Mahamevnawa Meaning

[JoeL]

Mahamevnawa
This is the name of my local monastery, I was wondering the meaning and it dawned on me the egg heads at sutta central will know?

[Christopher]

Mahamevnawa, meaning “Great Cloud Monastery,” was the name of the first monastery established in Sri Lanka and the place where Arahant Mahinda Thero first introduced the Buddha’s teachings to the island.

From: About Us - Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery

I believe Ven. @snowbird is affiliated with Mahamevnawa.

[Snowbird]

@JoeL

Mahamevnawa

The Pali is Maha Megha Vana, great cloud forest. From the Wikipedia about the namesake ancient monastery:

Mahamevnāwa (Mahāmēgha, Pali: Mahāmeghavana) is an ancient park in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. It was created by King Mutasiva (367 - 307 BC) whose name is in the history as the first king who structured a park. He who was the son of King Pandukabhaya and the father of King Devanampiya Tissa.[1]

King Pandukabhaya is the founder of the city of Anuradhapura. King Mutasiva, after succeeding his father, formed two royal gardens which was located to the south and outside the ancient capital city of Anuradhapura. The garden called Nandana (Jōtivana) was situated immediately after the south gate and then was the Mahāmēgha.[2]

At the auspicious time the park was being started, there was an unusual fall of very heavy rain so the garden was named “maha (=heavy) megha (=shower)”. According to Mahavamsa, the garden had been full of various kind of trees so with fruits and flowers.[3]

A note about pronunciation. In some Sinhala words a v with the vowel removed (ව්) is pronounced oo as in “too”. So the word is pronounced maha may oo NA wa.