The Thiri Rama

Finding Ramayana in Myanmar

Dawn F. Rooney, Dawn F. Rooney

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315313955
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Arte asiatica

The Thiri Rama – or the Great Rama – was written for court performance and is the only known illustrated version of the Ramayana story in Myanmar. Based on palm-leaf manuscripts and scenes carved on over 300 sandstone plaques at a mid-nineteenth-century Buddhist pagoda west of Mandalay in Myanmar, this book presents an original translation of the Thiri Rama rendered in prose.

The volume also includes essays on the history and tradition of the Ramayana in Myanmar as well as the cultural context in which the play was performed. It contains many helpful resources, incorporating a glossary and a list of characters and their corresponding personae in Valmiki's Ramayana.

With over 250 fascinating visuals and core text contributions by distinguished Burmese scholars, U Thaw Kaung, Tin Maung Kyi, and U Aung Thwin, this book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of South and Southeast Asian culture, literary forms, epics, art and art history, theatre and performance studies, religion, especially those concerned with Hinduism, as well as folklorists.

Part I

Introductory essays

1

Introduction to the Thiri Rama

U Thaw Kaung

Myanmar Ramayana can be read as a narrative tale in poetry and prose, as a royal court drama, and there are also portrayals as painted frescos, wooden carvings and stone sculptures, and other depictions. Neither the written texts nor the artistic depictions are as much known in the world as the Siamese, Khmer, and, of course, the original Indian epic with its various recensions and presentations.

There are several early prose and poetic versions in Myanmar, though the court drama was introduced to the Myanmar kings and courtiers only after the final fall of Ayutthaya in AD 1767. Thousands of war captives were brought back to Myanmar from Siam including the whole Ayutthaya Court Ramayana dance troupe and other artisans in wood and stone, various kinds of craftsmen, musicians, and writers including most probably playwrights.

The present publication the Thiri Rama is divided into two parts:

1. 1 Introductory Essays
2. 2 The Thiri Rama, Myanmar Ramayana Court Drama

In the first part of the Introductory Essays, U Thaw Kaung traces the evolution of the Ramayana story in Myanmar: narratives in poetry and prose and later in dramatic form. He also gives an account of the dramatic performances right up to the end of the twentieth century. Artistic depictions such as wall paintings, frescoes, wooden carvings, stone sculptures, and bas-reliefs by Myanmar artisans, and craftsmen are also touched upon.

U Thaw Kaung worked for nearly four decades in the libraries of the University of Yangon, Yangon, Myanmar, retiring in 1997 as the Chief Librarian and Professor of Library and Information Studies of this premier university of Myanmar. From 1998, he has been a member of the Myanmar Historical Commission of the Ministry of Culture. He has written many research papers and some books, and was awarded the National Life Achievement in Literature Prize in 2010.

In the second part of the Introductory Essays, U Aung Thwin, retired Head of the Department of the Performing Arts at the University of Culture in Yangon, has written a fascinating explanation of the characters of Ramayana, stage settings, costumes, and what the Myanmar call Yodaya (Ayutthaya) music that accompanies the staging of the Thiri Rama. U Aung Thwin also gives explanations of the dance postures derived from Siamese Ramayana performances. He is an accomplished artist who did the original drawings for his Introductory Essay which were redrawn by Pradip Kumar Bhowal.

Authorship and dating of the Myanmar text

Naymyo Nataka Kyaw Gaung, a title given by Myanmar kings to high-ranking court officials in charge of the Royal Dramatic Performances, is given to the author of the Rama Pyazat daw-gyi (The Ramayana Court Drama) first printed in three volumes and published by the Universities Historical Research Centre, Yangon in 2001–2002, edited by U Thaw Kaung, U Aung Thwin, and the Universities’ Central Library manuscript expert and Pali scholar U Nyunt Maung.

The text is from fifty-four small fascicules or black (paper) parabike manuscripts from the collection of the Mandalay University Library.

We do not know the real personal name of Naymyo Nataka Kyaw Gaung. Even this title of the court official does not appear anywhere in the long text of the Mandalay University Library manuscript. It is found only at the head of Chapter 7 of another manuscripts copy written on palm leaves and collected by the Bernard Free Library in Yangon which later became the nucleus collection of the Myanmar National Library when it was first established in 1952 after Myanmar regained Independence in January 1948.

As Nataka Kyaw Gaung’s title appeared only at the head of Chapter 7, Myanmar Ramayana scholars are of the opinion that these court dramatic performances officially rewrote or revised the text only from this chapter to the end of the text.

Obviously, an earlier text which Nataka Kyaw Gaung wrote had been corrupted, so it became necessary to undertake major revisions and rewriting to make it more coherent and more ‘sweet-sounding’ to the audience.

Myanmar scholars trace the earliest script of the Ramayana Court Drama to the Commission of Eight eminent writers including a former Queen of King Singu, the Lady Thakin Minmi (1758–1798), and the poet cum famous musician and song writer Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa (1796–1853), who later became the great Lord of Myawaddy. To form this commission, the Crown Prince (the Prince of Shwe Daung; 1762–1808) had issued a Royal Order in 1789 appointing eight members to translate into Myanmar the famous court dramas brought back after the conquest of Ayutthaya in 1767. These plays included the Ramayana, Inaung, Sankhapatta, and Kesasiri. They were translated mainly from the Siamese and a few from Khmer.

We do not know who first translated the Ramayana Court Drama into Myanmar from the Siamese. It is probable that it was not a single particular writer who did the translation, but a member, or some members, of the Commission of Eight who worked with Thai nobility, learned persons, and leading dramatic players of the Siamese Dance Troupe brought back from Ayutthaya. It is also probable that it was not a text-to-text translation like the present translation from Myanmar into English. Myanmar scholars are of the opinion that the Siamese related orally the plot, dialogue, songs, and so on, and so they wrote down in their own language. Musicians and song writers like Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa would compose the Myanmar music and songs with Myanmar lyrics based on the original Siamese tunes and songs. To date, we have many songs in Myanmar classical music and songs which are still called Yodaya, that is Ayutthaya or Siamese.

The Limbin Prince from King Mindon’s time has written in his notebook that he found the text of this first translation. His personal theory noted down was that the Commission of Eight got a text written in Siamese, after the capture of Ayutthaya, and that the translation was made from this text. But U Thein Han, the foremost Myanmar scholar who has researched and written many papers on the Myanmar Ramayana, compared the Court Drama of Nataka Kyaw Gaung with the Ramakien of King Rama I, which is thought to be based on an old Ayutthaya Period text. He found that there are so many differences that he does not think it is a direct textual translation from the Siamese. Over many decades, the Thiri Rama has come down to us mainly as a Myanmar literary heritage, though based on the Siamese and ultimately the Indian epic of Valmiki.

Nataka Kyaw Gaung’s text of the Ramayana drama correlates with the depictions on the stone plaques quite closely, so he probably wrote or rewrote the Myanmar text around 1830 to the early 1840s because we know from a stone inscription when the Maha Lawka Marazein or the Paya-Gyi (the Big Pagoda) was built. The lithic inscription still to be found on the pagoda platform gives the date of completion of the construction of the pagoda as 1849.

Another factor that could be considered in dating the text is that the Commission of Eight formed in 1789 would have completed the first dramatic text of the Ramayana in Myanmar with complete music and lyrics for songs composed by the early 1790s. For this first text to become corrupted, it would probably take forty to fifty years. Therefore, for the text rewritten by Nataka Kyaw Gaung, we could tentatively date it as from around 1830 to the early 1840s as stated earlier.

Dr Tin Maung Kyi of Mandalay, the last royal capital of Myanmar, has made an English translation of all the fifty chapters of the original text in Myanmar. He is a retired medical doctor who has a keen interest in the arts and spent most of his life in Mandalay, the cultural centre of Myanmar. He is a descendant of one of the Siamese court dramatic performers and has done much research on the Siamese in Myanmar, especially around Mandalay. Dr Tin Maung Kyi also painstakingly transformed the original rubbings of the 347 bas-relief stone carvings, enhanced for clarity on his computer; some of the deteriorated originals were ‘repaired’ with software technology on the computer.

The pagoda and its donor

One of the main reasons why the Ramayana stone carvings are not much known even in Myanmar is because they are located in a remote region, an area far away from the main populated cities and towns.

The pagoda, whose official title is Maha Lawka Marazein, is commonly known as the Paya-Gyi, which just means the ‘Big Pagoda’ (Figure 1.1). There are many ‘Paya-Gyi’ all over Myanmar, so an appellation has to be qualified by adding the name of the nearest big village, Tha-khut-ta-nai, about 5 miles to the south. Scholars like Yangon University Librarian U Thein Han, the famous Myanmar writer and poet; Dr Than Tun, the eminent historian; and other members of the Myanmar Historical Commission usually refer to this Big Pagoda and the Ramayana plaques located there as the Nat Ye Taung or the Tha-khut-ta-nei Ramayana plaques. The Big Pagoda was built at this remote place, which has a small hillock called Nat Ye Taung, a little distance to the north; some of the local people also refer to the pagoda as the Nat Ye Taung Pagoda. A small village grew up towards the south, adjacent to the pagoda, together with some monasteries. Nowadays, the village is simply known as the Paya-Gyi village. It came into being only from the time the pagoda was built.

Tha-khut-ta-nei village is in Monywa district of the Sagaing Division. The nearest town of note is Budalin, which is about 21 miles from Monywa (Figure 1.2). This area is between the big Ayeyarwaddy River, the lifeline and longest river of Myanmar, and its main tributary the Chindwin. Human settlements have been found from the Neolithic period in this region. An ancient burial ground with many human skeletons and some artefacts have also been found at Nyaung-gan in January 1998.

From Budalin there is a road to Kanni on the west bank of the Chindwin River. After about 15 miles, that is about halfway to Kanni, Paya-Gyi village is loca...