Recalling a trans-local past: digitising Mon palm-leaf manuscripts of Thailand. Part 2 (EAP1432)

The project produced far more material than originally projected: against an initial estimation of 10,000 images, the number was in reality around 38,000. The total number of texts was approximately 900.

When the date of inscription was indicated in the palm-leaf manuscripts—the concertina-style parabaik or samut khoi typically were not dated—most texts appeared to have been created in the mid- to late nineteenth century through to around 1920. The total range, however, was wider, from the late eighteenth century at the earliest through to the 1940s as the latest, which appears to have been the point at which the tradition ended. The few printed books came from the printing press originally set up in Pak Lat (modern Phra Pradaeng) during the early twentieth century, while the notebooks also date to the early-mid twentieth century. 

The bulk material is in the Mon language and the Mon script, although the Pāli language is also well represented, as are mixed language Mon-Pāli nissaya or trāy texts. We digitised a significant number of Thai- and Pāli-language materials written in the Khom script, a local version of the Khmer script, in addition to a smattering of Burmese and Thai-language materials. 

The palm-leaf manuscripts cover a wide range of topics, from the usual fare of a Theravāda Buddhist temple including Abhidhamma and vinaya texts and commentaries, to works of literature, horoscopology, customs and music, and history. These last few categories are overall rare, existing only in small numbers. The history texts were of especial interest to the project lead, and it is hoped that they will some day be of use to historians of the region. 

The significance of the project is threefold:

In the first instance, the fact that Mon-language materials have been put up online at all represents a major development for the scholarship of Mainland Southeast Asia. Despite the considerable amount of written output in the Mon language in recent centuries, these materials have remained unstudied,  unvalued and ignored. Now a host of religious and non-religious texts are available to the scholarly community, and just as importantly, to the Mon community itself. A very significant proportion of the texts digitised under this project appear to not exist inside Burma, and thus have been unknown to the majority of Mons who are literate today, that is, Mon community of Burma. 

In the second instance, this project represents the first ever large-scale digitisation of Mon-language manuscripts using high-quality equipment and processing, which have now been put up online. We recognise previous efforts to digitise some of these materials. Typically, those earlier projects were unable to use high-quality equipment, did not use lossless formats, and most importantly, were unable to put their materials online. This is simply to acknowledge that funding and technological developments have allowed for the present outcome, rather than criticise previous efforts. 

Finally, as far as the project lead has understood, this is the first time that any materials in the Khom script (which to reiterate are either in Pāli or the Thai language) have been digitised and made available online. These Khom materials are apparently of especial interest to religious scholars of the region. 

This project gratefully acknowledges the assistance of SEA Junction and of the Thai Studies Center at Chulalongkorn University, without whose help this project would not have been possible. 

The following documents were submitted as part of the project's outputs:

• Document

  EAP1432 Burmese-Language Project Explanation.pdf
• Document

  EAP1432 Project Description in Mon.pdf
• Document

  EAP1432 Methodology Report.pdf

Project photographer

Project driver