Naga Daw Oo
Oo (Burmese: ဦး, pronounced [ʔú]; 27 April 1910 – 11 July 1995), known honorifically as Naga Daw Oo (Burmese: နဂါး ဒေါ်ဦး, pronounced [nəgá dɔ̀ ʔú]), was a 20th-century Burmese business tycoon from Mandalay, Myanmar. She is best remembered for her decades-long involvement with the annual Thingyan festivities in Mandalay as well as her contributions to Buddhist causes across the country.[1] She was the first person to receive the title of Agga Maha Thiri Thudhamma Theingi (Pali: Aggamahāsīrisudhammasiṅgī), the highest possible religious title for lay Buddhists in Myanmar.[2]
Aggamahāsīrisudhammasiṅgī Naga Daw Oo | |
|---|---|
| Born | Oo 27 April 1910 |
| Died | 11 July 1995 (aged 85) |
| Nationality | Burmese |
| Occupation | Owner, Naga Cheroot |
| Known for | Yay Nan Thuza Mandalay Thingyan Religious donations |
| Spouse(s) | Naga U Htun Chun |
| Parent(s) | U Htin (father) Daw Su (mother) |
| Awards | Aggamahāsīrisudhammasiṅgī |
Early life
Born to U Htin and Daw Su on 27 April 1910 in Mandalay, Oo was the eldest of 12 siblings. She was an elder sister of Ludu Daw Amar, a leading dissident writer and journalist.[3] Oo was educated at the American Baptist Missionary School before leaving the school in 1927.
Business career
In 1929, Oo married Htun Chun of Myinmu. The couple founded the Naga Cheroot Company, a cigar-cheroot manufacturing company, in 1938. Their company found success and soon had locations across the country. After her husband died during World War II, she assumed leadership of the company. In the 1960s, the Naga Cheroot was nationalized by the Union Revolutionary Council, leading to its eventual fallure.[1]
Thingyan festival
Oo was a leader of the Mandalay social scene. For about 40 years, Oo ran the famous "Yay Nan Thuza" (or "Naga Me") mandat (pavilion) during the annual Thingyan festival in Mandalay. She personally managed a yein troupe and a water-throwing team, comprising shop owners and staff from the Zegyo Market.[4][5]
Later life
Donations
Oo made many meritorious deeds at Naga Monastery in Mandalay. She was awarded the highest Sāsanānuggaha title of Aggamahāsīrisudhammasiṅgī by the government for her contributions to Buddhist causes in Myanmar.[1][6]
Death
Oo died in Mandalay on 11 July 1995 at the age of 85.[1]
References
- "မန္တလေးက သင်္ကြန်မင်းသမီး နဂါးဒေါ်ဦး". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese).
- "မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ ပထမ စခဲ့သော ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်များ". Chelmo News Portal. 7 October 2020.
- "လူထုဒေါ်အမာ နှစ် ၁ဝဝ ကျော် ငါးနှစ်စွန်းလေပြီ". The Myanmar Times. 29 November 2020.
- "သင်္ကြန်လမ်းဆုံ". DVB. 12 April 2015.
- ဒေါ်.), အမာ (လူထု). အမေ့ရှေးစကား (in Burmese). တက်လမ်းစာပေ.
- "အများနဲ့မတူ တမူထူးခြားတဲ့ မန္တလေးသင်္ကြန်နဲ့ မြို့မ". ဧရာဝတီ. 13 April 2019.