The mystical significance of numbers has been believed in by many people around the globe regardless of their faiths and spiritual traditions since time immemorial. Muslims usually prefer odd numbers in their personal and religious activities. Hindus believe in Vedic numbers.

Personal numbers, destiny numbers, and name numbers have a great effect on their lives. Meanwhile, Sikhs say that “Everything is 13” signifying “Everything is God’s”. Christians believe the Number 7 is a biblical number representing ‘completeness’. In Japanese Buddhist temples, a bell is usually rung 108 times to enter into a new year, which probably refers to the total number of impure thoughts of the mind to be given up to attain Nirvana. And so on.  

This supernatural significance of numbers is widely called numerology. Besides its connection with religious philosophy, numerology has a relationship with foretelling (astrology), sorcery, and necromancy as well. However, they have no place in major faiths. Islam and Christianity even consider them as major sins. Yet, many people of these faiths revere numbers and stars as their guardians of fate and guides of the future.

Surprisingly, Myanmar manifests its reliance on numerology to the nth degree, turning its religious sentiment into nationalistic thoughts.
88% of Myanmar’s population is Buddhist.

Despite being an overwhelming majority, many of them believe that Myanmar is on the verge of complete decay of the ‘Dhamma’ (Buddhist law), ‘Sangha’ (monastic community), and ‘Sasana’ (Buddhist tradition) due to the rise of other faiths, especially Christianity (6%) and Islam (4%). Surprisingly, such religious nationalistic sentiment is infused and led by a part of the monastic community in the name of righteous defence.

 In Myanmar, the fascination for religious nationalism emerged during the Colonial Period in the 19th Century. Three significant events happened at that time i.e. end of a thousand-years-old tradition of royal relation and support to the Buddhist monastic community, the entry of Christian missionaries, and the influx of Indian Muslims and Hindus for government positions in Myanmar.

These resulted in the suffering of locals and monks, with fear of the unavoidable extinction of the long-existing practice of Buddhism from the land. The 1938 anti-Muslim riot was another milestone when the whole Muslim community was marked as the top enemy as a Muslim writer insulted the practice of Buddhism in his booklet.

Numerology-guided religious nationalism could first be recorded in Myanmar in 1997, when a senior official at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Mr. U Kyaw Lwin, related two numbers, ‘969’ and ‘786’ as a cosmological opposite, in his book titled ‘Nha-phat-hla’. Here, ‘969’ signifies nine attributes of Buddha, six attributes of Buddhism (Drama), and nine attributes of the Buddhist monastic community (Sangha).

While ‘786’ represents a numerological alternative of ‘Bismillah’ (In the Name of Allah) to many Muslims in South and Southeast Asia without any authentic religious authority of Islam. Mr U Kyaw Lwin’s book thus reinvigorated the anti-Muslim sentiment all around Myanmar, showing ‘786’ as a threat to ‘969’, intending Muslims as a threat to Buddhists.  

In 2001, a 33-year-old monk, Asin Wirathu, started preaching the idea of ‘969’ with serious provocative speeches and leaflets against Islam in Mandalay, supporting the plan of then President Thein Sein to send Rohingya Muslims to a third country.  That incited deadly communal violence all over Myanmar. Wirathu was arrested in 2003 and sent to prison for 25 years. However, he was released in 2011 by President Thein Sein himself as a gesture of amnesty.

After being freed from jail and drenched by the superstitious idea of Mr U Kyaw Lwin’s ‘969’ versus ‘786’, monk Wirathu led an extreme Buddhist religious nationalistic ‘969 Movement’, in Mandalay in 2012.

Wirathu now made an incredible prophecy that Muslims would soon take over the country.

As the nationwide communal violence again erupted by his conduct, the government regulatory body of Buddhist monks, the Sangha Council, banned the ‘969 Movement’ in 2013, stating that, it is the responsibility of the Council and the Ministry of Religious Affairs to protect race and religion, not ‘969 Movement’, and such movement should not have used the Buddhist Symbol. Sangha Council did not denounce the ‘969 Movement for its violent actions though. Ashin Wirathu appeared in a cover story of Time Magazine in 2013 as a Buddhist terror.

However, in 2014, the ‘969 Movement resurfaced as a more organised ultra-nationalist association ‘MaBaTha’, the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion. After facing another ban in 2017, ‘MaBaTha’ continued their activities under the new name ‘Buddha Dharma Charity Foundation’ without any legal authority. Ashin Wirathu remained at the forefront with his extremely unpalatable comments and surrendered to the police for a sedition case against him in 2020. The charges were dismissed in 2021.

Eventually, in 2023, the government of Myanmar indirectly voiced solidarity with the ‘969’ versus ‘786’ based on religious nationalism by awarding monk Ashin Wirathu with the national award ‘Thiri Pyanchi’, in recognition of his ‘outstanding’ contribution to Unity of Myanmar.

Thus, living in the 21st century, a big chunk of the Buddhist population in Myanmar is experiencing a growingly intolerant religious nationalism by trusting this numerological fore-telling. I do not like to sound judgmental here, but I believe that such a phenomenon would remain a food for thought for years to come, as tolerance is fundamental to Buddhist ethics, not numerology.
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The writer is a former Lieutenant Colonel who completed AFWC and PSC