Contesting Buddhist Narratives 13 been U Wirathu, a monk based in Mandalay and a complex figure whose career mirrors that of Burmese nationalist monks from the early twentieth century. He spent nine years in jail, having been arrested in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim riots in Mandalay. He was released in a mass amnesty in early 2012 and promptly returned both to his monastic duties and to political organizing, which included sending monks from his prestigious Ma Soe Yein monastery in Mandalay to support the protests at the Letpadaung copper mine (Marshall 2012). After fighting worsened in Rakhine state near the end of 2012, it was reported that President Thein Sein suggested to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees that the best solution would be to remove the estimated 800 thousand Rohingya to another country (Democratic Voice of Burma 2012). On September 2, 2012, U Wirathu led a march of thousands of monks in Mandalay, calling for citizens to support the president’s proposal and casting the Rohingya as a threat to the Burmese “motherland.” As one of the authors has written elsewhere: “U Wirathu epitomizes the all too common model of a nationalist leader who fights for expanded political freedoms for some citizens, but also uses religious reasoning to justify the exclusion of groups considered to be outside the national community” (Walton 2013c). The 969 movement is a decentralized, loose grouping of monks and laypeople. While many commentators have portrayed U Wirathu as the “leader” of the movement, this is an incorrect characterization, as even the monks who have claimed credit for the contemporary revival The 969 movement is a of the 969 symbol have emphasized decentralized grouping of its leaderless nature. The movement has complex, culturally embedded monks and laypeople, with elements and has evoked seemingly seemingly contradictory contradictory interpretations and impulses. Its name is a contemporary interpretations and impulses repurposing of Buddhist numerological symbolism related to the Buddha, the dhamma (his teachings), and the sangha, known collectively as the “Triple Gems.” Lists of attributes are commonly found in Theravada Buddhist teachings, most likely originating as a memorization device when the religion was transmitted orally. In this case, there are nine distinctive noble qualities of the Buddha, six of the dhamma, and