Mingun မင်းကွန်း

by Hla Min

Updated : 9th October 2026

Mingun Bell မင်းကွန်းခေါင်းလောင်း

• For a certain period, the Mingun Bell weighing 55555 viss was the largest functioning ringing bell in the world.
• Young Burmese remember the weight of the bell with the mnemonic “Min Phyu Hman Hman Pyaw မမင်းဖြူမှန်မှန်ပြော”
• One viss ပိဿာ equals 3.6 pounds.

Mingun Jetavana Sayadaw U Narada (1868 – 1955) မင်းကွန်းဇေတဝန်ဆရာတော်ဦးနာရဒ

• Credited as for the revival of Vipassana (ဝိပဿနာInsight) Meditation in Burma
• Went to one Mingun Sayadaw, who presumably had studied meditation under Thee Gon သဲကုန်း ဆရာတော်Sayadaw, and asked for guidance.
• Was told to study Sattipattha (သတိပဌာန်from the Scriptures) deeply and then practice meditation
• Prominent disciples : Mahasi Sayadaw မဟာစည် and Taung Pulu Sayadaw တောင်ပုလု
• TMC (Tathagata Meditation Center) တထာဂတhas published a book about Sayadaw.

Mingun Tipitaka Sayadaw Ashin Vicittasarabhivamsa မင်းကွန်းတိပိဋကဆရာတော်

• U Vicittasarabhivamsa (GBNF) ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ was listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for his phenomenal memory.
• When Burma hosted the Sixth Buddhist Council ဆဌသံဂါယနာ at Kaba Aye Pagoda in 1954 – 56 to commemorate the 2500th year of the “Sasana Calendar“, Sayadaw acted as the “Reciter” of the Tipitaka (Triple Basket : Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma) and the selected Commentaries.
• According to the Kaba Aye Edition, the Tipitaka covers 8000+ pages.
  Vinaya : ဝိနည်း Monastic rules of conduct
  Sutta : သုတ္တန် Discourses
  Abhidhamma : အဘိဓမ္မာ Ultimate Reality
• Sayadaw could recall all and provide exposition.
• To prepare for the Buddhist Council, Sir U Thwin ဦးသွင် requested Mingun Sayadaw to take the Tipitaka examination.
• Sayadaw passed the Oral and Written tests for the Three Baskets with Distinction.
• Oral tests will fail a candidate if he needs five (or six) prompts. Sayadaw did not need a single prompt.
• Written tests cover in-depth topics.
• During the recitation, Sayadaw amazed the examiners by pointing out the variations of the text and highlighted the preferred version.
• First Sayadaw to be conferred “Guardian / Bearer of the Tipitaka & Treasurer of the Dhamma“.
• When Sayadaw received requisites, he gave them to the monks (in the town where he received them).
• To support the monks studying for the later Tipitaka examinations, Sayadaw set up a monastery in Mingun and accepted monks who had finished Dhammacariya.