Hopong Koyinlay
Ashin Porisa (Burmese: အရှင်ပေါရိသ), also known as Hopong Koyinlay (Burmese: ဟိုပုံးကိုရင်လေး; 1974 — 1 September 2021), was an influential Pa'O monk from Hopong in southern Shan State.
He was known for his religious works on Pa'O Self-Administered Zone and led the Htam Sam Cave. Koyinlay and his monastery area were guarded by Pa-O National Army.[1]
He became a samanera at the age of six. He cut his pinkie for his deep religious donation. He found a cave as suggestion of his dream. Koyinlay said he subsequently returned to the caves, exploring the deeper caverns while fighting off the ghosts and evil spirits that were roaming in the darkness, disturbing his meditation sequences. He built many Buddhist images and pagodas in the cave. The cave was named Htam Sam Cave and became a popular pilgrimage destination.[1]
He has not yet obtained the title of 'sayadaw' even at age 40. He is referred to as "Koyinlay" (meaning 'young novice'), probably in reference to his young age when he had the visions.[2]
Koyinlay had been highly influenced on Pa-O people and Pa-O National Army. He led the local people in teaching military skills. In 2015, he ordered the construction of a smaller replica of Shwedagon Pagoda in Hopong.[1] Koyinlay's Myitta Kham Tan gang, which has over 5,000 members, has teamed up with the Myanmar military in Hopong Township, Shan State.
Koyinlay died on 1 September 2021, at the age of 47, as a result of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).[3][4]
References
- ^ a b c "Guardians of the sacred cavern". The Myanmar Times. 18 December 2015. Archived from the original on 19 February 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
- ^ "ဟိုပုံးမြို့က ထမ်းဆန်း သဘာဝလိုဏ်ဂူ". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese). 5 June 2015. Archived from the original on 20 March 2022. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
- ^ "Mask (နှာခေါင်းစည်း)တပ်တာ မကြိုက်တဲ့ ကိုရင်လေး ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ဖြင့် ပျံလွန်တော်မူ". SHAN News (Burmese) (in Burmese). 1 September 2021. Archived from the original on 14 September 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
- ^ "ဟိုပုံးကိုရင်လေး (ခ) အရှင်ပေါရိသ COVID-19 ရောဂါဖြင့် ပျံလွန်တော်မူ". Eleven Media Group (in Burmese). 1 September 2021. Archived from the original on 1 September 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2022.