THE LITERATURE OF MYANMAR

The literature of Myanmar, formerly Burma, has a long story. The Mayazedi
inscription (A.D. 1113) is the earliest extant specimen of Burmese literature. It narrates the
dedication of the golden Buddha by a prince and the gift of slave-villages to the image,
ending with a prayer for the donor and his friends. Over a thousand such dedicatory
inscriptions were set up in the next 700 years, containing eloquent poems and prayers of
poetic merit.

In the fifteenth century up to the nineteenth century, palm-leaf (scratch with a

stylus) and folded-paper literature became common. Such works were filled with Buddhist
piety and courtly refinement of language. The authors were monks, educated countries, and
court poetesses. Prose works during this period were few, mostly Buddhist scriptures and
chronicles of kings. Poetry was varied: there were historical ballads, panegyric odes, the
pyo (Buddhist story is verse), and the ya-du (poems of love or nature). The writers also
used the “mixed style“ or prose and poetry together. Examples of this are the Yagan, a serio
comic epic, and the Myil-Ta-za, a letter of an abbot to the king.

Modern fiction began with the novel. An example is Tet-Pon-gyn a classical novel.

With the founding of the University of Rangoon in 1920 came an increase in output
of Burmese literature. Foreign literature, especially English works, was transplanted. With
independence in 1948 Burmese has gradually replaced English as the medium of
instruction, and literature become nationalistic.