Dipa Ma
1911 CE–1989 CE · Modern · near Chittagong
1911–1989 CE
Dipa Ma (Nani Bala Barua, 1911–1989) was a Bengali Buddhist laywoman who became one of the most accomplished insight (vipassanā) teachers of the 20th century. Born into a Barua Buddhist family near Chittagong (in present-day Bangladesh), she turned to intensive meditation in Burma after the deaths of her husband and children, studying under Anagarika Munindra, and from 1967 taught from her modest home in Calcutta. A widow and householder rather than a nun, she was a powerful example that deep practice is open to ordinary lay life and to women, and she directly shaped Western teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield. She is well documented.
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near Chittagong
What they did here
DOCUMENTED: born Nani Bala Barua into a Bengali Buddhist Barua family near Chittagong, in the region of present-day Bangladesh.
About near Chittagong
The Chittagong region of southeastern Bangladesh has a long-standing Buddhist (Barua) community. Near Chittagong was the early home of Dipa Ma (Nani Bala Barua), the laywoman who, after training in Burma, became a renowned teacher of insight meditation and an influential figure for the Western vipassanā movement.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Dipa Ma’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Balangoda Ananda Maitreya, Webu Sayadaw, Sayagyi U Ba Khin, Mahasi Sayadaw, Walpola Rahula
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Dipa Ma’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Buddhist world
- Thích Quảng Đức· 1897 CE–1963 CE
- Anagarika Govinda· 1898 CE–1985 CE
- Nyanaponika Thera· 1901 CE–1994 CE
- Dudjom Rinpoche (Jigdral Yeshe Dorje)· 1904 CE–1987 CE
- Shunryū Suzuki· 1904 CE–1971 CE
- Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu· 1906 CE–1993 CE
- Yinshun· 1906 CE–2005 CE
- Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo· 1907 CE–1961 CE
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche· 1910 CE–1991 CE
- Philip Kapleau· 1912 CE–2004 CE
- Ajahn Maha Bua· 1913 CE–2011 CE
- Alan Watts· 1915 CE–1973 CE
- Robert Aitken· 1917 CE–2010 CE
- Charlotte Joko Beck· 1917 CE–2011 CE
- Ajahn Chah· 1918 CE–1992 CE
- Hsuan Hua· 1918 CE–1995 CE
- Ruth Denison· 1922 CE–2015 CE
- Geshe Lhundub Sopa· 1923 CE–2014 CE
- Jiyu-Kennett· 1924 CE–1996 CE
- S. N. Goenka· 1924 CE–2013 CE
- Seung Sahn· 1927 CE–2004 CE
- Taizan Maezumi· 1931 CE–1995 CE
- Tarthang Tulku· 1934 CE–
- Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche· 1939 CE–1987 CE
Jewish world
Christian world
Scientists
Luminaries & Explorers world
Rulers world
- Deng Xiaoping· 1904 CE–1997 CE
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi· 1919 CE–1980 CE
- Yuri Andropov· 1914 CE–1984 CE
- Konstantin Chernenko· 1911 CE–1985 CE
- Richard Nixon· 1913 CE–1994 CE
- Emperor Hirohito (Showa)· 1901 CE–1989 CE
- Georgy Malenkov· 1902 CE–1988 CE
- Leonid Brezhnev· 1906 CE–1982 CE
- Gamal Abdel Nasser· 1918 CE–1970 CE
- Ronald Reagan· 1911 CE–2004 CE
- Lyndon B. Johnson· 1908 CE–1973 CE
- Kwame Nkrumah· 1909 CE–1972 CE
- Gerald Ford· 1913 CE–2006 CE
- Julius Nyerere· 1922 CE–1999 CE
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.