Satya Narayana Goenka was an Indian teacher of Vipassanā meditation. Born in Burma to an Indian business family, he moved to India in 1969 and started teaching meditation. His teaching emphasized that the Buddha's path to liberation was non-sectarian, universal, and scientific in character. He became an influential teacher and played an important role in establishing non-commercial Vipassana meditation centers globally. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2012, an award given for distinguished service of high order.
S. N. Goenka with his wife while speaking at a talk on Values in Education - Good Governance through Vipassana Meditation
Pagoda at Dhamma Giri Meditation Centre, Igatpuri, which was founded by Goenka in 1976.
The entrance to the Prachinburi Vipassana Meditation Centre, Thailand.
The main Dhamma hall in the Prachinburi Vipassana Meditation Center, Thailand.
Burmese Indians are a group of people of Indian origin who live in Myanmar (Burma). The term 'Burmese Indian' refers to a broad range of people from South Asia, most notably from present-day countries such as India and Bangladesh. While Indians have lived in Burma for many centuries, most of the ancestors of the current Burmese Indian community emigrated to Burma from the start of British rule in the mid-19th century to the separation of British Burma from British India in 1937. During colonial times, ethnic Indians formed the backbone of the government and economy serving as soldiers, civil servants, merchants, moneylenders, mobile laborers and dock workers. A series of anti-Indian riots in the 1930s and mass emigration at the onset of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 were followed in the 1960s by the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indians, exacerbated by internal conflict in Myanmar.
Shri Kali Temple, Burma, a Hindu temple with Dravidian architecture in Yangon
Manipuri Brahmins in British Burma, circa 1900
Indians on 39th Street, Rangoon, leaving Burma in the wake of the Japanese bombing December 1941
A Hindu temple procession in Yangon