U Wisara
| U Wisara | |
|---|---|
| ဦးဝိစာရ | |
U Wisara
|
|
| Religion | Buddhism |
| School | Theravada |
| Dharma names | Vicāra ဝိစာရ |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Burmese |
| Born | 24 April 1889 Wednesday, 8th waning of Late Tagu 1250 ME Kanneint village, Chaung-U Township, Sagaing Division, British Burma |
| Died | 19 September 1929 (aged 40) Thursday, 2nd waning of Tawthalin 1291 ME Rangoon, British Burma |
Ven. U Wisara (Burmese: ဦးဝိစာရ, pronounced [ʔú wḭsəɹa̰]; 24 April 1889 – 19 September 1929) was a Burmese Buddhist monk, who died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike against the British rule in Burma. The monk had been repeatedly imprisoned and tortured by the colonial government for "inciting sedition", and forced to wear plain clothes and abandon religious observances. His "ultimate sacrifice profoundly moved many Burmese who not concerned themselves with politics before", and galvanized the nascent independence movement. The monk is commemorated today with the U Wisara Road, a major avenue in Yangon, and the U Wisara Monument in Yangon.
He was born Hla Kyaw (လှကျော်, [l̥a̰ tɕɔ̀]) to Daw Zalat (ဒေါ်ဇလပ်) and her husband U Pya (ဦးပြား) in a small Upper Burma village called Kanneint (ကမ်းနိမ့်) in Sagaing Division on 24 April 1889. He had an elder sister Phwa Thaik (ဖွားသိုက်) and a younger brother Tha Pon (သာပုံ). Like most Burmese boys of the era, Hla Kyaw received his education at the local Buddhist monastery, Inna Monastery (အင်းနား) run by Ven. U Sandima (စန္ဒိမာ, Pali: Candima). At 12, he became a novice monk with the dhamma title of Wisara (ဝိစာရ, Vicāra). He left the order after four years, actively participated in local activities, and became recognized as a youth leader in the community. At 18, he was married off to a local girl, Me Nyan (မယ်ဉာဏ်), with whom he had a daughter named Phwa Yan (ဖွားရန်). But the arranged marriage broke down three months after their daughter was born. He remarried his childhood sweetheart Thay Hmyin (သေးမျှင်), who gave birth to a daughter named Nwe (နွယ်).
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Wikipedia