Mawgun

A mawgun (Burmese: မော်ကွန်း, pronounced [mɔ̀gʊ́ɰ̃]; originated from archaic Burmese: အမူကွန်း, pronounced [ʔəmùgʊ́ɰ̃]) is a form of Burmese poem which is often used to record a significant event meant to last.

History

Early times

In the Pagan Kingdom, donors recorded their donations in the prose form of mawgun. However since from the Kingdom of Ava, mawguns are composed in the form of poetry rather than prose. The oldest mawgaun in the Burmese literature world was "Pyayson mawgun" by Shin Htwe Nyo during the reign of Thihathura I.

Following Shin Htwe Nyo, the most prominent mawgun poets were Shin Mahasilavamsa and Shin Raṭṭhasāra of the Kingdom of Ava. They both composed many well-known mawguns.[1] Mawguns composed during their times were said to be the high-class ones, and their times was referred as the era of mawguns.

Later

Mawgun did not develop in the First Toungoo Empire. Only Shin Thankho composed Yadanapyaungmon Sindaw Bwe Mawgun.[2]

Mawguns became popular again in the Konbaung dynasty. It was Wetmasut Nawade who was a famous mawgun poet of his time,[3] for he wrote at least 15 mawguns.[4] Three of them pertain to Burmese conquests, including Ar-than-naing Mawgun and Rakhine Naing Mawgun on the conquests of Assam and Rakhine respectively,[4]as well as the missing Dawei Naing Mawgun on the takeover of Dawei; he also wrote 'Tayoke Than Yauk Mawgun (1821),[5] which details the arrival of a group of Chinese officials to Burma.[6] Wilathini Sindaw Bwe Mawgun of Wetmasut Nawade is the first-class mawgun amongst the Sindaw Bwe mawguns (records of receiving white elephants), followed by Shweminbhone Sindaw Bwe Mawgun of U Nyo.

Format and subject

Mawgun is a kind of poem which uses four syllables in each line, like the classical Burmese verse.[3]

Most mawguns are the descriptions of the royal white elephants, royal palaces, royal boats, the wars, the lakes and the pagodas.

References
  1. လှသမိန် (1961). ဂန္ထဝင်ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ကျော်များ အတ္ထုပ္ပတ္တိပေါင်းချုပ်. Rangoon: ဟံသာဝတီစာအုပ်တိုက်.
  2. Mranʻ māʹ cvayʻ cuṃ kyamʻʺ: (maho (in Burmese). Mranʻ mā nuiṅʻ ṅaṃ bhā sā pranʻ cā pe ʼa taṅʻʺ. 1954.
  3. "စိနရဋ္ဌတက္ကသိုလ်ထဲက မေးခွန်းများ". 7Day News - ၇ ရက်နေ့စဉ် သတင်း.
  4. Thaw Kaung (2011). "The Myanmar Poetic Account of Ayutthaya Vanquished: Notes on Its Rediscovery and Significance" (PDF). p. 27.
  5. "အလောင်းဘုရားမတက်ခင်ကလွှတ်တဲ့ တရုတ်ပြည်သွားမှတ်တမ်း". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese).
  6. U Kyaw Ei; Badgley, John H. (2009). Red peacocks: commentaries on Burmese socialist nationalism. Readworthy Publications. ISBN 9789380009209.

See also
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