The Making of the Culprit: Atula Hsayadaw Shin Yasa and the Politics of Monastic Reform in Eighteenth-Century Burma

The paper attempts to reconstruct the career of Atula Hsayadaw Shin Yatha (1700-1786), one of the key monastic leaders of eighteenth-century Burma, an advisor to the king Alaungmintaya, a prolific author, and a culprit portrayed as the enemy of the sāsana in several influential religious chronicles of the Konbaung period. It is built as a survey of available materials on this important historical figure with a special emphasis on his monastic affiliation, his role in shaping the religious policy of Alaungmintaya, his banishment from the capital in the 1770s, and his trial, which took place in 1784. The paper explores how the image of Atula as a culprit was constructed and how that has affected the current understanding of monastic reforms in eighteenth-century Burma.