6][1]

1. သုဓမ္မာဂိုဏ်း Sudhammā Sect
2. ရွှေကျင်ဂိုဏ်း Shwegyin Sect
3. ဓမ္မာနုဓမ္မ မဟာဒွါရနိကာယဂိုဏ်း Dhammānudhamma Mahādvāra Nikāya Sect
4. ဓမ္မဝိနယာနုလောမ မူလဒွါရနိကာယဂိုဏ်း Dhammavinayānuloma Mūladvāra Nikāya Sect
5. အနောက်ချောင်းဒွါရဂိုဏ်း Anaukchaung Dvāra Sect
6. ဝေဠုဝန် နိကာယဂိုဏ်း Veḷuvanna Nikāya Sect
7. စတုဘုမ္မိက မဟာသတိပဋ္ဌာန် ငှက်တွင်းဂိုဏ်း Catubhummika Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Hngettwin Sect
8. ဂဏဝိမုတ် ကူးတို့ဂိုဏ်း Gaṇavimut Kudo Sect
9. ဓမ္မယုတ္တိနိကာယ မဟာရင်ဂိုဏ်း Dhammayutti Nikāya Mahāyin Sect

Originally, sudhammā was not the name of a sect. Based on the tradition of Thagyamin (Sakka) judging crimes and legal cases at the Sudhammā resthouse in Tāvatiṃsā heaven, the meeting place of senior monks (Sayadaws) discussing and judging the crimes and legal cases relating to the Buddhist religion Sāsanā is called Sudhammā. Before the breakaway of other sects, all of the Sangha in Myanmar were under the administration of Suddhamā Council. Since the breakaway of the Shwegyin Sect, monks who are not members of the new sects are automatically regarded to belong to the Sudhammā Sect.^[5]

In the year 1214 M.E. (1852-1853 C.E.), Sudhammā Council summoned the Shwegyin Sayadaw U Jāgara before them. As he did not come, the Sudhammā prepared to bring him by force. Some Sudhammā Sayadaws who were friends of Shwegyin Sayadaw advised him to flee to Lower Burma (under British rule). When King Mindon heard that news, he issued the royal order of Ganavimut, prohibiting the Sudhammā Council from summoning the Shwegyin Sayadaw, stating that it no longer had the right to summon him and that he could live independently.^[1]: 15 Since then, the lineage of Shwegyin Sayadaw is called the Shwegyin Sect.^[5]

On a Uposatha day in 1214 M.E. (1852-1853 C.E.), Okpho Sayadaw U Uggaṃsa went to a monastery of local gaing-dauk (sect's assistant head) sayadaws. There, he saw them performing the rites at an udakukkhepa sīmā connected with a gāmakhetta with a bridge. He refused to join them in performing, saying that the rites had failed because of the connection of udakukkhepa sīmā with gāmakhetta. The gaing-dauk sayadaws argued against him.^{[1]: 22–23} A Vinaya dispute subsequently arose, resulting in the separation of a new sect,^[7] but it did not receive the name Dvarā at that time.^[1]: 23 The Okpho Sayadaw preached to his followers to replace the words kāyakamma, vacīkamma, manokamma in the Okāsa prayer with the words kāyadvāra, vacīdvāra, manodvāra. In 1217 ME, a dispute broke out among the Uposatha observers on whether the recitation with three dvāra or the one with three kamma was correct. When they asked the Okpho Sayadaw, he judged that the recitation with dvāra is the only correct way, citing the Aṅguttara Nikāya of the Pāli canon. Those who disagreed asked the Kyìthè Layhtat Sayadaw (author of the Jinattha-pakāsanī), who judged that they should recite with kamma, citing the verse "natvāti kāyakamma vacīkamma manokamma saṅkhātehi tīhikammehi namassitvā". Thus, the sect of Okpho Sayadaw was called "Dvāravādī Sect" while those who disagreed with him (i.e., Sudhammā followers) were called "Kammavādī Sect".^{[1]: 23–24} The Okpho Sayadaw was proficient in astrology. He said that the full moon days and new moon days in the Burmese calendar are one day earlier than the actual days. He and his follower monks performed rites on the first waning days and the first waxing days instead of full moon days and new moon days, until he passed away.^[5]

Monks from six monasteries of the Dvāra Sect near the Ngawun River, locally known as Anaukchaung (Western Stream), accused the Ngathaingchaung Yetagun Monastery Sayadaw of the First Pārajika offense with a woman. Because the Dvāra Sect leader Okpho Sayadaw sided with the accused monk, the monks from those six monasteries broke away and founded a separate sect. This sect, Anaukchaung Dvāra Sect, is led by six sayadaws.^[5]

In the 13 years after the death of Okpho Sayadaw, no one had been elected as the new Mahānāyaka of Dvāra sāsanā. In 1280 M.E. (1918-1919 C.E.), the Dvāra Sect held a Sangha meeting which elected the Yangon Monastery Sayadaw from Hinthada as the second Mahānāyaka of Dvāra Sāsanā, and gave the title of "Dhammānudhamma Mahādva Nikāya" to their Dvāra Sect.^[1]: 25 The majority of Dvāra monks reverted to performing rites on full moon days and new moon days in the Burmese calendar, citing a teaching of Lord Buddha that full moon days and new moon days be determined by the king or the government (rāja padhāna).^[5]

Ingapu Sayadaw and his followers had personal and doctrinal disputes with Dvāra Sayadaws from Hinthada. When the Hinthada monks held a Sangha meeting and took the name "Mahādvāra Nikaya", the Ingapu Sayadaw named his group "Mūladvāra" without holding a Sangha meeting. The Mūladvāra Nikāya retains the practice of performing the rites on the first waning days and the first waxing days, as taught by the Okpho Sayadaw.^{[1]: 29–30} The sect later took the title "Dhammavinayānuloma Mūladvāra Nikāya," meaning the original Dvāra sect which practices according to Dhamma and Vinaya.^[5]

Derived from the Pali word "Gaṇa", the Burmese word "ဂိုဏ်း" "Gaing" can mean group, sect, or gang,^[8] and also, occults and cults.^{[1]: 59–60} In the context of Saṃgha "Gaing", it is to be called "Sect" in English.^[1]: 60 The word "Gana" is sometimes used in the state-owned English news outlet.^[9][10]

According to the rules and regulations of the Sangha Organization of Myanmar, every monastery in each sect is required to submit annually the number of monks and novices residing there.^[11]

Other unrecognized sects of Sangha had to merge with the recognized sects because they had not registered by 2 February 1980, and had failed to send sect representatives to the meeting that year.^[15]

Some sects, such as the Tai Zawti Sect, have merged into the Sudhammā Sect^[16] but retain their characteristics.^[15]

The Rāmañña Nikāya is a Mon-ethnic monastic order whose monks are currently de jure members of Shwegyin Sect, Mahāyin Sect and Sudhammā Sect.^[17] Although it did not receive recognition in 1980, it has maintained the de facto structure of a nikāya monastic order since 1920. It has been requesting formal recognition from the government since the 2020s.^[18]

Mahāyāna Buddhism is also practised in modern Myanmar mostly by Chinese descendants,^[19][20] but also by some minority ethnic groups.

Some sects, which are deemed to be against Theravāda Buddhism but unrelated to Mahāyāna Buddhism, have been banned. The Sky Blue Sect (မိုးပြာဂိုဏ်း), with the title Paccuppan Kammavāda Buddhism (ပစ္စုပ္ပန်ကမ္မဝါဒဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), is among the banned sects.^[21]