U Wisara
Ven. U Wisara (, , ; 24 April 1889 – 19 September 1929) was a Burmese Buddhist monk who died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike against the colonial British rule in Burma. The monk had been repeatedly imprisoned and tortured by the colonial government for "inciting sedition", and forced to wear plain clothes and abandon religious observances. His "ultimate sacrifice profoundly moved many Burmese who not concerned themselves with politics before", and galvanized the nascent independence movement. The monk is commemorated today with the U Wisara Road, a major avenue in Yangon, and the U Wisara Monument in Yangon. Early life He was born Hla Kyaw (, ) to Daw Zalat () and her husband U Pya () in a small Upper Burma village called Kanneint () in Sagaing Division on 24 April 1889. He had an elder sister Phwa Thaik () and a younger brother Tha Pon (). Like most Burmese boys of the era, Hla Kyaw received his education at the local Buddhist monastery, Inna Monastery () run by Ven. U Sandima (, Pali: Candimā). At 12, he became a novice monk with the dhamma title of Wisara (, Vicāra). He left the order after four years, actively participated in local activities, and became recognized as a youth leader in the community. At 18, he was married off to a local girl, Me Nyan (), with whom he had a daughter named Phwa Yan (). But the arranged marriage broke down three months after their daughter was born. He remarried his childhood sweetheart Thay Hmyin (), who gave birth to a daughter named Nwe (). Return to monkhood Hla Kyaw is said to be unfulfilled with life. He took a sabbatical, and entered the monkhood for three months at the Tint-Taung Monastery at Salingyi, a nearby town. At the end of the sabbatical, he decided to be a monk full-time, and asked his parents and wife for permission. With their permission, he was ordained as a monk in 1912 at the Bonpyan Monastery by the Chief Abbot U Ãdeissa (, Ãdicca). He took his novice monkhood title of Wisara. He was 23. In the next decade, the young monk studied grammar, Pali language, and Theravada Canon under the tutelage of different learned sayadaws in Upper Burma (Magyibok, Pyinmana, Chaung-U, Mandalay, and Pakokku). While studying, he taught classes in monastic schools at the Kan Oo monastery in Pyinmana, and at the Maha Withudarama monastery in Pakkoku. He then went to India where he studied Sanskrit and the Nāgarī script for two years. Political activities In the 1920s, U Wisara gradually became active in the country's nascent independence movement. He had returned from India to Pakkoku where became an executive committee member in the local association of monks. In 1923, he met U Ottama who had already been once imprisoned by the British for making anti-colonial speeches. He too started traveling and making speeches, and ran into trouble with the law. First prison stay In 1926, he was