U Ponnya

In this Burmese name, U is an honorific.
Ponnya
Native name ဦးပုည
Born Maung Po Si
1812
Sale, Kingdom of Burma
Died c. 1867
Occupation Writer
Language Burmese
Period Konbaung Dynasty

Ponnya (Burmese: ဦးပုည; 1812 - c. 1867), known honorifically as U Ponnya, was one of Burma's most prominent dramatists.[1][2] Ponnya is considered one of Burma's greatest literary figures, known for his elegant wit and clarity of language.[3]

Ponnya was born in 1812 to the Ponnya Thaman family, a prominent chieftain family in the town of Sale (also spelt Salay), in present-day Magway Region.[4] Ponnya was educated the Bhamo monastic college in Amarapura.[4]

As a Konbaung Dynasty court playwright during the 19th century, he is primarily known for his morality tales.[1] Ponnya served as one of King Mindon Min's court poets.[3] He gained prominence after joined Prince Kanaung Mintha's establishment in the 1850s, becoming known for his literary talent.[4]

Throughout his prolific career, he wrote seven plays, primarily based on the Buddhist jatakas, as well as poems and songs, more than 30 Buddhist prose works, and treatises in fields ranging from medicine to astrology.[5] Ponnya also revived a 15th century genre in Burmese literature, the myittasa (မေတ္တာစာ), a form of verse letter.[5]

The royal government conferred him the title "Minhla Thinkhaya" and granted him the Ywazi village as his appenage.[5]

List of works

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

References

  1. 1 2 "U Pon Nya". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  2. ↑ Osipov, Yuriy M. (2013). "1". In David Smyth. Buddhist hagiography in forming the canon in the classical literatures of Indochina. The Canon in Southeast Asian Literature. Routledge. ISBN 9781136816123.
  3. 1 2 Hla Pe; Anna J. Allott and John Okell (2002). V. I. Braginskiĭ, ed. Three 'Immortal' Burmese Songs. Classical Civilisations of South East Asia. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780700714100. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
  4. 1 2 3 Thant Myint-U (2001). The Making of Modern Burma. Cambridge University Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 9780521799140.
  5. 1 2 3 "Pon Nya, U". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 26 July 2015.


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