PAUL-AMBROISE BIGANDET. – Apostolic Vicar of Southern Burma, b. at Malans (France) on 13 Aug. 1813, entered the Paris Foreign Missions in 1836 and departed for Siam in 1837. In 1841 he was transferred to the mission of Malacca, whose Apostolic Vicar, Bishop Bouch, appointed him coadjutor in 1846; however, he was consecrated only in 1856, with the title of Coadjutor of Malacca and Administrator of the mission of Ava and Pegu, then left by the Italian Oblates of the Virgin Mary. From that time forward he became the true restorer of the Burma mission, which, in full accord with the British authorities, he developed in every religious and cultural aspect. In 1870 he took part in the Vatican Council and then addressed the question of dividing his mission into three parts: Northern, Southern and Central Burma, with respective seats at Mandalay, Rangoon and Toungoo. Bigandet returned to the mission with the title of Apostolic Vicar of Southern Burma (1871). He especially developed educational works (serving as vice-president of the Superior Council of Education) and those relating to the indigenous clergy through the seminary. At the end of his life, on 19 March 1894, he left behind in the mission more than 30,000 Christians, instead of the 3,400 he had found there in 1856.
His writings include: a historical sketch of the Burmese mission (*An outline of the history of the Catholic Burmese Mission*, Rangoon 1887; French trans., *La Mission de Birmanie*, Paris 1890); a study, still highly valued today, on Burmese Buddhism: *The life or legend of Gaudama, the Buddha of the Burmese. With annotations. The ways of the Neibhan, and Notice of the Phonggies or Buddhist Monks*, Rangoon 1884 (French trans., Paris 1878); and other religious writings in Burmese.