Buddhist patronage. Rajavan ̇have been written since
the fifteenth century. However, the first rajavan ̇to at-
tempt to offer a continuous history of Myanmar was
UKala’s Maharajavan ̇krl(Great Chronicle), which
appeared around 1724 (Herbert and Milner, p. 13).
Burmese Buddhist poetic literature appears in the
historical record from about 1450 onwards. Among the
poetic forms are pyui', lengthy and embellished trans-
lations of Pali texts that deal with an event or series of
events in the Buddha’s life or previous lives (jatakas).
A famous example of pyui'-type poetry is the Kui
khanpyui' (the pyui' in nine sections), which was au-
thored by a monk in 1523 and based on a jatakatale
about a king who wanted an heir.
Finally, Burmese commentaries such as nissayas
have been composed since the mid-fifteenth century.
Nissayaswere used to communicate in Burmese the in-
flections, syntax, and meanings of Pali texts and pas-
sages. Nissayasand other commentaries continue to
play a prominent role in the teaching and transmitting
of Pali texts and ideas up through and extending be-
yond the nineteenth century.
Nineteenth to twenty-first centuries
Despite, and partly due to, the political and economic
challenges that have confronted Myanmar since the
nineteenth century (e.g., colonial conquest, military
rule, prolonged economic stagnation), the country has
witnessed an efflorescence of Burmese Buddhist liter-
ature. As with the various types of Buddhist literature
mentioned above, contemporary literature exhibits
strong continuities with the conceptual and textual
world of the THERAVADAPali canon, as well as with
the Buddhist literary traditions of South and South-
east Asia.
In the contemporary period, there are four types of
Burmese Buddhist literature that overlap with and ex-
tend several of the pre-nineteenth-century types. By no
means exhaustive of available contemporary Burmese
literature, the four highlight the range of literature
readily accessible to those wishing to investigate Bud-
dhist culture and practice in Myanmar. They are: (1)
historical and biographical literature, (2) commentar-
ial literature, (3) legal literature, and (4) devotional and
meditational literature. Each type of material has been
and continues to be used pedagogically, ritually, ethi-
cally, and politically.
Contemporary historical and biographical literature
addresses the development and spread of Buddhism.
Topics include the building of pagodas and other re-
ligious monuments, the activities of Buddhist-minded
leaders, and the lives of various monks and laypeople.
Overall, contemporary Burmese Buddhist histories
and biographies participate in a predominant tradition
of South and Southeast Asian religio-historical writ-
ing, which includes the vamsaliterature of Sri Lanka
and the tamnanliterature of Thailand, as well as com-
ponents of the kyokca and rajavan ̇literatures of
Myanmar. An example of contemporary Burmese his-
torical writing is Mahadhamma San ̇kram’s Sasan-
alan ̇kara ca tam(Ornaments of the Dispensation),
written in 1831 and considered by many Burmese to
be an authoritative discussion of the history of Bud-
dhism in Myanmar. PhuiKya’s Kyon ̇toraRvhe
kyan ̇Cha ratobhu rakrltheruppatti(Life of the
Kyauntawya Shwegyin Sayadaw, 1925) offers a short
but informative biography of a monk who became ab-
bot at the Kyauntawya Monastery in Yangon (Ran-
goon), the capital of Myanmar.
Commentarial materials fall into at least two broad
categories. One category consists of materials written in
the nissayastyle of word-by-word translation. Such writ-
ings appear in a large number of contexts, including, for
example, monastic cremation volumes like Bhaddanta
Indacara Antimakharl(Reverend Indacara’s Final Jour-
ney, 1993), which includes nissayapassages that explain
the Pali notion of samvega(religious emotion).
A second category of commentary consists of trea-
tises on portions of the Pali canon and other Buddhist
texts. An example of a commentarial treatise is Arhan ̇
Janakabhivamsa’s Kuiykyan ̇ abhidamma,which
typifies the exposition of abhidhamma(metaphysics)
prevalent in contemporary Myanmar. Since its first
publication in 1933, Janakabhivamsa’s text has seen
several editions and an English translation by U Ko
Lay, Abhidhamma in Daily Life(1999).
Contemporary legal materials include vinicchayalit-
erature, which concerns rulings given by learned
monks. These rulings are promulgated within differ-
ent monasteries and monastic courts. Whether a given
vinicchayais accepted by civil authorities, monks, and
laypeople as legally valid is by no means a certainty;
however, when a monastic court has been appointed
by the state, and the civil and monastic authorities in
question agree upon a decision, the chances for gen-
eral acceptance increase.
A representative example of vinicchayaliterature
hails from 1981, when a body of monks made a ruling
on rebirth theory, which was published as a massive
tome, complete with documentary photographs, titledBURMESE, BUDDHISTLITERATURE IN