IT is a little known literary group which emerged in Yangon in the early 1950s.It is so named after the Kan-thar-sein-lei Sardans (ကန်သာစိမ်းလဲ့စာတမ်းများ) written by ivts members. Although the sardans or research papers published by it were limited in number, they can still serve researchers as valuable assets for their comprehensiveness, reliability and profundity.
Some literary enthusiasts from Yangon University met together in August, 1953 and discussed exchange and sharing of knowledge among themselves. And they decided upon forming a literary group during the meeting to seek knowledge through discussions and seminars. Thus, Kan-thar-sein-lei literary group (ကန်သာစိမ်းလဲ့အဖွဲ့)came into existence in September that year. It is said that the group name was taken after the residence where they made their literary talks and that the residence-owner, a literary enthusiast, got that name from the inspirations prompted by the Zeyya Shwe Myae classical song (ဇေယျာရွှေမြေသီချင်းခန့်) composed by Myawadi Mingyi, which goes “ …ကန်သာရေလျှံ၊ ဝန်းကြည်စိမ်းလဲ့… ”meaning “ … the pleasant lake brimming over with water clear, green and sparkling …”. The badge of the group was designed by Dr. Than Tun. It contained a picture of rippling lake with a clump of trees on its bunds and a motto above it, which reads “နှလုံးမွေ့လျော်ဖွယ်ရှိသော”meaning “ To be delightful”. Sayagyi took the motto from a Bagan stone inscription dated A.D 1236 and the lake with a clump of trees from a mural on the interior wall of the Tanbula temple in Bagan.
As it was informally founded and the members were small in number, the term ‘ group’ was intentionally chosen to refer to it. There were no chairman and executives nor rules for the members to follow. There were no constraints on the members. They could undertake their literary activities freely. Membership was given free to all who wanted to enter it. There was no discrimination among the members nor anyone particular who held the reins of the group. All could enjoy equal status. Even though some members were renowned, charismatic scholars and professors, they never threw their weight in others’ favour. Although membership was confined only to the students and products of Yangon University in the beginning, it was later extended to all those who were intelligent and eager enough to do research. The seminars and discussions were held on every second Sunday of a month. The subjects the members used to discuss were music, literature, psychology, politics, chemistry, education, painting, architecture, linguistics, economics, geology, anthropology, movie, marionette, sociology, history, Abhidhamma, administration, law and archaeology. When it came to 1959, Yangon University authorities, on the request of Dr. Than Tun, permitted this group to make discussions in the precincts of Yangon University. This precipitated participation of more Yangon University teachers in the seminars and other literary activities of the group. Thenceforth, the activities of this group gained more speed and it sprang into prominence among researchers.
The papers read by this group were published in three separate volumes under the title of Kan-thar-sein-lei Sardans. All the papers were sequenced chronologically in the volumes. Vol. I was published in January 1959. It was The Laureates of Myanmar Epic-poems (မြန်မာရတုစာဆိုတော်များ) written by U Min Swe ( Min Kyaw)and Vol. II was published in February the same year. It included four sardans or reresearch papers- Education of Bagan Period (ပုဂံခေတ်ပညာသင်ကြားရေး)by U Tin Hla ( M.A), Myanmar Laureate and Love (မြန်မာစာဆိုနှင့် အချစ်) by U Ohn Khaing ( B.A), Quick Wit and Innovative Wit of Ancient Laureates (ရှေးစာဆိုတို့၏ ရွှင်ဉာဏ်နှင့် ထွင်ဉာဏ်)by U Kyin Sein( B.A) and The Myanmar Literature of Ancient Times (ရှေးခေတ်မြန်မာစာပေ) by U Ant Maung. Vol. III was brought out in 1969.
It comprised six research papers- Myanmar Agriculture (မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ စိုက်ပျိုးရေး) by Dr. Than Tun, Problems on Treatises of Royal Compaigns (အရေးတော်ပုံကျမ်းပြဿနာ) by Dr. Yee Yee, The Age of the Shwedagon Pagoda (ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီ၏ သက်တော်) by U Tin Hla Thaw, Myanmar Royal Capital and Dangers of Fire (မြန်မာမင်းနေမြို့တော်နှင့် မီးဘေးပြဿနာ) by U Tint,Myanmar Novels with the University Background (တက္ကသိုလ်နောက်ခံ မြန်မာဝတ္ထုများ)by Aung Pyae and The Origin of Pali-Myanmar Nissaya Treatises (ပါဠိ-မြန်မာနိဿယကျမ်းများ၏ မူလအစ) by U Tin Lwin.
In conclusion, it is found that the Kan-tharsein-lei literary group survived for nearly two decades from 1953 to 1969, that, in the meantime, it published over ten research papers and could motivate its members to do more research and that, however, these papers were circulated only among the members. As a consequence, today, Kan-thar-sein-lei Sardans remains unknown to some new generation researchers and readers. To our chagrin, some of these papers can be obtained only by scrabbling in the heaps of old books at road-side book-stalls. Therefore, the authors would like to suggest here that these sardans should be re-published and this group rejuvenated, if possible.
