Gavampati

In Mon tradition the arahant Gavampati is the tutelary apostle of Rāmaññadesa, the Mon country, held to have carried the Dhamma to Suvaṇṇabhūmi and to Thaton during the Buddha's own lifetime and to have brought or enshrined relics there. He is one of the great disciples of the Pali canon, remembered for his mastery over the tides, and in Lower Burma his cult attaches to major stupas as an abiding guardian. Sources differ sharply on the age of the legend: the Mon chronicles present it as ancient truth, while critical historians hold the Thaton-Suvaṇṇabhūmi identification to be a later scholastic construction.

Domains

• tutelary guardianship
• relic enshrinement

Powers

• establish the Dhamma in the Mon country
• intercede as guardian of the Mon land

Epithets

• Apostle of Rāmaññadesa — Patron saint of the Mon landDonald M. Stadtner, Sacred Sites of Burma (Bangkok: River Books, 2011) (secondary)

Sources

• Gavampati, an arahant disciple of the Buddha, is venerated as the patron saint who brought Buddhism to the Mon country of Suvaṇṇabhūmi and Thaton.: Donald M. Stadtner, Sacred Sites of Burma: Myth and Folklore in an Evolving Spiritual Realm (Bangkok: River Books, 2011) (secondary); R. Halliday (trans.), 'Slapat Rajawan Datow Smim Ron', Journal of the Burma Research Society 13 (1923) (primary)
• The antiquity of the Gavampati-Thaton conversion tradition is disputed in modern scholarship.: Michael Aung-Thwin, The Mists of Rāmañña: The Legend That Was Lower Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005) (secondary)