Sona
Mon · mortal · Mon traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Soṇa is one of the pair of missionary elders whom Moggaliputta Tissa sent to Suvaṇṇabhūmi, the Golden Land, in the reign of Ashoka to establish the religion after the Third Council. In the legend the theras arrived to find a sea-demoness devouring every newborn child; they countered her with the recitation of the Brahmajāla Sutta and won the country to the Dhamma. Mon tradition and the fifteenth-century Kalyāṇī Inscriptions of King Dhammazedi locate this Suvaṇṇabhūmi at Thaton, giving the Mon a claim to the oldest Theravada foundation in the region, though the identification remains debated among historians.
Domains
- buddhist missionary
Powers
- subdue the sea-ogress of Suvaṇṇabhūmi
Epithets
- Thera of Suvaṇṇabhūmi — Elder who converted the Golden LandThe Mahāvaṃsa (Geiger trans., 1912), ch. XII (primary)
Relations
- companion: UttaraThe two theras were sent together and are always named as a pair.Wilhelm Geiger (trans.), The Mahāvaṃsa (Pali Text Society, 1912), ch. XII (primary)
Sources
- Soṇa and Uttara were the two theras despatched to Suvaṇṇabhūmi after the Third Buddhist Council, a land Mon tradition identifies with Thaton and the Kalyāṇī Inscriptions affirm as the Mon country.: Wilhelm Geiger (trans.), The Mahāvaṃsa (Pali Text Society, 1912), ch. XII (primary); Taw Sein Ko, 'The Kalyāṇī Inscriptions Erected by King Dhammacetī at Pegu in 1476', Indian Antiquary (1892–1893) (primary)
- The equation of Suvaṇṇabhūmi with Lower Burma is contested.: Michael Aung-Thwin, The Mists of Rāmañña (University of Hawai'i Press, 2005) (secondary)