Speaking of Palm-leaf and Paper

Sureshkumar Muthukumaran (Yale-NUS)

Forming a collection
 The Origins of Writing
in South and Southeast Asia
宣梵雨花圖 "Reading Sanskrit in a Rain of Blossoms",
anonymous, Yuan dynasty (1271 - 1368) - Yuan portrait of an
Indian monk reading Sanskrit scripture in the Siddham script.
Srimaran of the Vo Canh Stele (3rd/4th centuries CE) – Pantiya affiliations?

*Note the use of Vasantatilakā and Śardūlavikrīḍita metres

 Writing Mediums
in South and Southeast Asia:
Palm leaves
 General observations

-Conservatism of palm-leaf manuscript traditions; format does not change but scripts evolve – long narrow strips
(called folios) are bound together with a cord and protected by wooden covers (called the pothī format)

-Palm-leaf manuscripts older than the 14th century are rare; oldest extant palm leaf manuscript fragments
are from Turfan in Central Asia (2nd century CE)

-Dating of manuscripts (and texts) is problematic; not all manuscripts have colophons
श्रीताल करताल
Gebang palm (Corypha utan)
Processing of palm leaves
 Incising and colouring the leaves

- Palm leaves are inscribed with metal, bone or ivory styluses

- A paste is then used to highlight the incised words. The recipe for
this paste usually includes powdered charcoal or collyrium/soot
with gum and water or oil.

शलाका
Sarasvati from Kankali Tila, Mathura (132 CE),
State Museum, Lucknow
Khin Ba golden manuscript, 4th – 5th century
with a text in Pali of the pratītyasamutpāda or the
Buddhist formula of dependent arising

- excavated from the relic chamber of the Khin

Ba stupa in Śrī Ksetra, central Myanmar
Bodhisattva holding a manuscript,
Borobudur c. 800 CE
Manikkavacakar, a Tamil Saivite saint of the 9th century,
early 12th century bronze, LACMA
Manuscript covers, 11th century, Tibet, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Wooden covers for an Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita manuscript, eastern India,
4th regnal year of the Pala king Gopala (1147 CE), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ashtasahasrika
Prajnaparamita manuscript,
eastern India, 4th regnal year
of the Pala king Gopala
(1147 CE), Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston
The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara expounding the Dharma to a
devotee: Folio from a Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita
manuscript, Bengal, early 12th century, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, NYC
 Most palm-leaf manuscripts
have no illustrations!

Palm-leaf manuscript containing the Tamil musical Rāmanāṭakam by the poet Aruṇācala kavi
(1711–1779) , National Museum of Denmark (Inv.no. Da.337)
 Writing Mediums
in South and Southeast Asia:
Paper
 General observations

-Paper is used from c. 12th century onwards and becomes common by the 14th century especially
in the (Sinic-influenced) Himalayas and in northern and western India.

-In Southeast Asia, the use of paper and bookbinding in modern style is associated with spread of Islam
(post-14th century)

Abdul Samad al-Palimbani’s Sayr al-Salikin, a manuscript from

Aceh, in two bound sections held within a loose leather
wrapper, British Library, Or 15646
Astasahasrika
Prajnaparamita,
Paper manuscript,
Nepal,
1511 CE,
Royal Library,
Copenhagen
 Burmese Buddhist ordination texts:
Kammavaca manuscripts

Kammavaca manuscript in Pali in Burmese square script on

gilded and lacquered palm leaf, 18th century. British Library,
Add. 15289, f.1.

Kammavaca manuscript in Pali in Burmese square script on

ivory, 18th century. British Library, Or. 12010H, f. 1r
Kammavaca manuscript in Pali in Burmese square script,
written on metal gilded and lacquered in red, 19th century.
British Library, Or. 13896, f. 1v

Kammavaca manuscript in Pali in Burmese square script,

lacquered cloth, with gilded and lacquered boards, 19th century.
British Library, Or. 12010A, f. 1r.
U Thondara museum, East Sakhangyi village, Thagara, Dawei
Peninsula
Illuminated Persian Quran in the Bihari
text, Mughal India, script, Mughal India,
17th century 17th century
Shahnameh, Persian, Mughal India,
late 17th century
Folio from a Quran Manuscript in the Bihari script,
15th century, India (late Sultanate period)

Sura 8 (al-'Anfal): end of 74 through 75

The demon Akvan hurls Rostam into the sea, Shahnameh
manuscript, Bijapur, Deccan, c. 1610, David Collection,
Copenhagen
Hikayat Seri Rama, late 16th - early 17th century,
Malay in Jawi script, paper manuscript
Bodleian Library, MS Laud Or.291, f iv—sr

- Donated to the Bodleian by William Laud,

Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1633
Bhaṭāra Gaṇa (‘Lord of the
Gaṇas’ Skt. Gaṇapati) from a
late 18th century central
Javanese divination almanac
(pawukon) presently in the
Bodleian Library (MS Jav. d.
2).
Dewa Ruci, a Wayang
Purwa story on Bima's
quest for self-knowledge,
paper manuscript,
Yogyakarta, 1886
Hikayat perang
Pandawa jaya (Tale
of the Victorious
Pāṇḍava), copied by
Muhammad Kasim,
25 November 1804,
British Library MSS
Malay B 12
Buddhist cosmology (Traiphūmlōkwinitchai) from central
Thailand; folding book dated 1776 A.D. Asian Art Museum,
Berlin (IC 27507)

Folding book containing poetry and prosody (chanlaksana),

Bavarian State Library, Munich (Cod.siam. 98)
The gods Indra (left) and Brahma (right) with attendants, Thai
folding book containing the legend of Phra Malai, dated 1875.
British Library, Or 6630 f.
A 19th century
treatise on mythical
and natural
elephants in khlong
verse with some
Sanskrit mantras,
British Library
BL Or 13652
A 19th century
treatise on mythical
and natural
elephants in khlong
verse with some
Sanskrit mantras,
British Library
BL Or 13652
 Writing Mediums
in South and Southeast Asia:
Bark and Bamboo
Bakhshālī mathematical manuscript (7th century CE?)
Himalayan birch (bhūrja; Betula utilis)

Nearchus ap. Strabo 15.167:

ἐπιστολὰς δὲ γράφειν ἐν σινδόσι
Σινδών – cloth/ linen – or birch bark?
 The Bower Manuscripts (Bodleian Library, Oxford)

A leaf from the celebrated Bower manuscripts, a cache of Sanskrit medical and Buddhist texts discovered
in 1890 in a memorial stupa at the rock-cut caves of Qumturā near Kucha in Chinese Turkestan (modern
Xinjiang province). The birch-bark manuscripts have been palaeographically dated between the 4th and 6th
centuries CE, with recent research favouring a 6th century date. The manuscript colophons indicate that the
collection of texts belonged to Yaśomitra, a senior monk at the monastery in Qumturā, for whom the
memorial stupa was erected. The manuscript copyists and the birch bark probably came from Kāśmīra or
the Swat valley.

The manuscripts were found by a local-treasure seeker who offered them for sale in 2/3 March 1890 to
Lieutenant Hamilton Bower, a British army officer investigating the murder of a young Scotsman in
Central Asia. The leaf pictured here shows an extract from the Nāvanītaka, a compendium of medical
recipes gathered from notable Sanskrit medical authors like Ātreya, Jīvaka, Bhela and Caraka. This text
was perhaps composed sometime in the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE.
5th/6th century
Kraing (wood bark manuscript), vean and sastra (short and long format palm-leaf manuscripts),
19th century, Fonds pour l’Édition des Manuscrits du Cambodge, Phnom Penh
 Batak bark books (pustaha < Sanskrit pustaka ‘book’)

-Batak bark books are made of the beaten bark of the alim (Aquilaria
malaccensis) tree, which is folded into a
concertina-like shape.

-The text is written in black ink with a pen made from twigs (tarugi)
found in the fibre of the sugar palm (Arenga saccharifera), and is
often accompanied by decorative chapter headings (bindu) and
magical drawings in black ink and a red earth-based paint.

-Most manuscripts have two wooden covers glued to the initial and
final bark folds. Plaited rattan straps hold the manuscript together

-The Batak alphabet, consisting of nineteen syllabic letters, is of

Indian origin.

-Books are usually on protective magic, which includes medicinal

remedies, amulets and charms, destructive or 'black' magic and
divination.
Batak pustaha containing the Poda ni panampuhi (lemon
oracle); Toba-Batak script; ink on alim tree bark; Presented by
Alexander Hall, 1764, British Library, Add. 4726, pp a 1-2

This manuscript was donated to the British Museum in 1764,

and is believed to be the first Batak bark book to have entered a
European collection. It contains instructions on divination from
the lemon oracle, panampuhi, in which the top and bottom of a
lemon are sliced off and omens are taken from the way the
pieces fall. The writer states that this text was obtained from his
grandfather, Ompu Haidupan of the clan Harean, who lived in
Poriaha.
Batak divination text, late 18th–19th century,
Sumatra, Alim bark manuscript,
Yale University Art Gallery
Syair perahu, ‘The poem of the boat’, a Sufi poem in Malay in
rencong script. South Sumatra, tree bark, British Library, MSS
Malay A 2
Hikayat Nur Muhammad (The Light of Muhammad), Malay in
Lampung script; tree-bark book; 7 f; 15.5 x 15.5 cm. Given by
Jo. Trefusis in 1630, Bodleian Library, MS Jay.e.2, p 1-2

- This manuscript, which was donated to the Bodleian Library in

1630, is by far the oldest manuscript known in the Lampung
script.
Tembai (myth of origins) and teremba (genealogy) text, south
Sumatra, Malay manuscript in rencong script on bamboo British
Library, MSS Malay D 11, f. 1r

A Karo-Batak love lament (birang-birang) inscribed on a

bamboo weaving shuttle (turak). Museum of Anthropology
University of Michigan
 Writing Mediums
in South and Southeast Asia:
Stone and Metal
Khin Ba golden manuscript, 4th – 5th century
with a text in Pali of the pratītyasamutpāda or the
Buddhist formula of dependent arising

-excavated from the relic chamber of the Khin Ba

stupa in Śrī Ksetra, central Myanmar
Gold and ruby-studded letter from the Burmese king
Alaungpaya to the British king George II, dated 7 May 1756
 Performing the Rāmāyaṇa in 10th century Java: the Sangsang Inscription

- A copperplate charter issued by king Balitung in 907 CE to confirm the grant of freehold land to the
Buddhist monasteries of Hujung Galuh and Dalinan. The inscription lists several entertainments provided
on this occasion including wayang performances of the Mahabharata and a recital of the Ramayana by
an artist named Jaluk.
Pabuharan copper charter, Java, 9th century CE. British Library,
Ind. Ch. 57 (B), f. 2v.
The Annamayya copper-plates at Tirupati: About
13,000 devotional poems of the 15th century Telugu
temple-poet Annamayya were inscribed onto c.
2289 copper plates and stored in a specially-built
vault named the Sankirtana-bhandara (Treasury of
Songs) at the temple of Tirupati in South India. The
project which began in Annamayya's lifetime was
completed by his eldest son Peda Tirumalacarya
with the support of the Vijayanagara emperor
Achyutaraya.
Patralekhikā: the writing woman, Śivālaya, Jalasaṅgvi,
Karnataka, Kalyāṇi Cālukya dynasty, 11th century CE.

While stone-wrought temple damsels are usually in the habit of

writing amorous letters (madanalekha), this one inscribes a short
praise-poem for her builder-king Vikramaditya VI
Tribhuvanamalla (r. 1076 - 1127 CE):

Saptadvīpodarībhūtam bhūtalaṁ svīkariṣyati |

Cāḷukyo Vikramādityaḥ saptamo Viṣṇuvardhanaḥ ||

"The Cālukya king Vikramāditya, the seventh Viṣṇuvardhana,

will obtain this earth consisting of seven continents."
The Marble Tripitaka of Mindon
Min (1808-1878): 2503 marble slabs
at Sandamuni Paya and Kuthodaw
Paya in Mandalay which record all
of the Pali Tripitaka and its
commentaries (64 volumes in
modern printed edition). Each slab
is housed in its own small white-
washed stupa. 5000 masons spent 8
years (1860-1868) copying the
Tripitaka from palm-leaf
manuscripts onto 729 polished
marble slabs at Kuthodaw Paya
alone. The lettering was then
embellished with gold leaf.
Writing Mediums
in East Asia
The Yongle Dadian (永樂大典), the largest early modern
encyclopaedia completed in 1408, comprised of 22,877 chapters
bound in 11,095 yellow silk and vermilion-lined hardcover
volumes. The Yongle Dadian covered all aspects of traditional
Chinese knowledge, whether scientific, historical or literary, and
contained the most important texts from each field available at
that time. While printing was already well developed in China,
the Yongle Dadian was handwritten on account of its enormous
length. The first edition of the Yongle Dadian was destroyed or
dispersed and is no longer extant. Two other copies were
produced during the reigns of Jiajing (1522-1566) and Longqing
(1567-1572) emperors but nowadays only about 3% of the
original manuscript remains. The British Library holds 24
volumes, corresponding to 49 chapters.
 Traditional
Libraries and
Palm-leaf
Repositories
 Nālandā

The last abbot,

Śākyaśrībhadra
and numerous
monks flee to
Tibet
and Nepal
following the
1193 invasion
Śākyaśrībhadra, 18th century,
central Tibet, Rubin collection, NYC
 This manuscript of a philosophical text called the
Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajnāparamitā or the Perfection of Wisdom in
8000 verses (composed late centuries BCE) dating to c. 1097
CE was once ensconced in the hallowed libraries of Nālandā
Mahāvihāra, one of the greatest institutes of higher learning in
premodern Asia which attracted students and visitors from as far
afield as China and insular Southeast Asia. Royal and lay
benefactions over the centuries made Nālandā Mahāvihāra
immensely wealthy and one of the premier landowners in the
Gangetic valley of the late first millennium CE.

The great wealth of Nālandā Mahāvihāra perhaps proved to be

its undoing. Turkic Muslim raids in the Gangetic plains led by
Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193 and again in 1204 saw the sacking of
the university. Nālandā's scholars fled to the safety of learning
institutions in Nepal and Tibet whose snowy passes were
untouched by the Islamic raids. Tibetan accounts suggest that a
shadow of a university lingered on after the sacking of Nālandā
but its golden age was by now long gone. Much of Nālandā's
library was destroyed in the Muslim raids but fleeing scholars
managed to save some books which were deposited in monastic
Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajnāparamitā manuscript, 1097 CE, and scholarly libraries in Tibet and Nepal. This text was
Bodleian Library acquired by the Germano-British scholar Rudolf Hoernlé in
Nepal in the late 19th century.
 The Library of the Sakya Monastery, southern Tibet

The magnificent 13th century (c.1265-1295) library of the Sakya monastery in

southern Tibet is one of the largest monastic repositories of Tibetan and Indic
manuscripts and block-printed books. The first systematic survey of the library’s
collections, which fortunately escaped the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, only
began in 2005. The library contains over 44,000 manuscripts and block-printed
books. Among the library’s treasures are rare illuminated Sanskrit manuscripts of
the 11th and 12th centuries and the Yongle Kanjur, the first complete printed edition
(1410) of the Tibetan Buddhist canon of which only three sets are known to be
extant. The shelving of the library, which reaches to a height of 10 metres, dates
back to its foundation in the late 1200s and even bears faint traces of figural
painting.
Gyantse
Library in the Gyantse Monastery, Tsang, Tibet. (F. Maraini,
1937; 37/1046. Museum of Oriental Art 'Giuseppe Tucci
archive,' Rome)
Gyantse
The Goryeo Tripitaka (Tripitaka Koreana):
The 81,258 wooden printing blocks
recording the Chinese Mahayana version
of the Tripitaka, housed in the Haein
Monastery (South Korea), are the finest
examples of medieval woodblock printing
to survive anywhere in the world. The 52
million-odd characters in Chinese (Hanja)
script (in reverse with few errata!) were
carved between 1237 and 1251 under the
patronage of King Gojong of the Goryeo
dynasty.
Jaisalmer Fort Library (Brhad Gyana Bhandar), established 1440 CE

- 804 palm-leaf manuscripts (earliest manuscript from 1060 CE)

and 1704 pre-1800 CE paper manuscripts
12th century palm-leaf manuscript cover, Brhad Gyana Bhandar, Jaisalmer
Sravakapratikramasutra-curni of Vijayasimha (Jain commentarial text),
1260, Mewar, Rajasthan, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Paper manuscript of the Kālakācāryakathā from the Vijaya
Dharma Lakṣmī Jnāna Mandira Library, Agra, 1492 CE
Trisala on her couch (left) and the Goddess Sri, one of fourteen auspicious dreams (right);
Page from a dispersed Kalpasutra, 15th century, Gujarat, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Jayadhavala and Mahadhavala
Siddhanta Basadi, Moodbidri,
Hoysala period (13th century Jain manuscripts)
Sarasvati Mahal Library, Thanjavur
-Founded in the 16th century
-Holds some 60,000 manuscripts
Government Oriental Manuscripts Library at the Anna
Centenary Library in Kotturpuram, Chennai, India

-Holds some 72,000 palm-leaf and paper manuscripts

Sanskrit palm-leaf manuscripts, Oriental Research Institute, Mysore
Gedong Kirtya, Singaraja, North Bali, established 1928
Manuscripts for ritual use:
Sinhalese kattadiya manuscripts,
Copenhagen National Library
The Cult of the Book
Prajñāpāramitā
from a manuscript
of the
Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñā
pāramitāsūtram,
Nālandā
Mahāvihāra, 1083
CE
Guhyasamāja Akṣobhyavajra (Immovable Vajra of the Secret
Fellowship) in union with Sparśavajrī (Adamantine Touch), a
personification of the Guhyasamāja Tantra, 1300s CE, gDan-sa-
mthil (Densatil) monastery, Tibet, Yang Zi collection, Beijing
 Palm-leaf manuscripts:
The Fragility of the Medium and
Lost Canons of Literature
The Chinese Emperor Sui Yangdi’s sacking of Linyi
(Champa) in 605

- Chinese forces under the general Liu Fang plunder

the capital of Linyi, carting away 18 gold statues and
1350 volumes of Buddhist scripture in the Kunlun
language (either Cham or Malay)
Dharmakīrti's Durbodhāloka
"Illumination of Points Difficult
to Understand" (c. 1005 CE)

- a commentary on the
Abhisamayālaṃkāra (Ornament of
Realisation; 4th century)
- Sanskrit text survives in a Tibetan
translation by Atiśa

Buddha attended by Avalokiteshvara and

Maitreya, Srivijayan period, Thai-Malay
peninsula, 8th century, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York
Two leaves from a manuscript of the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa, Merapi-Merbabu Collection,
National Library of Indonesia, Jakarta
Burning of the Jaffna Library, Sri Lanka
1 June 1981

Bibliocide precedes genocide!

 Conserving palm-leaf manuscripts

-Storage in insect-resistant wood boxes; keep away from

moist and damp environments

-A mixture of citronella oil and lamp soot is used to

polish the palm-leaves and make the letters clearer.

-As the leaves become brittle with age, regular oiling of

leaf (camphor/ neem/ lemongrass/ citronella oil) is
necessary to make it supple and deter insects.

Industrial chemicals e.g. Thymol, Trichloroethane

(Acetone and ethanol also work well!)