Bo Min Gaung (Burmese: ဘိုးမင်းခေါင်; 2 May 1880 – 5 September 1952) also known as Aung Min Gaung (Burmese: အောင်မင်းခေါင်) was a prominent 20th century weizza, or wizard, who lived at Mount Popa.[1] He is associated with Dhammazedi, a prominent king of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom of ancient Myanmar in the 15th century.
Bo Min Gaung was born Maung Bo Aung on 2 May 1880 (Sunday, 10th waxing of Kason 1242 ME) at 10:00 AM in Sin Myint Village, east of Mount Popa, Kyaukpadaung Township, Mandalay Region, Konbaung Dynasty, Burma to parents U Maung Pu and Daw Min Thit. He was second son of five siblings. He had one older brother, two younger brother and one younger sister. His siblings names are U Bo Thaung, U Htun Maung, U Bo Saung and Daw Wai Myint.
He became a novice monk when he was young and became a monk when he was an adult. The name of his monk life is U Arseinna (ဦးအာစိဏ္ဏ). He used to travel often and returned to his hometown. He used to reach his destination in a short time. So, many people thought that he was skilled in magic.
After three Vassa of monastic life, he left the monkhood. He came back to the village under the name Min Khaung and he didn't answer the relatives' questions fluently. Relatives thought he was crazy. He did extraordinary things to break his relatives' opinions. Such as bringing the chicken back to life, riding a log in the river and climbing upstream, treating a wild tiger as a pet cat and playing with it, driving a broken car from Mount Popa to Kyaukpadaung, walking in the Irrawaddy River, sleeping on a banana leaf on a banana tree, making himself two, quickly knowing the thoughts of others, uprooting a big tree with one hand, not smelling bad even though he didn't shower, being able to live without food for four or five months.
After that, he moved from village and lived in Mount Popa. Police chief U Kywat arrested him on suspicion and put him in Kyaukpadaung prison. About a month later, he left the prison without opening the prison door and without losing the lock.
He distributed "first sectarian exhortation letter" (ပထမမန်ဂိုဏ်းတော်ကြီးလုံ့ဆော်စာ). In the letter, he wrote
He spread the good news and people from over eighty cities and four thousand villages built nine cubits pagodas. In 1952, he built a pagoda named "Pyi Lone Chan Thar Kat Kyaw" (which means rich whole country and overcome calamities) on the Mount Popa.
Bo Min Gaung died at Mount Popa on 5 September 1952 (Friday, 2nd waning of Tawthalin 1314 ME) at 4:20 PM. That day had been celebrating as the annual "the day that Bo Min Gaung left" (အဘထွက်ပွဲနေ့).
In his previous life, he had been King Okkalapa and U Ba Oo, the owner of the rice mill had been Min Nanda. So, it did not appear on the camera of most of the people who took pictures of Bo Min Gaung, but only on U Ba Oo camera.
The Dhammazedi Gaing consider him as their founder and master, as well as the future Buddha or a future king. However, this is not a standard belief in mainstream Burmese Buddhism. In addition to believing that he will be reincarnated as a powerful leader in the future, the Dhammazedi Gaing also believe that he inhabits the bodies of living persons, whose bodies he speaks through and advises his followers on how to live a Buddhist life.[2] Thus, he is considered as an immortal in traditional Burmese Buddhism and his statues are often featured on Burmese altars.[3]
Bo Min Gaung, also known as Aba Bo Min Gaung, had been accepted by most people as a family member. For older than 40 years old, he is their Aba (means Father, and also Father's brother or term to call peer age with Father or Dad.). For young age between 1 and over 30, he is their grand, grand aba, granddad, and protector. Mostly founded in villages of Myanmar (Burma). And also people in other states or territories, they known him as a powerful soul or human, but mostly accepted as a relative.
People, they also respect to Aba Bo Min Gaung, who gain success in vipassana meditation (Burmese: ဝိပဿနာ). All People bow to him for giving respect to him.
Aba Bo Min Gaung is also Buddhist which official religion of Myanmar (Burma). He really believe in Buddha, and Buddha's Dhammas. His ambition is to be a part of Buddhist, and Listen or follow Buddha's Dhammas when upcoming Buddha appear again in future.
Bo Min Gaung is associated with the Burmese nationalist movement.[4]
Most people in Burma believe that he can protect them, give dreams to them, and even give money or wealth by using his powers otherwise, by using his soul.