BIGANDET, PAUL-AMBROISE. – Apostolic vicar of Southern Burma, born at Malans (France) on 13 August 1813, he entered the Paris Foreign Missions in 1836 and departed for Siam in 1837. In 1841 he transferred to the mission of Malacca, whose apostolic vicar, Bouch, made him his coadjutor in 1846; but he was not consecrated until 1856, with the title of coadjutor of Malacca and administrator of the mission of Ava and Pegu, then abandoned by the Italian Oblates of Mary V. Burma, which, in full agreement with the English authorities, he developed in every religious and cultural respect. In 1870 he took part in the First Vatican Council and there discussed the division of his mission into three parts: Northern, Southern, and Central Burma, with residences respectively at Mandalay, Rangoon, and Toungoo. B. returned to the mission with the title of apostolic vicar of Southern Burma (1871). He developed above all educational institutions (he was vice-president of the Superior Council of Education) and the indigenous clergy through the seminary. At the end of his life, on 19 March 1894, he left more than 30,000 Christians in the mission, instead of the 3,000–4,000 whom 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 translation, La Mission de Birmanie, Paris 1890); a study, still highly esteemed today, on Burmese Buddhism: The life or legend of Gaudama, the Buddha of the Burmese. With annotations. The ways of the Nebhan, and Notice of the Phonggies or Buddhist Manks, Rangoon 1848 (French translation, Paris 1878); and other religious writings in Burmese.