He is said to be the first religious worker among the Burmese monks who left for a foreign country to do Buddhist missionary work.
[1] He served as a lecturer on the Buddhist philosophy known as Abhidhamma at the University of Yangon, took part in compiling the Burmese-English dictionary, jointly working with Dr. Hla Pe, and wrote books in English and Burmese.
[2] Thittila was born in 1896, in Badigon village, Pyawbwe Township in Myanmar, to parents, U Aye and Daw Htwe, who earned their living as farmers.
From the age of seven, he would visit the village monastery, known as Badigon Vihara, where he learnt Buddhist scriptures from the abbot Sayadaw U Kavinda.
[4] When he reached fifteen, he was ordained a novice (samanera) and knew a few Buddhist Suttas and other scriptures.
[5][6] Before his full ordination, he studied under the guidance of Sayadaw Ashin Adiccavamsa, a scholar lecturing at Masoyein monastery in Mandalay.
[10] There was a section of Theosophical Society in Adyar, and he made several attempts to becoming a member and stay there in order to learn English.
Soon he became its librarian, where he had a chance to learn library science, a useful skill for managing a large monastery.
As the war worsened, he eventually lost contact with anyone in Myanmar and ran out of money to live on.
[26] In 1964, Thittila translated the second part of Abhidhamma Pitaka, Vibhaṅga, which was published as "The Book of Analysis'" by the Pali Text Society in 1969.
While he gave some talks in Oxford and Manchester, he became increasingly reclusive, though he did make one journey to Scotland to speak.
[31] After the second world war, he gave a number of talks at Workers' Educational Association and at several schools.
In April 1954,[32] he arrived in Australia for the first time and spoke at Sydney University, where about three hundred students as attendees came to listen with interest.
He visited many other Asian countries to do religious work, including Singapore, Hongkong, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Thailand.
Thittila also visited European countries including Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Holland.