Shin Upagutta

Biography

During the time of Kassapa Buddha, Shin Upagutta was a monk named Eindagotta (Indāgutta). He advised some fellow monks to leave the monastic life and return to lay life. Kassapa Buddha then prophesied that he would become an arhat 218 years after the death of Gautama Buddha. In Gautama Buddha's era, he was a non-believer called Sula Thakuladayi (Cūla Sakuladāyi).

Although the Buddha taught him about saṃsāra, he could not ordain as a monk due to Kassapa Buddha's prophecy. In either 265 or 182 BCE, Upagutta was born to mother Missa Dewi (Macchadevī) and father Prince Dawtha Kumara (Dosakumāra). He was told he would become a noble person. As a youth, he had a rough personality, was interested in wild animals, and disliked learning.

A sage named Upa taught him the Buddha's teachings. Later, Upagutta and his mother returned to her father, the king of Yazaka (Rājagaha). The king wanted Upagutta as his heir, but his mother insisted on the prophecy of his arhatship. A deva then carried Prince Upagutta across the ocean, where he began contemplating the dhamma taught by Bayathe.

He suddenly became an arhat, and the angel dropped him. As he fell, a bronze palace appeared in the ocean, and he began living there. Some Burmese believe Shin Upagutta still resides in a floating brass palace in the southern ocean, and that his invisible presence can be invoked through a special Pali incantation to prevent storms and floods. He is commonly venerated in the Irrawaddy Delta.

A major festival dedicated to him occurs in Shwegyin, near Bago, during the Burmese month of Thadingyut. Another festival, the Ye Hmyaw Pwe, is held in Yangon's Chinatown in October, featuring a Chinese-style procession and ceremonial dispersal of ashes into the Yangon River.