DatarrX/my-era-pinya

Eras of Myanmar Literature: Pinya Era (ပင်းယခေတ် စာပေ)

This repository hosts a curated corpus of primary inscriptions and historical texts from the Pinya Era (ပင်းယခေတ်), forming the second chronological volume of the Eras of Myanmar Literature collection.

It is maintained as an open-access epigraphic and linguistic resource under the DatarrX Foundation, curated by Khant Sint Heinn (Kalix Louis).

This release contains the currently available collection of curated records. The dataset is not yet a final or exhaustive collection, and additional inscriptions and historical texts are planned for future updates. The existing records have been curated and analyzed, with an emphasis on maintaining data quality and historical relevance.

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The Historical & Literary Significance of Pinya

Following the decline of the Bagan Empire in the late 13th century, central Myanmar fragmented into regional power centers, culminating in the Kingdom of Pinya (1313–1365 CE) alongside its sister capital Sagaing. Despite political decentralization and external pressures, Pinya served as the vital cultural and literary bridge between classical Bagan and the later Inwa renaissance.

In the history of Myanmar literature, the Pinya Era represents a crucial transitional period:

• Linguistic Evolution: While continuing the epigraphic tradition of carving stone inscriptions (ကျောက်စာ) and painting temple ink glosses (မင်စာ), Pinya texts capture the early orthographic shift from Old Burmese toward Middle Burmese—most notably the gradual transition of archaic vowel endings (-ိယ် evolving into -ေ, such as စိယ်သတေ shifting toward စေသတေ).
• Dawn of Vernacular Poetry: Alongside religious endowments and royal decrees, Pinya witnessed the earliest surviving milestones of secular Burmese verse and court songs, including Kagyin (shield dances/war songs) and Yadu poetry.

Preserving the textual records of Pinya allows researchers to trace how the Burmese language adapted, standardized, and expanded its literary forms during a pivotal century of transformation.

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Corpus Overview

This dataset compiles verified epigraphic and literary records from the Pinya period into a clean, machine-readable JSONL format while preserving authentic historical orthography:

• Scope: Stone inscriptions (88.1%) and temple ink glosses (11.9%)
• Period Covered: 14th Century CE (Recorded in Myanmar Era: ME 661 – ME 720, Median: ME 690)
• Current Records: 67 primary entries (721 lines, ~37.7K characters)
• Language: Transitional Old-to-Middle Burmese (ပင်းယခေတ် မြန်မာစာ)

Each record contains the inscription title (name), the historic year inscribed (date, 100% coverage), the attributed donor or author (author, 89.6% coverage), and the verified text body (text).

The collection will be expanded gradually as additional historical records are identified, curated, and prepared for inclusion.

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About the Project & Series

The Eras of Myanmar Literature initiative seeks to systematically collect, preserve, and digitize the textual heritage of Myanmar across its major historical epochs:

1. Bagan Era (ပုဂံခေတ်) — DatarrX/my-era-bagan
2. Pinya Era (ပင်းယခေတ်) — [This Dataset]
3. Inwa Era (အင်းဝခေတ်) — DatarrX/my-era-inwa
4. Taungoo Era (တောင်ငူခေတ်) — DatarrX/my-era-taungoo
5. Nyaungyan Era (ညောင်ရမ်းခေတ်) — DatarrX/my-era-nyaungyan
6. Konbaung Era (ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်) — DatarrX/my-era-konbaung

By converting fragile, scattered historical literature into standard JSONL datasets, the project aims to bridge classical humanities scholarship with computational linguistics, natural language processing, and open AI research.

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Attribution & License

Curated and released by Khant Sint Heinn (Kalix Louis) under the DatarrX Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share, adapt, and build upon this dataset for academic, historical, or technical purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given.

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Datarrx's Official Website

• https://datarrx.org/