Shin Raṭṭhasāra (; 1468–1529 (1530) was a
Buddhist monk and prominent classical poet during the
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 ...
, known for his ''
pyo'' poetry. His 1523 ''Kogan Pyo'' () based on the ''Hatthipāla Jātaka'', is among the most widely known ''pyo'' in modern-day Myanmar, and is taught in Burmese schools.
His ''Buridat Pyo'' (; based on the ''Bhūridatta Jātaka'') is also considered an exemplar of the medieval literary style, is considered a masterpiece of Burmese classical poetry.
Raṭṭhasāra also composed metrical versions of other
Jataka tales
The ''Jātaka'' (Sanskrit for "Birth-Related" or "Birth Stories") are a voluminous body of literature native to the Indian subcontinent which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories we ...
, including the ''Saṃvarajātaka'', besides a number of other poems.
Despite his poetic contributions,
Burmese chroniclers excluded him from the succession of elders (''thera''), because he not only wrote verse, but also recited and instructed pupils in the art of recitation, which was considered a transgression of the
Vinaya
The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines devel ...
, specifically the rules governing singing and dancing.
Background
Raṭṭhasāra was born on 1468 in
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 ...
and growing up in royal palace of Ava. Descended from royal lineage, Raṭṭhasāra was the son of Dhammapāla, a minister, a nephew of Queen
Shin Sawbu
Shin Sawbu (, ; , ; 1394–1471) was queen regnant of Hanthawaddy Kingdom, Hanthawaddy from 1454 to 1471. Queen Shin Sawbu is also known as Binnya Thau (, ) or Old Queen in Mon. Queen Shin Sawbu and Queen Jamadevi of Haripunjaya are the two most ...
; his mother was the great-granddaughter of
Thado Minbya, the founder of the
Kingdom of Ava
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 ...
.
He taught astrology, poetry and Pali under a Buddhist monk, Varacakkapāla () and Thiho (
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
)
Sayadaw (). He began writing poems at the age of 12. At 16, he wrote Buridat Pyo (). His writer rival is
Shin Maha Silavamsa
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 (now modern-day Myanmar ...
().
A prolific writer, he wrote many pyo, mawgun () and other types of poems during his lifetime. His last work was ''Thanwara Pyo'' (), based on the ''Saṃvarajātaka''. Raṭṭhasāra died in 1529 at the age of 61.
Works
Raṭṭhasāra was a prolific writer, composing at least 17 works throughout his lifetime, including:
#''Catudhammasāra Pyo'' (စတုဓမ္မသာရပျို့)
#''Gambhīsāra Pyo'' (ဂမ္ဘီသာရပျို့)
#''Bhūridat Zatpaung Pyo'' (ဘူရိဒတ်ဇာတ်ပေါင်းပျို့)
#''Bhūridhāt Linkagyi'' (ဘူရိဓာတ်လင်္ကာကြီး) first pyo (at the age of 16)
#''Saṃvara Pyo'' (သံဝရပျို့) last pyo (final)
#''Pondaungnaing Mawgun'' (ပုံတောင်နိုင်မော်ကွန်း)
#''Record of the Establishment of Ratanāpūra City'' (ရတနာပူရမြို့တည်မော်ကွန်း)
#''Mitthilā Lake Bwe Mawgun'' (မိတ္ထိလာကန်တော်ဘွဲ့မော်ကွန်း)
#''Record of the Dada-u Mingala Zedi'' (တန်တားဦးတည်မော်ကွန်း)
#''Yeyitet Mawgun'' (ရဲရည်တက်မော်ကွန်း)
#''Yadu Kabyamya Taungtetun Yadu'' (ရတုကဗျာများ တောင့်တဲတွန့်ရတု)
#''Wutyonkyaung bwe Mawgun'' (ဝတ်ရုံကျောင်းဘွဲ့မော်ကွန်း)
#''Hsommasa Linka'' (ဆုမ္မစာလင်္ကာ)
#''Letthittaungta'' (လက်သစ်တောင်တာဆုမ္မစာ)
#''Rājavasasatī Khanpaikson Yadu'' (ရာဇဝသသတီခဏ်းပိုက်စုံရတု)
#''Shweset Tawthwa Tawla'' (ရွှေစက်တော်သွားတော်လား)
#''Homily to Minkhaung II'' (ဒုတိယမင်းခေါင်ထံသွင်းမေတ္တာစာ)
References
See also
*
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 ...
*
Pyo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ratthasara, Shin
Theravada Buddhist monks
Burmese Theravada Buddhists
Burmese Buddhist monks
Burmese scholars of Buddhism
Theravada Buddhism writers
1468 births
1529 deaths
Burmese male poets
15th-century Burmese poets