By Dr Myint Zan
T HE late Burmese poet Minthuwun (10 February 1909- 15 August 2004) studied at the University of Rangoon, Burma (as they were then formally named) in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was also affiliated with Rangoon University as a lecturer and teacher of Burmese language and literature from the 1940s onwards. He was also a Visiting Professor of Burmese for a few years at a Japanese University in the 1970s. Minthuwun’s house at No. 18, Tun Lin Yeiktha in Kamayut township is quite close to Rangoon University. It would therefore be natural for the poet in his morning walks to at least occasionally wander around or into the compound of his alma mater, On this morning 50 years ago in May 1972 the poet’s hearing of the “baby cuckoos”. “Bird cuckoos” singing in unison and “orchestration” (than-pyaing) from behind the glades apparently triggered off a host of emotions, reminiscences and sentiments in the poet which was mellifluously and softly portrayed and narrated in the original poem. The translator acknowledges that in his translation he is unable to do “justice” or emulate the poignancy and melody of the original poem. Yet an attempt is worthwhile to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the month the poet composed his poem.
As the happy and sad events of the past flickered through the poet’s mind his “cup runneth over” and he was “bedazzled” by them. Gritting his teeth, determined to break free of these “entanglements” the poet tried to escape from them but the last lines of his poems indicate that it was to no avail. The poet used the Burmese word hmaw which, depending on the context could mean “moss” as in a pond or it could also mean (in an imperfect and unsatisfactory translation) “witchcraft”.
The hmaw saya or the “practitioner of Burmese witchcraft” could, using “underhanded” means or “lowly witchcraft” practices (auk-lan) bedazzled (phan-sar) persons and cause their destruction or caused to make the “bewitched” persons do the hmaw saya’s “bidding”. For those who might be interested in the issues of culture, gender, stereotyping and power – “the commissars of gender and power” in the words of the late Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University- it could be observed here that as far as the translator knows, “the practitioners of hmaw are always male though the “shamans” (nat-gadaw) in nat-worship (“spirit worship”) that could be seen in a few parts of middle Burma, such as near the environs of Mount Poppa and Taungpyone near Mandalay in Upper Burma, are always female.)
Hsayagyi or Sayagyi (“Revered teacher”) Minthuwun appears to be conveying the message that he had been “bedazzled” by what traditional and orthodox Buddhist thought would classify as “defilements’(ki-lae-thar) in his attachment (than-yaw-zin) to “past, happy, merry and sad” events of old or in his (searing) “remembrance of things past”. And, in part, the poet seems to acknowledge that his “remembrances” – indeed his ephemeral yearnings- may, from a Buddhist perspective, not be “wholesome” (ku sa la in that he had allowed himself to be “bedazzled” by a host of emotions, He had also “wittingly” but inevitably portrayed himself to be “bedazzled” as a compelled-but at the same time “willing” “victim” of “witchcraft”.
The second sense in which the word “hmaw” could be used is “moss” as in a pond. Moss could entangle one – be it an animal or a human – with varying degrees of “bondage” to the pond. The poet tried to free himself from the ‘moss’ i.e. the attachment to a host of emotions. Yet, in spite of the poet’s efforts (“I grit my teeth”), they turned out to be futile. This is evident in the final – and compelling- metaphor of comparing his condition and predicament with that of a “buffalo” who likes “swimming” or staying in the pond. (One might add that, especially in the villages of lower Burma- where Minthuwun hails from- it is a fairly common sight to see buffaloes “relaxing” and enjoying themselves in ponds.)
Just as an “unthinking” buffalo would prefer to continue to wallow in the pond, the poet though aware of its possible “defilements” directly arising from the “clinging” to events from his past is hindered and (not altogether unpleasantly) from breaking away from them by the “moss” which held him “bedazzled” i.e., his nostalgic and existential yearnings, reminiscences and emotions. Yet another slightly different interpretation of the metaphor of the “buffalo swimming in the pond” is that when a buffalo swims in the pond the “moss” is temporarily removed in that they are relegated (only temporarily though) behind the buffalo’s back but soon thereafter the moss “gathers” again. Similarly, “gritting” his teeth the poet tries to “disentangle” from the moss of past attachments but inevitably they “regroup” and “reattach” themselves again notwithstanding the poet’s efforts.
The poem has some Buddhist connotations in its partial recognition and implicit acknowledgement that yearnings for (and regrets about) the past and attachment to the past, reliving the past and attachment to the past is an unwholesome (ah-ku-sa-la) “defilement” (ki-lae-thar). Still, the poem is equally -if not more so- reflective of existential concerns and struggles and the futility if not a virtual impossibility for “worldlings” (pu-htu-zin) – like the poet and virtually all of us- to “transcend” or overcome attachments and achieve equanimity or detachment as enjoined by traditional Buddhist doctrine.
The word “hmaw” could have negative and at times even pejorative overtones. Therefore, in his choice of words for the title of the poem, Minthuwun seems to have deliberately and effectively eschewed the somewhat more “censorious” word derived from the Pali- common in Burmese usage- ta-hnar (“craving”) and instead employed the Burmese word “than-yaw-zin”. It was Thanyawzin (attachment) that engenders and causes the feelings, emotions, yearnings and “reliving” that made his “cup runneth over”. And it is our good fortune, to savour, enjoy and “feel” this beautiful, affecting poem composed after a late summer morning’s walk that Minthuwun took on the campus of Rangoon University in May 1972.
I am pleased and honoured to have had the chance to translate it to commemorate the 50th anniversary of when Sayagyi Minthuwun composed his poem which speaks of “attachment” as well as the poet’s (and our) humanity.
Attachment
on a late summer morning
while going for a walk
I reached the [compound]
of
[Rangoon] University
non-chalantly I quicken my
pace
to cover more distance
at that moment
behind the glade of trees
baby cuckoos, bird cuckoos
sang in unison and ‘orchestration’
cuckoo... cuckoo...
my mind became unsettled
“my cup runneth over”
the “stage plays” of the past
runs vaguely thru my mind
the happy events, the merry
events
the sad ones
all these “layers” of happenstances
like images
alternate and syncopate
[in my mind]
and bedazzle me:
gritting my teeth
I try to break the moss of
entanglements
‘twas like a buffalo swimming
in the pond
Composed by Minthuwun on 3 May 1972
Translated by Myint Zan commemorating the 50th anniversary of the poet Minthuwun’s composition of the poem.
