Ledi Sayadaw U Ñaṇadhaja (Burmese: လယ်တီဆရာတော် ဦးဉာဏဓဇ, pronounced [lɛ̀dì sʰəjàdɔ̀ ʔú ɲàna̰dəza̰]; 1 December 1846 – 27 June 1923[1]) was an influential Theravada Buddhist monk.

[1] While there he was considered to be a bright and ambitious young monk[1] but his work was scholarly; there is no evidence that Sayadaw engaged in a serious meditation practice during his years in Mandalay.

[1] Leaving Mandalay after a great fire in 1883 caused the loss of his home and his written work to that time, Sayadaw returned to the village of his youth.

"[1] In 1885, Ledi Sayadaw wrote the Nwa-myitta-sa (နွားမေတ္တာစာ), a poetic prose letter that argued that Burmese Buddhists should not kill cattle and eat beef, since Burmese farmers depended on them as beasts of burden to maintain their livelihoods, that the marketing of beef for human consumption threatened the extinction of buffalo and cattle and that the practice was ecologically unsound.

[3] In 1900, Sayadaw gave up control of the monastery and pursued more focused meditation in the mountain caves near the banks of the Chindwin River.