Shin Mahāsīlavaṃsa ( my, ရှင်မဟာ သီလဝံသ, variously transcribed Shin Maha Silavamsa, Shin Maha Thilawuntha or Rhaṅʻ Mahāsīlavaṃsa) was a

Theravadan ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

Buddhist monk and a classical Burmese poet who lived in 15th century

Ava Kingdom The Kingdom of Ava ( my, အင်းဝခေတ်, ) was the dominant kingdom that ruled upper Burma (Myanmar) from 1364 to 1555. Founded in 1365, the kingdom was the successor state to the petty kingdoms of Myinsaing, Pinya and Sagaing th ...

(now modern-day Myanmar). He is famous for his ''

pyo ''Pyo'' ( my, ပျို့) is a Burmese form of poetry and was a major Burmese verse form from the 1600s to 1700s. The earliest surviving poetic literature found in the Burmese language dates from between 1450 and 1550, and is largely in the f ...

'' 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 (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for ''d ...

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

Shin Raṭṭhasāra Shin Raṭṭhasāra ( my, ရှင်မဟာရဋ္ဌသာရ; 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 J ...

Personal life

Mahāsīlavaṃsa was born Maung Nyo in Myolulin village (north of

Taungdwingyi Taungdwingyi ( my, တောင်တွင်းကြီး ) 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 Qua ...

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 ( my, ဒုတိယ မင်းခေါင် ; 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 subsequently donated the Yadana Beikman Golden Monastery at

Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with 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 Burma (or Myanmar) spans over a millennium. Burmese literature was historically influenced by Indian and Thai cultures, as seen in many works, such as the ''Ramayana''. The Burmese language, unlike other Southeast Asian langu ...

. 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