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]
Biography
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 at 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] Because of his writing skills, he is called as Myanmar's Shakespeare (မြန်မာပြည် ရှိတ်စပီးယား) by modern people. He also described himself: "Because my poetry intelligence always comes out when extracted" (ကဗျာဉာဏ်အာဘော်ကလည်း ကလော်တိုင်းထွက်သောကြောင့်).
The royal government conferred him the title "Minhla Thinkhaya" and granted him the Ywazi village as his appanage.[5].His writer rival is Achote Tann Sayar Phay (အချုပ်တန်းဆရာဖေ).
He was accused of being with the resistance and was taken to the house of Myowun U Thar Oe(မြို့ဝန်ဦးသာအိုး),and was killed by him. Not being able to withstand the loss, King Mindon of Burma quoted his death "A dog killing a man" (လူကိုခွေးသတ်လေခြင်း).
