Paul Ambroise Bigandet

Paul Ambroise Bigandet (13 August 1813 – 19 March 1894) was a French Catholic missionary who served as Bishop of Lower Burma from 1856 to 1894.

Early life and education Paul Ambroise Bigandet was born on 13 August 1813 in Besançon, France. After receiving his education in the town, he went to Paris, trained for two years at La Société des Missions Etrangères, and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1837.

Career After his ordination, he was sent the same year to Burma where he worked as a missionary priest for five years at Tavoy and Mergui. In 1842, he was transferred to the mission of the Straits Settlements at Penang where he spent 14 years, serving at one time as priest of the Church of the Assumption in George Town. There he worked on improving schools, opening a boys’ school managed by the Christian Brotherhood, and a convent and school for girls. In 1846, he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of the Diocese of Malacca-Singapore.

Publications Bigandet was a Pali scholar, the language of Theravada Buddhism, and wrote The Life or Legend of Guadama: the Buddha of the Burmese, which was first published in 1858, and became the standard work of the religion of the Burmese in the nineteenth century.