Pre-colonial Burma did not have a proper national anthem, but had compositions glorifying the king, which served as royal anthems. After the annexation of Burma by the British Raj in 1886, "God Save the King" became the national anthem ofBritish Burma.[4]: 98
In 1930, a musician from Mandalay namedSaya Tin went to Rangoon and contacted theThakins to write a new national anthem together. They set four criteria for the anthem: it must include the background of Burmese history; the current situation of Burma with regrets, lessons, and then encouraging words; it must agitate Burmese habits to build a new age; and the anthem must agitate national pride of any Burmese who listens to it. For these criteria to be met, many Thakins including Thakin Ba Thaung, Thakin Thein Maung, Thakin Hla Baw, Thakin Tha Do, Thakin On Pe, Thakin Kyaw Tun Sein, and Thakin Po Ni helped find words, and YMB Saya Tin wrote the lyrics originally titled "Dobama Song" (တို့ဗမာသီချင်း). Besides being the leader of the Thakins, Thakin Ba Thaung was working as a teacher of translation atRangoon University. He had a discussion with U Tun Sein, a tutor of mathematics; U Nyunt, a tutor of Burmese; andKo Nu, a student. On 19 July 1930, the Dobama Song was sung for the first time in a reading room of Thaton Hostel. Written in Burmese and English, it was published in the University Magazine. On 20 July 1930, it was sung with a ceremony with a huge public crowd inside U San Tun Hall at the Rahu corner ofShwedagon Pagoda. After that the Dobama Asiayone received a lot of invitations to come and sing the song. The Thakins tried to establish a tradition of singing Dobama Song in every meeting and ceremony.[5]
On 27 June 1936, the Dobama Song was declared as the national anthem of Burma at the second conference of Dobama Asiayon held inMyingyan.[6] Since then, Burmese nationalist sang Dobama Song instead of God Save the King.
TheState of Burma, a Japanese puppet state, officially adopted the Dobama Song as its state anthem in 1943.[7]
In the lead up to Burma's independence,U Nu asked U Sein Mya Maung to write a national anthem for their soon-to-be independent country. U Sein Mya Maung used the Dobama Song as a template, keeping the song's melody but slightly modifying the lyrics.[8][9] The National Anthem was adopted as Burma's national anthem on 22 September 1947.[4]: 99
On 18 June 1989, theState Law and Order Restoration Council (the ruling military junta at the time) ordered to change the wordဗမာ (ALA-LC:Bamā) toမြန်မာ (ALA-LC:Mranʻmā) in the lyrics of the national anthem, insisting that the former refers only toBamar people, while the latter represents all the national races.[10] In fact, both words mean either Burma (Myanmar) or Burman (Bamar people).[11]
According to the2008 Constitution of Myanmar, the complete version of the national anthem is specified as consisting of both the traditional Burmese style and Western-style sections.[12]
Ta.ra: hmya. ta. lwat lap hkrang: nai. ma. swe Tui. prany tui. mre Mya: lu hkap sim: ngrim: hkyam: ce hpo. Hkwang. tu nyi hmya. wada. hpyu cang tai. prany Tui. prany tui. mre Prany htaung cu. a mwi a.mrai: tany tam. ce A.dhithtan pru. pe htin: sim: cui. le
𝄆 Kambha ma. kye / Mranma prany / Tui. bhui: bwa: a.mwe cac mui. hkyac mrat nui: pe // 𝄇 Prany htaung cu. kui a.sak pe: lui. tui. ka kwai ma.le / Da tui. prany da tui. mre tui. puing nak mre // Tui. prany tui. mre a.kyui: kui nyi nya cwa tui. ta.twe Htam: hcaung pa sui. le tui. ta wan pe a. hpui: tan mre //
Accompanied with justice and freedom; our nation, our motherland. To bring peace to all people; the nation having equal right and pure policy, our nation, our motherland. Let us preserve with vow for perpetuity of our heritage of the Union.
𝄆 As long as the world exists, we love Myanmar, the true heritage of our ancestors. 𝄇 We shall safeguard the Union by sacrificing our lives. This is our nation, our motherland and our own land. Let us serve unitedly for the interest of our nation, our motherland. That is our duty for the precious land.
Where prevail justice and independence It's our country ... Our land Where prevail equal rights and correct policies For people to lead a peaceful life It's our country ... Our land We solemnly pledge to preserve The Union, and the heritage, for perpetuity.
𝄆 Until the world ends up shattering, long live Myanmar! We love our land because this is our real inheritance. 𝄇 We will sacrifice our lives to protect our country, This is our nation, this is our land and it belongs to us. Being our nation and our land, let us do good causes to our nation in unity! And this is our very duty to our invaluable land.
^abcမြန်မာ့ စွယ်စုံကျမ်း [Burmese Encyclopedia] (in Burmese). Vol. 6. Rangoon: Burma Translation Society. pp. 98–99.
^တို့ဗမာ အစည်းအရုံးသမိုင်း ပြုစုရေးအဖွဲ့ (1976).တို့ဗမာအစည်းအရုံးသမိုင်း [Dobama Asiayone History] (in Burmese). စာပေဗိမာန်. pp. 134–137.
^"မြန်မာ့ဂီတနှင့် မြန်မာ့ဂုဏ်မြှင့်တင်".Myanmar Digital News (in Burmese). News and Periodicals Enterprise, Ministry of Information, Republic of the Union of Myanmar. 2022-06-28. Retrieved2023-05-15.
^အောင်မြင့်ဦး(မဟာဝိဇ္ဇာ) (3 February 2020). "တို့ဗမာသီချင်း နှစ်၉၀ပြည့်ပြီ" [Do Bama Song has become 90 years old].The Standard Time Daily (in Burmese): 9.
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