မြကန်သာ

မြကန်သာ တောင်ကျချောင်းတေး၊

ရေဝင်ပြေးလှည့်၊ ရေအေးကြည်စွာ၊

ကန်ပိုင်မာလျက်၊ ကြာပေါင်းထုံထုံ၊

ငှက်မျိုးစုံသည် ... ဝတိံသာက– နန္ဒာလော။ ။တူစွဟုတ္တာ။

Emerald Lake

“Emerald Lake fed by a mountain stream,

The waters enters running,

And circle cool and clear,

Within unbreachable banks,

Water lilies are fragrant

And all types of birds abound.

This is so like Nanda that is in the Heavens,

is this perhaps the self-same Nanda Lake?”

Translated by U Win Pe (Mya Zin)

Pleasant Emerald Lake

Fed by a brook from the hill cascades.

Cool and clear is its water,

With a strong intact dyke thither.

Fragrant lotus flowers abound.

Hark! Is it the Lake Nanda

Of the Celestial Realm Tavatimsa?

Yae, looks like it.

Translated by Dr. Khin Maung Nyunt

Notes

This linka was about a natural lake known as “Mya Kan” (Emerald Lake) which lies at the foot of a range of hills called Tu-yin Taung Tan about seven miles south of Bagan. It is now silting and due to deforestation it is drying up. But it must have been a very pleasant lake with a lush vegetation and wildlife in the heyday of Bagan, as suggested by its description in the linka. (from An Outline History of Myanmar Literature by Dr. Khin Maung Nyunt, p 12-13)