Shin Mahāsīlavaṃsa (, variously transcribed Shin Maha Silavamsa, Shin Maha Thilawuntha or Rhaṅʻ Mahāsīlavaṃsa) was a Theravadan Buddhist monk and a classical Burmese poet who lived in 15th century

Ava Kingdom The Ava Kingdom (, ; INN-wa pyi) also known as Inwa Kingdom or Kingdom of Ava was the dominant kingdom that ruled upper Burma (Myanmar) from 1365 to 1555. Founded in 1365, the kingdom was the successor state to the petty kingdoms of Myinsa ...

(now modern-day Myanmar). He is famous for his '' pyo'' poetry and he is considered one of the greatest poets of pre-colonial Burma, in particular his masterpieces, ''Paramidawkhan Pyo'' () and ''Sodaungkhan Pyo'' (), which are considered ideal models of the medieval literary style. While the primary focus of Mahāsīlavaṃsa's compositions was

dhamma Dharma (; , ) is a key concept in various Indian religions. The term ''dharma'' does not have a single, clear translation and conveys a multifaceted idea. Etymologically, it comes from the Sanskrit ''dhr-'', meaning ''to hold'' or ''to support' ...

(Buddhist teachings), he also composed the earliest extant Burmese chronicle, ''Yazawingyaw''. His contemporary literati rival was

Shin Raṭṭhasāra Shin Raṭṭhasāra (; 1468–1529 (1530) was a Buddhist monk and prominent classical poet during the Ava Kingdom, known for his '' pyo'' poetry. His 1523 ''Kogan Pyo'' () based on the ''Hatthipāla Jātaka'', is among the most widely known ''p ...

Personal life

Mahāsīlavaṃsa was born Maung Nyo in Myolulin village (north of

Taungdwingyi Taungdwingyi ( ) is a town located in Magway Region, Myanmar. Town scape The town is divided into ten main quarters. They are Ohndaw Quarter 1, Ohndaw Quarter 2, Taungbyin Quarter 1, Taungbyin Quarter 2, Shwe-oh Quarter 1, Shwe-oh Quarter 2, M ...

on a Friday in 1453, to U Kyi and Daw Dwe. He studied Buddhist scriptures and literature at the Yadana Beikman Monastery under the tutelage of the Natmilin Sayadaw (Shin Sīlācārabhidhaja). While it is not known when he became a novice monk, his gift for poetry was recognized from the age of 7. When he was 20, he became a monk under Shin Sīlācārabhidhaja. At the age of 38, he wrote his masterpiece, ''Paramitawkhan Pyo'', which garnered recognition from throughout the kingdom. At the age of 40, he moved to Ava; King

Minkhaung II Minkhaung II ( ; 9 October 1446 – 7 April 1501) was king of Ava from 1480 to 1501. His 20-year reign was the beginning of the decline of Ava's hold on Upper Burma. Yamethin, a region to the east of Ava, revolted upon Minkhaung's accession to ...

of Ava subsequently donated the Yadana Beikman Golden Monastery at

Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is a town in the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located on the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing, with its numerous Buddhist monasteries, is an important religious and ...

as his residence.

Works

''Paramidawkhan Pyo'' is one of the greatest compositions of

Burmese literature The literature of Myanmar () spans over a millennium. The Burmese language, unlike other Southeast Asian languages (e.g. Thai, Khmer), adopted words primarily from Pāli rather than from Sanskrit. In addition, Burmese literature tends to re ...

. Throughout this literary career, he composed numerous epics, stone inscriptions, and poetic verses including: # ''Record of the Golden Palace Title'' (ရွှေနန်းဘွဲ့မော်ကွန်း) # Htupayon Pagoda stone inscription (ထူပါရုံကျောက်စာ) # Yadana Beikman Monastery stone inscription (ရတနာဗိမာန်ကျောင်းကျောက်စာ) # Mitthilā Lake (Shisha Lake) songs (သျှိသျှားကန်တော် (မိတ္ထိလာကန်တော်) ဘွဲ့များ) # ''Pāramīdawkhan Pyo'' (ပါရမီတော်ခန်းပျို့) # ''Sutaungkhan Pyo'' (ဆုတောင်းခန်းပျို့) # ''Nanphwin Linka'' (နန်းဖွင့်လင်္ကာ) # ''Buddhuppatti Pyo'' (ဗုဒ္ဓုပ္ပတ္တိပျို့) # ''Rājavasatīkhan Linka'' (ရာဇဝသတီခန်းလင်္ကာ) # ''Record of the Inaugural Memorandum'' (တန်တားဦးတည်မော်ကွန်း) # ''Taungdwinla Pyo'' (တောင်တွင်းလာပျို့) # ''Saṃvegakhan Pyo'' (သံဝေဂခန်းပျို့) # ''Dhammapāla Pyo'' (ဓမ္မပါလပျို့) # ''Pārāyanavatthu'' (ပါရာယနဝတ္ထု) # '' Yazawingyaw'' (ရာဇဝင်ကျော်) # ''Mahārahanīti'' (မဟာရဟနီတိ) # ''Hsonmasa Linka'' (ဆုံးမစာလင်္ကာ) # ''Treatise on Buddhālaṅkāra'' (ဗုဒ္ဓါလင်္ကာရကျမ်း) # ''Nettipāḷidaw'' (နေတ္တိပါဠိတော်) # ''Nettihāra Akauk'' (နေတ္တိဟာရအကောက်)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahasilavamsa, Shin Theravada Buddhist monks Burmese Theravada Buddhists Burmese Buddhist monks Burmese scholars of Buddhism Theravada Buddhism writers 1453 births 1518 deaths Burmese male poets 15th-century Burmese poets