Sayādaw U Vicittasāra
Mingun Sayādaw
A Fabulous Memory
The Guinness Book Records of 1985 has this entry:
Human memory: Bhandanta Vicitsara (sic)
recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts in Rangoon, Burma
in May 1954. Rare instance of eidetic memory the ability to
project and hence "usually" recall material are known to science.
The Venerable Mingun Sayadaw U Vicittasarabhivamsa was the first
even in Buddhist lands to win the titles Tipitakadhara
Dhammabhandagarika (Bearer of the Three Pitakas and Keeper of the
Dhamma Treasure).
 In 1948, the first year of independence from
British rule, the Government considered the need to purify,
perpetuate and propagate the Sāsana. To promote the emergence of a
heroic Sāsana personality with the ability to memorize and recite by
heart the whole of the Pāli Canon — the Tipitaka — and to seek out
personalities with special intellectual powers to receive the
reverence and praise of the devotees, the Government decided to
institute the Tipitakadhara Examination.
It
is an oral and written examination lasting thirty-three days. The
candidate is examined in the three Pitakas: Vinaya, Sutta, and
Abhidhamma. The oral examination in the Vinaya covers five volumes
in five books comprising 2,260 pages. The oral examination in the
Sutta covers three volumes and three books comprising 782 pages. The
oral examination in Abhidhamma covers seven volumes in twelve books
comprising 4,941 pages.
The oral examination on these 7,983 pages or about 2.4
million words is not a viva voce, a question and answer
examination. It is an examination on total recall and faultless
reproduction. The Candidate will be given a pointing to the Pāli
Canon, any point, and asked to continue reciting from there, line by
line, paragraph by paragraph and page by page. Or he would be given
a point and asked to go back from there a certain number of sections
and to recite from there. There must be no error in the word form,
the pronunciation must be correct, the flow must be smooth, and the
enunciation must demonstrate the proper understanding of the meaning
of the passage being recited. A certain number of pages of text must
be covered in a fixed time. A candidate who requires prompting for
five or more time fails.
The written examination is not only on the Pāli Canon but
also on the Commentaries and Sub-commentaries. The ten major
commentaries in ten books and the major Sub-commentaries in fourteen
books cover 17,917 pages. Candidates are tested on the doctrinal
understanding, comparative philosophy, textual discrimination,
taxonomic grouping and analysis and on the interrelationships.
Though candidates are not expected to reproduce whole passages as in
the oral examination, many of the questions cannot be answered
without the ability to recall such passages and to compare diverse
passages mentally at the examination desk.
Thus, the Tipitakadhara Examination is one of the longest
and toughest examinations in the world. When the first Tipitakadhara
Examination was held, the Venerable Mingun Sayādaw was one of over
one hundred monks invited to observe the proceedings. When the
result was a disappointment with no candidate successful, he
resolved to repay the nation's debt in search of a hero of the
Pariyatti Sāsana. He set about the task systematically. He took up
the Pāli Canon passage by passage, book by book. He first set out to
understand the passage thinking in Myanmar and in Pāli. He broke the
passage into sentences, paragraphs or sections according to the
degree of difficulty. If necessary, he noted the number of
modifications and variations in the selected pieces. He read aloud
each section five times, then closing the book, he repeated what he
had just recited. If he was hesitant or felt he had not mastered the
passage he would open the book and read aloud five more times. If it
was recalled smoothly he would recite it ten times and then pass on
to the next passage. In the evenings when reciting the day's
passages he would not do it alone but request some other monk to
check with the open book. This ensured that he did not pass over any
word, phrase or sentence and that each declension was correct.
When two or three books had been mastered he would set aside
each evening two or three periods required for their recall and
recitation. The intention was to go through the finished books
simultaneously so that the mind would be active in all the books at
the same time and all interrelationships would be discerned. The
Venerable Mingun Sayādaw also trained for the physically gruelling
examination. Where an oral session would last for three hours he
would practice reciting for five, thus accustoming himself to a test
of ten hours a day. And he would do this for longer than the stretch
of 33 days of the examination. He trained likewise for the written
examination. When the Third Tipitakadhara Examination came around in
1950, the Venerable Mingun Sayādaw was ready to repay the debt to
the devotees of the nation.
He
appeared for the oral examination on 2,260 pages of the Vinaya
Pitaka. In a clear, firm voice, unhesitatingly, without error,
without prompting, with full understanding, he precisely enunciated
each word and phrase audible to the whole audience. When there were
different versions he pointed each out and suggested the most
suitable one. The virtuoso performance received the appreciation and
acclamation of the audience.
In
the written examination in the Pāli text, Commentaries, and
Sub-commentaries on the Vinaya, the Venerable Mingun Sayādaw
received the following marks out of a possible 100.
In
the Fourth and Fifth Examinations, the Venerable Mingun Sayādaw
appeared for the oral and written examinations on the Abhidhamma and
passed with equal facility. By that time, preparations for the Sixth
Buddhist Council were underway. The Venerable U Vicittasārābhivamsa
was a member of the Regional Mūla Pāli Visodhaka, Primary Redaction
Committee responsible for the Mahāvagga section of the Vinaya
Pitaka. He completed the work in 19 days so his regional committee
was further assigned the Parivāra. This too was finished
expeditiously.
In
undertaking the assignments, the Venerable Sayādaw did not just read
through the texts with the committee but sought out the different
versions, brought out the reference in the Commentaries and
Sub-commentaries, explained the implications to the clear
understanding of the committee members, sought a unanimous
conclusion and wrote the report.
The Venerable Sayādaw also participated in the next higher
redaction Committee, the Pati Pāli Visodaka Committee. In sessions
of the Committee, Myanmar monks who were well-versed in the Pāli
texts, but not proficient in the language, and Sri Lanka monks who
were proficient in the language, but not so well-versed in the texts
could not get the understanding of each other. When such occasions
arose, the Venerable Mingun Sayādaw would respectfully and
pleasantly explain the issue and possible solution to each side and
thus arrive at a satisfactory understanding. Observing the
performance of the Sayādaw, the Sri Lanka monks would say, “There is
none such in Sri Lanka, there is none such in Jambudīpa.”
The venerable Sayādaw returned to his monastery in Mingun
and worked on the Commentaries and Sub-commentaries. He foresaw that
after redaction the Pāli Canon, the Commentaries and
Sub-commentaries would follow. At the same time he had to prepare
for the Tipitakadhara Examination on the third and final Pitaka. He
was not unduly worried. After the voluminous prescriptions of the
Vinaya and Abhidhamma, the less than 800 pages of the Sutta Pitaka
were not onerous.
On
a January afternoon in 1954, the Venerable U Vicittasārābhivamsa
successfully completed the recitation of the Pāthika Vagga of the
Sutta Pitaka and a Tipitakadhara Dhammabhandāgārika was born in
Myanmar.
Written by Win Pe
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