For this reflection, we were asked to make a map of the manuscript, incorporating the following elements:

1) An account of the structure of the manuscript, including our observations about which scripts and languages occur on what pages, as well as what other information we can glean from each page.

2) A 400-word reflection on what the structure of the manuscript tells us about how it was made and by whom, how it compares to other manuscripts we have studied on the field trip, and what we might conclude about its content.

Carolyn

Part I

Pages 1 - 4

• Introduction does not contain any legible script.

Page 5

• First page of writing has a similar script to the next pages but does not contain circles around any of the phrases.

Page 6-13

• Same script as above but also has circles around what looks like words and words in the margins that are circled

• Page 6 has purple spots that look like smudge marks from a purple pen. This could be from a modern pen or a fruit from back then in the 20th century. Though, I am unsure about how the color would stay in place this long.

• Page 13 has what looks like purple pen, which may suggest this manuscript is more recent than what we thought or that it was recently annotated

• Half of page 13 looks like it’s becoming Pali script. This could mean that the southeast Asian language that we have identified maybe introducing the Pali language.

Page 14

• Looks like a new script because it doesn’t have such long swooshes attached to the consonants.

Page 15 - 28

• Continues from page 13 with the same looking script with large swooshes

• Page 15 Also has a note in the margin that looks like it has been outlined more intently than the previous margin notes that seem to be like rectangles but due to its quick nature, the corners were round. This makes me think that this note was extremely important and made to stand out from the rest.

• Page 24 is half the Southeast Asian language and then switches move to Pali for about 6 lines before returning back to Laos

• Page 25 has a circle with some lines around it that seem out of place relative to the other words on the page. I am not sure what the purpose could be, but my thinking is that it could be a symbol to signify a new chapter or topic.

• Page 27 returning to Pali until Page 28

Page 29 - 30

• Both pages exhibit the calendar we discussed in class and for our previous assignments.

• Page 29 & 30 is interesting in that its orientation is flipped upside down relative to the previous pages in the manuscript.

Page 31

• This shows the front cover we have discussed in class with

  • Date: 2491 (measured from the buddhas) 1948/1949 CE and astrological calendars the year of the rat and the year of the OX

    • Year of rat translation is Javat(n) - pronounced like suat / suot - similar to Chuot (in vietnamese rat)

  • Deity - flying and holding this flag - female - foot gives dance like posture

    • Bringing in the new year

  • From this, it could be that the manuscript was used by monks or soon to be monks for learning the recitation for prayers concerning the specified deity to bring in the new year for a festival similar to Tet.

Page 32

• Blank page may be signifying a new chapter or new idea. In general, it may represent a break in the manuscripts’ content.

Page 33 - 34

• These pages have almost the clearest writing throughout the manuscript. It appears to be in Pali due to the lack of frequent and large accent marks.

• Both these pages also have the bottom of them missing. Though page 34 shows a more clear tear compared to page 33 that looks like the bottom of the page was more jumbled with the pages below in it in the picture.

Page 35-36

• Both of these pages seem to be in a similar state where the writing looks quite faded but very legible. The writing looks like it’s in Lao due to the large accent marks that look like the diacritic sac in Vietnamese.

• Both pages also have their bottom almost shredded off likely due to wear and tear.

Page 37 - 42

• Page 37 looks mostly fine from the bottom until you look at the top, where you can see the page can be incredibly compressed. This page and the pages below it in the picture look like they have suffered heavily from water damage. There is also very light writing on it. Because of how light the writing is, it may actually be writing on the other side of the page being shown through due to water damage.

• Page 38 looks extremely fragile from being scrunched up and is not in good condition. There doesn’t seem to be any legible writing on this page. There may be some very light showings of words, but that could easily be a shadow from the picture.

• Page 39 shows the greatest extent of the pages being jumbled with at least 7 pages being messed up at the bottom. With those pages, most of them definitely have writing on the bottom, which looks like it is showing Lao Khun.

• Page 40-42 again shows the pages jumbled at the bottom likely due to improper handling. The friability of the pages makes it difficult to distinguish any writing. To me, it looks like there may be writing on the bottom or the pages may be completely black and the areas where I see writing is actually writing on the pages below Page 41 and 42.

  • There are also large holes throughout these pages, which may be from small bugs eating the paper.

Page 43 & 44

• Page 43 Inside cover is made of cloth. Shows typical wear and tear and doesn’t have any distinguishable whole in the cloth

• Page 43 Back cover of the whole manuscript shows some wear and tear. Interestingly, there also seems to be some writing on the back in faint black writing with the orientation facing upwards. I do not see this kind of writing on Page 43, which makes me think that the writing was in fact directly written on the back. While the wear of the writing may make it difficult to make out what is written, I wonder if they could be the author’s signature or some other identifying mark like the school the manuscript was used in.

Part II

The structure of the manuscript seems to be divided into four sections. The first section is a first half section (pages 1-28) that includes alternating sections of script between Pali and Lao Khun. Then on pages 29-31, there is a calendar section with two pages of the calendar system that I believe is trying to intercalate between the Lunar calendar system and Roman/Julian calendar system. Finally, there is an ending section with varying scripts again between Pali and Lao Khun.

I largely agree with someone’s last week’s reflection on how they predict that these writings were meant to be recited out loud due to finding various “om’s” in the script. They also stated that the audience was likely of Southeast Asian descent and understood Lao Khun and would introduce the Pali script that was to be recited as well, but not understood. In last week’s reading of Terwiel’s book Monks and Magic, he discusses how monks would recite large passages that they did not necessarily understand but knew how to recite the sounds. Furthermore, the middle section stands out from the section before it and after it. The picture of the female deity has it flying and holding a flag that specifies that the manuscript was for a school. Thus, I believe that the purpose of the content is for recitation for soon-to-be monks to recite a spell that will encourage the flying deity to bring in the new year. In class, we discussed how in Lao, Cambodia, and Burma, there were different deities that would bring good fortune in the new year.

It looks like there are two main materials used in the manuscript. The outside cover is made of some kind of cloth. Upon doing some research online, the cover looks similar to the section above the geometric pattern section in the manuscript cover pictured below. Thus, the material could be a hand-woven material made in supplementary weft. One thing I feel confident about is that our manuscript cover does not exhibit any notable pattern to it in its weaving and instead looks like the standard straight lining.

Another point is that though the class manuscript’s cover is extremely faded, I do not think our manuscript cover had much cover to begin with. If we believe that the manuscript’s date on page 31 (1948-1949 CE) is correct, then the manuscript was made and used in the 20th century. The manuscript below has also been dated in the 20th century in Laos. I believe this fact also supports my prediction of the material of the class manuscript to be similar to the one above because I believe the script being used in many of the pages of the manuscript is Laos Khun.

The next main material used in the manuscript is a type of paper. The paper must have not been extremely durable, as the manuscript clearly shows exuberant amounts of water damage to the inside of the manuscript. Again doing some research, my current prediction on the time of paper is dluwang paper, which is a kind of Javanese paper pictured below. Our class manuscript’s paper material seems to have the same identifiable features as the one pictured below where it has a light brown shade with the edges showing vulnerability to wear and tear. Even the script and link itself on the manuscript below does not look incredibly unique relative to our manuscript. According to the website, this kind of paper was used often in insular Southeast Asia. This would match our class’s manuscript’s origins if we were to believe based on the description on page 31 that it was used in Luang Prabang. Another thing that convinces me that the paper material matches is that dluwang was susceptible to insect damage, proven by evident holes. As described in pages 41 and 42, there were definable holes in the pages.

Hau

Structure of the Manuscript

• Page 1: Embroidered design that appears to be dark green and brown. When the manuscript is placed vertically, the design consists of three parallel lines on both the left side and right side (where there is a gap between the innermost parallel lines) for six lines total on the cover of the manuscript. Professor Walker noted, however, that Page 1 is not necessarily the front cover. Within each set of lines, the left and right lines are brown and have a “hyphenated” design (therefore, not a full line) whereas the middle line is a mixture of both brown and dark green colors. This middle line appears to be “repeated flowers.”

• Page 2: Same design as page 1, except it looks newer. As a result, the lines are actually dark green and vibrant red (not brown). Page 1’s design is most likely supposed to be in the condition of Page 2’s design, but likely lost its color from being the front cover and being exposed to weathering conditions.

• Top of Page 3 has an unidentifiable language (and thus, ambiguous message). Professor Walker and I had trouble translating this message. We hypothesize that this writing is either in an unknown language or, due to its illegible nature, scribbles the writer made to test out their pen. The bottom of the page is wrinkled/folded upwards; this folded page appears to be unintentional (relative to the other pages that do not have wrinkles) and was most likely the result of some weathering damage.

• Page 4 has no content. Since it is either the front or back of Page 3, it also includes damages. Notably, there appears to be a black “crack” at the center of the page, resulting from damage.

• Pages 5-13: language appears to be the same (bottom of 13 appears to be different actually)

  • With the guidance of Professor Walker, five lines on Page 5 were the following (where a double line represents a punctuation mark)

    • 1 nāṃ hmœuk pâ ḍī săkº meḍ ĺ

    • 2 ci dyaŕ hlvań vā || imaṃ mahāsīdhaḷā agipupphā sammāsanbuddhassa go

    • 3 tamassa sakkacaṃ dānaṃ dema || ci dyaŕ nạý || vā || imaṃ sīle agipupphaṃ

    • 4 sakkacaṃ dānaṃ dema pūjema || dānº nāṃ uppaththā̆ bha cȏ₂ vā || imaṃ u

    • 5 ṇhodakaṃ sakkaccṃ dānaṃ dema pujema || dānº nāṃ kăḍº nāṃ yenº vā || imaṃ uddakaṃ

• Page 6: There are two distinct scripts, where the first script covers the top third of the page and the second script covers the bottom two-thirds of the page. The writer circled the portion of the page that makes this distinction; I believe this was intentional since the circle has a particular pattern, most likely to draw the reader’s attention that they would be transitioning into a new script for the bottom two-thirds of the page. This same circle design appears on Page 15.

• Page 6: I will label the top third of as “Script X”, while the bottom two-thirds of the page is identified as Tham Lanna script (where Script X was an unidentifiable script for this mapping). Professor Walker helped me identify that these scripts are Tham script. I believe it is written in Tham Lanna script, in particular, due the script’s similarities with images of Tham Lanna script found on Script Source.

• Page 6: Includes an introduction of magenta ink that persists in 7-11 and 13. 10 portions of the script are circled, with an annotation at the bottom (for a total of 11 circles on the page).

• Page 7: At the top of the page, there appears to be something written in ink that was smudged (like how one accidentally smudges undried ink while writing).

• Page 7: This time, 13 portions of the script are circled, with 9 annotations on the left-hand side (for a total of 22 circles on the page). The magenta ink, which originally appeared arbitrary, is now attached to each of the circles (for the most part). Placement of magenta ink on the circle appears to be intentional, since the sixth-to-bottom circled content originally had the magenta ink but was marked out by the writer. These circles with magenta ink appear to be significant in some sense.

• Page 8-10: This intentional magenta ink marking/pattern starting at Page 7 appears here as well.

• Page 11: Tham Lanna script with many annotations on the left side.

• Page 12: Tham Lanna script with many annotations on the left side.

• Page 13: There’s a notable brown stain at the top portion of the page; this is the type of stain that is caused by water or some substance. This stain reminds me of a dried-coffee stain on a paper. Given the paged-torn damages of the manuscript (that also resemble water damage) and the specific color of the stain on Page 13, I conclude this manuscript suffered through conditions such as rain and mud.

• Page 14: appears to have a different script from pages 5-13 for the most part. The script from 14 appears on Page 5 and top of Page 6. Towards the bottom of Page 14, a lot of words under them include hooks/rotated “L”’s. This is not found in Tham Lanna script. Therefore, I think this is written in another script, but it has yet to be identifiable (I’ve labeled it Script X).

• Top half of Page 15: I think this is Thai Lanna script since they look familiar. This script is not the same as the one appearing on Page 14, however (since the one on Page 14 doesn’t include diagonal marks at the top of the words found in Thai Lanna). As a result, there may be two different scripts going on in the manuscript (Script X (no diagonal marks and bottom hooks pointing towards the right) and Tham Lanna).

• Page 15 at Line 13: Appears to be Script X.

• Page 16: This page includes Thai Lanna and also Script X occurs on Line 13.

• Page 17: Includes Script X at lines 5, 6, 13, 14, 15 and all other lines is Thai Lanna.

• Page 18: Lines 4, 8, 11, 16-19: Script X. All other lines are Tham Lanna.

• Page 19: Tham Lanna script, except for the last three lines that are Script X.

• Page 20: Script X for the first three lines and lines 14-15 and Tham Lanna script for the rest of the page.

• Page 21: Tham Lanna script for the entire page except for the last four lines, which is in Script X.

• Page 22: Tham Lanna script for the entire page. However, the fifth-to-bottom line has 6 consecutive hooks pointing towards the right (indicating it may be Script X), while also having a diagonal mark on the third character at the beginning of the line. I hypothesize that this line includes both Tham Lanna in the beginning but transitions to Script X for the rest of the line (but eventually changes back to Tham Lanna for the lines succeeding it).

• Page 23: Tham Lanna script.

• Page 24: From fifth-to-bottom to eleventh-to-bottom lines, they are in Script X, whereas everything else was in Tham Lanna.

• Page 25: All lines are in Tham Lanna except for the eleventh line, which is in Script X.

• Page 26: All lines are in Tham Lanna.

• Page 27: All lines are in Script X.

• Page 28: All lines are in Script X.

• Page 29: Shows the lunar calendar, where months are at the top of each column (transliterates to July, August, September, October, November, and December).These months have etymological roots of French (they sound French), so it is likely that these months have been French-influenced in terms of pronunciation. Each column also includes a transliteration of the word “day and month.” The lunar calendar aims to track full moon and new moons, where a full moon is indicated by an open circle (like the one between the dates 9\15 and 9/1) and a new moon is indicated by a closed circle (such as the circle between the numbers 8\15 and 8/1).The 7-day week is indicated by the blue circle in the image below, whereas the 10-day system is marked in orange. The owner of this calendar, overall, was accurate in calculating the phases of the moon because, generally speaking, it takes around 15 days to go from full moon to new moon.

• Page 30: This appears to be the first page where it is not right-side up in PDF (therefore, it is upside-down in the PDF). This is interesting because all the even pages in the PDF had been right-side up in the PDF, but this is the first indication where an even PDF page is upside down.

• Page 30: This appears to be a continuation of the lunar calendar from Page 29, except it’s torn apart at the top (when faced right-side up). I say this is a continuation since the bottom right-most date on this page is 8/8, and the first date on Page 29 is 8/9. This page includes months such as February, March, April, May, June, July, and August (where January may have been included).

• Page 31: This includes a date interval at the top (2491 and 92) which may be interpreted as 2491-2492. According to Professor Walker, these two Southeast Asian Years must be converted to our time using the conversion number of 543, so it would be 1948-1949; we disregard the last date, so this calendar represents 1949. The interpretation of the numerical system on Pages 29 and 30 as a calendar system is supported by the transliteration of “calendar” between the animals on Page 31. The animals on this page are identified as Rat and Ox, as they have been transliterated to those words. These animals hold significance, since they represent the Year of the Rat and the Year of the Ox (after completing transliteration from Lao to English).

• Under Professor Walker’s guidance, we were able to identify the figure holding the flag as a female deity. The flag translates to “New Year’s Day,” “Wednesday,” and “Days” to name a few of them. The cloud next to the deity roughly translates to ``For the sake of school Luang Prabang.” This entails that the manuscript is from a school in Luang Prabang, Laos.

• Page 32:It appears to be ripped at the bottom. When zoomed into the edge of the paper, one can see purely white strings on the edge. It seems like this manuscript’s material is made of some fashion of wool.

• Pages 33-34: Both pages are upside down on the PDF, and they identify with Script X.

• Pages 35-36: Both pages are upside down on the PDF, and they identify with Tham Lanna.

• Page 37: Appears to have brown specs and the tears are uneven, exposing the previous pages.

• Page 38: This page has several small holes, which could possibly be from insect bites. This could support the assertion that this manuscript was found outside.The page also has a tear at the bottom that appears to be very gray/black in comparison to the rest of the page.

• Page 39: The tears are uneven, exposing the previous pages.

• Page 40: This page has several small holes, which could possibly be from insect bites.

• Page 41: The tears are uneven, exposing the previous pages. It also includes holes, possibly from insect bites.

• Page 42: The same page as 41.

• Page 43: This is the inside portion of the cover. Unlike the Page 2, it has no embroidered design.

• Page 44: This is the cover (it could either be the front cover or back cover, nonetheless). There is a faintly inscribed message, but it is difficult to make out. It doesn’t look like it’s written in Tham Lanna (there is no appearance of diagonal markings), so it could possibly be written in Script X.

Week 6 Continuing:

Reflection of Manuscript

How was this manuscript made?

The intricacy of the manuscript implies it was made using a plethora of tools. For starters, I’ll discuss its physicality. Regarding the cover (appearing on Pages 1-2 on the PDF), there were most likely strings and a needle involved with the embroidery. Furthermore, there was likely the use of rulers with the making of this manuscript, since the lunar calendar has straight lines. Overall, there were mundane tools in the making of this manuscript.

Given the appearance of this manuscript, I don’t think it was manufactured. Although there’s a possibility that multiple people could’ve been involved with making this manuscript, it was most likely not produced in a factory. I make this assertion since if it was made in a factory, then the content must have been printed. However, the content is clearly handwritten and the covers appear imperfect (uneven stitches on the binds and uneven edges on the cover).

The use of mundane tools and choosing not to be manufactured may mean two things. For starters, it could mean that this manuscript was specifically for the students of the Luang Prabang school, and the maker of the manuscript did not find it appropriate to distribute it (and thus, it would make no economical sense to have it manufactured). Secondly, it may also be the case that the manuscript’s creator wanted this recitation to be distributed to schools in the community; however, the creator (or the school that employed them) might not have had enough funding. If there is truth to the second case, then the manuscript would possibly be from an underfunded school. This information may be useful when we are aiming to narrow down which Luang Prabang school holds ownership of this manuscript; we can look at the history of each Luang Prabang school, and if there is record that one was particularly underfunded, then we could examine that school closely.

Who made this manuscript?

There is sufficient evidence this manuscript was not made by the French. For starters, Pages 31 states, “For the sake of school in Luang Prabang.” This translation implies that this manuscript belongs to a school (though the specific is unknown). It would not make sense for the French to make this manuscript to Lao people for recitation, since most French people were not Buddhist at the time.

Furthermore, the months on Page 29 have etymological roots in French. These months, when pronounced verbally, sound similar to corresponding months in French. This implies that the Lao people “adopted” French language, while being the original creator(s) of this manuscript. This assertion, that the Lao people adopted some characteristics of the French language, is supported by its political transformation during 1949. According to Britannica, “Franco-Laotian convention was signed in July 1949 by which Laos was granted limited self-government within the French Union. All important power, however, remained in French hands.” This implies that the Luang Prabang school made this manuscript, while being linguistically influenced by the French colonists.

What might we conclude about its content?

Professor Walker mentioned in class that this manuscript could possibly be used for student recitation. There is evidence for this. For instance, the first line on page 5 includes the term sammāsanbuddhassa. I used translation in configuring this word; “samma” means “Good, right” and “Buddhassa” roughly translates to either “enlightened or the Buddha” in Pali. Regardless, this word could be interpreted as, “the right way to be enlightened” or “the rightful Buddha.” The content on Page 5, then, most likely prefaces the reader that the messages succeeding this line are sacred and that they must be believed by the reader to be a faithful Buddhist. Given this manuscript originates from a school, the school is likely educating its students that the content succeeding Page 5 must be followed; it is a recitation to follow the Buddhist path.

I have yet to translate the rest of the manuscript, and I still ponder about the recitation’s content. What are these students having to recite specifically? There are three things I believe these students are reciting. For starters, it may be a recitation on why Lunar New Year is significant through the lens of personal development. I make this assertion since, according to Asia Highlights, “[Lao Lunar New Year is] seen as an opportunity to let go of the past and embrace a promising new future.” From a personal standpoint, Lunar New Year is all about accepting self-transformation (and thus, an impermanent identity, which is a core Buddhist belief). Secondly, the recitation may be about how Lunar New Year is a time to also help others prosper (which indirectly creates a promising future for ourselves, through the law of karma), since compassion is a core component of Buddhist philosophy. Last but not least, the recitation may be a combination of these two possibilities while giving praise to the Buddha.

How does this manuscript compare to the other manuscripts we’ve seen on the field trip?

The manuscripts we saw on the field trip had more complex diagrams and different content and materiality. One of the manuscripts my group examined was quite the opposite of this manuscript our class is deciphering. Our group’s manuscript was made out of dried palm leaves, not wool. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that it was manufactured, in contrast to my inference regarding the origins of the class manuscript. However, the manuscript was similar in the sense that it was used for religious purposes (the group’s manuscript was a sermon while that of the class is a recitation).

Reference Photos From ‘Structure of Manuscript’:

Parth

Pages

Observations

3–4

There’s a little bit of text at the top-left of page 3, which looks like it might be Lao (the second character of the second word looks a bit like the Lao character ບ) but it’s a little difficult to say. In class, we identified Lanna as being part of the manuscript, on the illustrated page, but this doesn’t look like Lanna. There’s also some pretty severe folding and water/moisture damage to the manuscript.

5–13

The text and annotations of these pages all look very similar, down to the end of page 13, which is why I group them together. In particular, there are a lot of very long diacritics. I think this is Lanna script (see, e.g., the diacritics section in Trent’s chart), but I’m not sure, and I haven’t transliterated any lines. Another theme of these pages is the marginal notes and circling. It looks like someone circled words or groups of words and even occasionally drew little black lines on the circle, further emphasizing it:

There are only two examples of this that I could see, and my guess is that it’s just intended for further emphasis, but that’s not particularly well-founded.

Of these pages, pages 6–13 have circled notes on the left margin which look like they’ve been added later. They don’t look like Lanna. They look a little bit more like the text in the top-left of page 3, so sticking with my original interpretation, maybe that’s Lao.

We also see a lot of pink marks which don’t seem to be text—just vaguely circular markers. I imagine their placement is somewhat intentional. They almost seem like punctuation to me, so perhaps it’s a way of breaking continuous text into steps (i.e., step 1 is from the beginning to the first pink mark, then step 2 is from there to the next pink mark, etc. etc.).

Page 8 also has some text that I can’t identify in blue pen:

I grouped all of these pages together because they appear to mostly be in a similar script, which I’ve been calling Lanna. There appear to be brief sections where the writing switches to Lao, in the middle of the passage, which appears to be quite common for this manuscript.

Again, this looks like a different script, and kind of like the script on the top of page 3. I called it Lao earlier, but I’m starting to doubt that. Another script, maybe?

What’s most interesting to me about this annotation is the border style. We’ve seen this before, but last time it was circling some lanna script. Here it is inline with the script. Of course, it’s not necessarily the case that the person who made this annotation also made the annotation on page 6, but if they did, it says something about the authors, the time that they were writing the manuscript, and the languages they were writing in. For example, if this author was writing in the manuscript at the same time as the person writing Lanna on the rest of the page, this may be the first evidence of a bilingual author, which is kind of exciting.

Starting on page 19, we see much more intense damage to the bottom of the odd-numbered pages.This continues to the end of the manuscript, with each successive page being more and more damaged (and, actually, physically smaller as a result).

27–28

I isolated these two pages because it seems like the script switches, and there’s also some interesting parallelism here with pages 33–34. Together, these pages flank the calendar and they seem like they’re in the same script. I don’t think it’s Lao. There’s this character on page 27:

That looks a lot like “ta” in Khun or Lanna along with the “ṁ” diacritic.

29–30

We’ve talked about this calendar extensively, so I won’t do much other than group them together here and maybe comment on the material features that I haven’t written as much about. For example, the pattern of damage continues and nearly half of page 30 is missing.

31

We know that the title of this page means “Calendar” in Pali, and that would seem to apply primarily to the two pages preceding this one, which makes me wonder whether this page was supposed to be read before the previous two (i.e. the manuscript was supposed to be read in the opposite direction). This also appears to be the only page with illustrations, and the illustrations are in some ways rudimentary and other ways complex. For example, they have a lot of detail, but no shading or lighting. The image of the three-headed elephant bleeds out of the flag that is probably supposed to contain it. This could be reflective of a few things: the materials that were available, the skill of the person making this page, or the “importance” of this page relative to the rest of the manuscript.

33–34

Once again, we see two pages of the Khun or Lanna script here, and then the writing changes color.

35–38

It’s unclear from the picture, but this looks like a different writing instrument. We also see very slanted text, with the long diacritics, which I called Lanna earlier.

Map

Here’s the map I made of the pages, which isolates the manuscript into roughly two distinct portions. The first, in the top-left, are the text-based portions of the manuscript. Pages 5–13 and 14–26 are the pages which are mostly Lanna, interspersed with Lao, and they’re connected using the border style that I noticed was common between the two. They’re also connected to sequences of pages based on similar language style. The second section of the manuscript is the calendar section, in the bottom-right corner. The center of this sub-diagram (30 → 29–30) is the calendar itself, and it’s flanked by sequences of pages which seem similar in the orientation and “cleanliness” of writing, so I place them adjacent to the calendar.

Discussion

I think this manuscript almost certainly had two authors, if not three (or more). There are long stretches of the manuscript which alternate between (what I’ve been calling) Lanna and Lao. The Lao sections generally seem untouched, and the Lanna sections are occasionally annotated. It’s almost as though the author of one language is quoting from a text in the other language. The presence of the annotations makes me think that there was a second author, who reviewed the text after the first author. As we’ve read for class, annotations in magical manuscripts can be ways of clarifying part of a spell. So, I think it’s reasonable—especially since this is a manuscript that’s supposed to be used in a school—that one or multiple people went over this manuscript after its first penning and clarified the instructions in it. Or, perhaps, they are pedagogical notes about the use of this manuscript in the classroom.

The structure of this manuscript is notable in comparison to the manuscripts we saw on our trip to Berkeley. One of the manuscripts that my group worked with was intended to be recited, probably by the leader of a group of practitioners. The entire leporello manuscript was in one language, and there were no interjections anywhere, other than the front matter. It only contained the story. Another manuscript that my group worked with had almost no text. It contained pictures of animals, with small annotations next to them, and included geometric magical imagery (e.g. tables and pyramids which contain symbols—probably numbers—within them). Those seemed almost like reference manuals for accompanying magical practice. Our manuscript seems like a blend of these two. There seem to be large sections of the manuscript that are uninterrupted text, and the consistent language and lack of annotations make me think that they’re not spells (of course, the annotator might have just skipped that part of the manuscript). There are also sections—like the calendar—which seem intended to accompany magical practices. And, the illustrations on page 31 seem very similar to the illustrations on some of the manuscripts we saw in Berkeley.

Finally, one feature I’m having trouble disentangling, as I mentioned in the table above, is the timing of the different authors. I commented on the “border style” of one annotator, and how there is a different section of the manuscript where the same border style appears, inline with the text—meaning it was probably written at the same time as the text in the second appearance, and after the text in the first appearance. If there’s one author who uses that border style, it’s not clear to me when that author handled the text. Or, perhaps, the text went through multiple revisions, so that author may have written inline in some places and annotated the text in others.

Sean

Part 1 – Manuscript Map

PDF 1-2:

Cover page, front and back, of woven fibrous material with faded red and green embellishments. Cover is discolored and shows signs of wear, mild distortion of shape, and does not completely encase the interior pages.

PDF 3-4:

First interior page, significantly crumpled, showing tears and holes, absent of any script except for two words in scraggly, faded handwriting on the top of page 3. Page seems to comprise two leaves adhered together, or else is simply two pages that have become stuck together. The first of the two from the front appears torn around the lateral middle of the page, while the second is instead severely crumpled. Script is ambiguous, though could feature Arabic numerals 2 and 3. Page exhibits possible insect or water damage with dirt streaks among the crumples, which may suggest similar damage is responsible for discoloration and shrinkage of the cover page. Both front and back feature very faint traces of other script – possibly earlier script that was erased or washed out by water damage, though this is unlikely given the single line of intact script. Perhaps instead this is a sign of ink seeping through from subsequent pages to stain the first page, again pointing to water damage.

PDF 5:

This page also exhibits significant damage, particularly towards the bottom – torn edges and some holes. Script in horizontal lines fills the page. There is a short header at the top of the page that seems to resemble the rest of the script, and the script itself features a number of insertions like the following:

Which perhaps are used to frame quotations, or important or auspicious sections of the text. Another interesting feature is this illustration around a section of the text lower on the page:

Which occurs in the 3^rd line from the bottom and may indicate a word or phrase of particular importance, or perhaps more likely the end of a passage of text. If the latter is the case then the second passage of script would start halfway through the 3^rd line from the bottom and continue onto the next page.

Based on our class discussions and the work of my peers on previous assignments, the script seems to be Lanna or Khün (while Lü is also a possibility, it seems on the whole to lack the downward sweeping tails, while these appear much more frequently in Lanna or Khün).

PDF 6:

Horizontal layout of script cont., the page is lighter in color and appears less damaged than the previous page. The script at the top of the page seems a continuation of that from the previous page, until an inserted boundary seems to indicate the start of a different script with a slightly different stylus, but likely the same handwriting:

This page also features colored marks in pink and blue, which either were not present at all on the prior page or otherwise faded beyond recognizability due to the damage on that page. The pink marks continue for some time and may be a way to emphasize certain portions of the text, or may serve as decoration. There are numerous circles like the one below around what may be particularly important or difficult sections of the text:

And as can be seen above the same pair of symbols from page 5 recurs, again perhaps acting as the introduction to a stretch of text.

The script seems to be the same (or at least similar) to the script above, and so I still suspect it to be either Lanna or Khün, though there is a significant change in the number of vertical diacritics. This seems to suggest either that a different language is being rendered by the script (in which case, perhaps one of the two languages is Pali, while the other language may be Northern Thai, Tai Lue, or Khün. Alternatively, the added vertical lines may not indicate a change in language but rather mark emphasis for reading, in which case the second script could be used for chanting or recitation and would almost certainly be Pali.

There also appears to be a series of commentarial notes in bubbles like the one below:

PDF 7:

Continuation of 6, with more commentarial bubbles:

Which may label parts of the text (especially if they are in a language that a reader might not understand but only pronounce, as would be often be the case if the text was in Pali). This page features some minor damage towards the bottom, and also contains a notation above the text:

Which also appears to be an afterthought insertion (as it seems to have been written in ink different to that of the main text). There is also a prominent scribble:

In the middle of the lines, which might either be an erased comment (unlikely since those appear in the margins for the most part), or perhaps a corrected mistake in the original, or alternatively (given that this was used in a school) it may be a child’s scribble.

The style of the diacritics also seems to change after the second line of this page, which may represent the scribe getting tired, warmed up, using a different stylus, or a different scribe altogether. In any case, this slightly different style seems to persist until the end of the page and onto the overleaf.

PDF 8-10:

Seems to be a continuation of 7, with commentarial bubbles running along the left margin and sections of text circled. The style of the diacritics seems continuous with the latter style of 7.

Page 8 is in good condition other for minor discoloration. It also features an interesting inter-line series of scribbles (I can’t tell if they’re meaningful or decorative):

Page 9 features some faded text towards the bottom, again perhaps indicating water damage, and may be missing parts of the bottom line. Alternatively, this might indicate that the very light text on the bottom of page 9 is in fact a prior text that has been overwritten, as the ink color seems quite different to that immediately above.

Parts of page 10 are slightly smudged, but overall the page is in good condition.

PDF 11:

The top part seems a continuation of 7-10, but around the third-last line the style of the diacritics seems to change again, reverting to that found on the upper part of page 6 again. There are also a number of crosses that appear between lines, the significance of which seems ambiguous. Whether this again merely indicates a change of scribe or instrument, or actually reflects a change in the language rendered, is unclear, but there doesn’t seem to be any other sign of a significant break in the text itself other than the style of the diacritics.

Again, minor damage on the bottom right corner, and some of the text might be lost, but almost all of it seems in very good condition.

PDF 12:

Continuation of 11, though the circled sections of text stop after the first line. The commentarial bubbles continue.

PDF 13:

Continuation of 12 towards the top of the page – at the 4^th line from the bottom of the page there is the following double-outline bubble:

Which seems to indicate a change in the text. The text itself ceases to display the many diacritics, so again perhaps this is a change in language (perhaps out of Pali and back into Tai Lue or Khün). There is slight damage and some illegible characters on the bottom right of the page.

PDF 14:

Continuation of text from 13. Page in generally good condition though there is some damage in the top right corner. The more prominent diacritics reappear in the last two lines, running onto the next page.

PDF 15:

Top part of page is continuation of 14, in the middle of the page there is a break in the text marked by this box:

Some damage to the lower right portion of the page.

PDF 16-26:

These pages all seem to continue the block of text started on page 15. The pattern of damage from these pages and those preceding shows consistent damage to the right side of the manuscript – my hypothesis remains water exposure, owing to the blurring of the ink around these areas. Notably, the commentarial bubbles and circles around portions of text, as well as the inserted decorations/scribbles between the lines are no longer present on these pages.

Page 16 exhibits slight damage on the top right but is otherwise in good condition.

Page 17 appears to exhibit different coloration from the pages immediately prior, as well as slight signs of damage on the right side.

Page 18 shows similar damage on the right side.

Page 19 shows more serious damage to the right and bottom, the last line is partially obscured. The style of the script seems to change slightly halfway through the page, perhaps indicating a lapse in time between the composition of the manuscript, a change in instrument, or a change in scribe.

Page 20 shows damage along the right and top – portions of the first line are illegible.

Page 21 is missing significant portions of the last three lines on the page due to damage on the bottom and right.

Page 22 is missing large parts of the first four lines due to damage.

Page 23 appears to be missing at least one whole line, with two others partially missing, along the bottom.

Page 24 also shows damage to the top of the manuscript. It features some interesting oddities, including a long string of characters with the same dependent vowel:

As well as what appears to be an illustration interspersed in the text:

Page 25 shows significant damage to the last four lines, and some lines may be missing. Interestingly, the illustration above recurs here, perhaps indicating that it acts as a parenthesis to a section of text:

Page 26 shows increasingly severe damage to the top and right parts of the manuscript, as well as the following unique stain in the center of the text:

PDF 27:

Page 27 starts with a bubbled section of text, which appears to demarcate the start of a new stretch of script:

The script on this page again lacks the extra diacritics that have been present over the previous pages, once again signaling that it may be in a different language.

There is significant damage to the lower part of the manuscript – at least 5 lines are obscured or partly missing, and more may be missing entirely.

PDF 28:

More damage and lost lines at the top of the page. This seems to be a continuation of the text from page 27. It also features the following, which appears to be a correction of sorts to the text:

PDF 29-30:

The text seems to come to an abrupt end, and the orientation flips vertically, for the rendering of the composite calendar on these two pages. The script changes to Lao, and now features Arabic numerals as well. The damage on the pages is consistent with that in the earlier parts of the manuscript.

PDF 31:

The cover page for the calendar, still in reversed vertical orientation. Again the script and language here appear to be Lao, and the pattern of damage is consistent with the rest of the manuscript.

PDF 32:

This page appears to have been left intentionally blank.

PDF 33:

Damage to the top of the manuscript. The script here also appears to be in the opposite orientation to the rest of the manuscript. There are two sections of script, clearly written in different materials, as one has faded much more radically than the other. This may also indicate two separate texts that have been juxtaposed on the page. The script here seems to mark a departure from Lao and a return to the Lanna/Khün script from earlier in the manuscript. They lack the extra diacritics, and so might be in Northern Thai, Tai Lue, or Khün.

PDF 34:

Seemingly continuous with 33, also showing two different materials throughout, and also showing inverted orientation. Significant damage to this page as with the others.

PDF 35-36:

These seem to exhibit many of the extra diacritics from earlier in the text (again perhaps indicating Pali here?). The script is faded, and seems either to be much older than some of the other sections of the manuscript, or else written in much less durable ink.

PDF 37-38:

These pages show very faded portions of text, seemingly again lacking the extra diacritics. Again, these seem either older or less durable than the rest of the manuscript.

PDF 39-42:

These pages are badly crumpled, and don’t seem to display signs of having contained text, though it is possible that any text they did contain has simply faded.

PDF 43-44:

The back cover – like the front though without the adornment. It does seem to show traces writing, though these are rather difficult to make out:

Part 2: Reflection

On a big-picture approach, this manuscript seems to be composed of three distinct segments. The first part (I’ll call it A), which runs from PDF 5-28 is in one vertical orientation, while B, which runs from PDF 29-31 and contains the illustration page and calendar, uses the opposite orientation. C, which runs from PDF 33-40 and is separated from B by a blank page, but which also uses the opposite orientation to A.

A seems to contain a series of different texts, which appear to be rendered in the same base script, though with a fluctuation in the presence/absence of extra diacritics which would seem to indicate a change in language. A can be subdivided into A1, which runs from PDF 5-13 and exhibits circling and marginal commentary bubbles, A2, which runs from PDF 13-15 and is bookended by boxed-off portions of script along the left side of the page, A3, which seems to run without commentary or much intrusion from PDF 15-26, and A4, which occupies PDF 27-28.

B comprises the illustrated page and the calendar, and marks the point at which the orientation of the manuscript changes. The reason for the change seems intuitively to be that it was used from back to front when producing B – as not only does the orientation change, but the calendar precedes its cover page when read from front to back.

C seems to be the oldest, or perhaps only the most faded, part of the manuscript, and also seems to have been written working from the back of the manuscript forwards (for the same reasons that apply to B).

Based on these observations, I think that we can deduce a few things. Firstly, the manuscript appears to have gone through a series of users and owners, and to have been used for multiple purposes. This is mainly suggested by the calendar, which, though it has a title page, is positioned in the middle of the manuscript between a series of texts. This placement seems to suggest that the calendar was recorded in the manuscript on whatever pages happened to be available (and these happened to be towards the middle). The change in orientation also corroborates this, as it seems unlikely that a single author would use the same manuscript in two different directions: front to back and back to front. Additionally, the presence towards the end of the manuscript of very faded passages of text seems to suggest that they are of a different age to the rest of the manuscript, which again would suggest that the manuscript was composed over a period of time by numerous authors. The consistent damage to the manuscript, however, seems to have occurred after the completion of all stages of its composition, as all of the pages and texts seem to be in a similar state of damage.

As for some more specific observations, it seems plausible that the beginning of the manuscript (section A) was used in a school context, like that suggested by the cover page of the calendar, as it features annotations, scribbles, and emphasis marks that would fit well in a context in which it was used for classroom instruction of children. It seems possible that the manuscript was originally used as a repository of texts (probably Pali texts for chanting), and happened to have a few open pages left, on which the calendar was inserted in 1949CE. It would make sense for the first part of the text to have been composed around a similar date, though from the above hypothesis it is possible that it was written some time before the calendar was inserted. I come to this conclusion because it takes up the majority of the space in the manuscript, and so it seems more likely that it was the main component of the manuscript, to which the calendar was later added.

As for section C, this may be a remnant of an earlier use to which the manuscript was put before it was used in the school context. Perhaps the school acquired, or simply repurposed, an existing manuscript, which featured some writings (section C). It may then have been decided to start recording the texts for section A beginning at the opposite end of the manuscript, so as to avoid the old text present at section C. After A had been composed, B may have been inserted in the space between A and C at a later time. Thus, it seems possible that B is the latest part of the manuscript, while A immediately precedes it, and C may predate A and B by a significant stretch of time. All of this is assuming, again, that the fading we observe in section C is due to age, rather than a significant difference in the durability of the ink used to record it.

Sisely

Date: 1949-1950 CE

Scripts: Tham Lue and Lao

Languages: Dai Lue, Pali, and Lao

Calendar: Upper row: ?, July, August, September, ?, November, December - Gregorian calendar

Lower row: Lao lunar calendar

15 days between full and new moon

Images:

Dates: 2491-92, 1310-11 measured from Buddha's birthday (1949-1950 CE)

Year of rat and ox

Female Diety: Nang Songkran - celebrating Laos New Year

Flag inscription: “The first day of Lunar New Year is on the first waxing day, occurring on Wednesday. The second day of the three-day new year is on the first waning day, occurring on a Friday.”

Location: Luang Prabang

Referring back to my map, the manuscript is structured in a really interesting way. We have the cover, then pages 1-28 of text. Then we have the illustration page and calendar (29-31) which we know to have been inserted 1949CE followed by a blank page and more text (33-40). From the calendar on, the orientation switches and the back cover becomes the front. The manuscript includes two distinct scripts representing Tham Lue and Laos well as three different languages being Dai Lue, Pali, and Lao. There is considerable damage to the high number pdf pages. The differing orientations, writing styles, scripts, and languages may indicate multiple ownerships or authors.

Starting off very fundamentally with the physical structure of the manuscript, I am interested in the material used to make the cover and what significance the manuscript’s overall physical form might have in regards to possible magical qualities. I’ve read that sometimes that manuscript itself (rather than just the act of recitation of the spells held within it) may hold magical qualities and I wonder if this may or may not be the case here. We also noticed something resembling red embroidery thread decorating one side of the cover and wondered if that indicated the intended front. After further investigation we found that both the ‘front’ and ‘back’ covers could probably be considered the front as the manuscript is oriented in two different directions working from the outside towards the center. The damage is also interesting and indicates that this manuscript was probably functional and commonplace, not something to be specially looked after and preserved. I am reminded of our reading on Burmese wizard saints - about learning that ‘how to’ manuals on gaining wizardry powers were often plentiful in Burma and accessible in common newsstands.

There are three things about the contents of the manuscript that really helped to paint a picture in my mind around its previous context and utility. The first is the use of multiple languages and scripts. After class discussion, we found that Lao script is mostly utilized in the calendar and illustration pages while Tham Lue is used throughout. We also identified three languages amongst two scripts (Dai Lue, Pali, and Lao), the first language complicating things a bit for me. However, although there are three languages, the notable separation between Southeast Asian and Indic roots (assumed initially by the notable and frequent use of ‘om’ which has Indian roots) provided a lot of clarity. It became clear in my mind that the Southeast Asian languages were probably introducing, explaining, or providing instruction for the recitation or chanting of these Indic passages in Pali.

The next big clarifier for my understanding of the manuscript is our class’s collaborative interpretation of the page of images (thirty-one on the PDF) which we determined to translate roughly to “Made for use in Palli school in Luang Prabang”. This made a lot of sense with the previous information about the interplay of languages. The Southeast Asian language would presumably be necessary to provide instruction to the student in a language that they could understand, then they would be presented with passages in the Indic language and learn how to chant/recite them. The apparent margin notes and circled phrases/passages make a lot of sense in this context as well. They would intuitively be useful in a school setting to direct the student’s attention to certain areas and provide further explanations. I wonder if these were additions made to the finished manuscript by the teacher for the students, or maybe even by the students. Trent later pointed out that these notes could have just been notes for the successful recitation of the chants which I think would also make a lot of sense.

Finally, coming back to the illustration page, the translation of the flag inscription also helped solidify my understanding of the calendar. We translated it as stating “The first day of Lunar New Year is on the first waxing day, occurring on Wednesday. The second day of the three-day new year is on the first waning day, occurring on a Friday”. This solidified my understanding of the calendar as being a comparison between the Lunar calendar used in Southeast Asia and the Gregorian calendar. They can both be understood in the context of the 15-day period between full and new moons.

Our manuscript seems unique in the fact that at least part of it was intended for use in a school. Although I can not say for certain that this was not the case for the manuscripts we viewed at Berkeley, it didn’t seem obvious to me that any of them were. This detail is something that I would like to explore more in hopes of gaining not only a better understanding of our manuscript, but also of Buddhism and magic’s relation/importance to the lives of people in Luang Prabang and to its students. The two distinct orientations are also unique and throw me off a bit if I'm being honest. I wonder if the entire manuscript was for use in a school, or maybe only a small portion. There also remains a possibility that there are actually three distinct sections and the illustration plus calendar pages were added separately from the two ‘front’ and ‘back’ sections of text - it is the blank page that is a mystery for me.

Sylvia

Images 1-2 Cover page

3: First page, blank except for a small marking at the top

4: blank page

5-top of 6: Tham script, less markings

Bottom ¾ of 6: Tham script, diagonal lines above letters, some circling and possible margin notes

7-bottom of 13: Lots of diagonal lines, and circling of certain words/phrases, lots of margin notes which are circled (possibly in a different script?)

Bottom of 13-last line of 14: All diagonal lines cease and no circling or margin notes. However, the style and quality of the handwriting appear otherwise the same

End of 14-26: Diagonal lines return although they are shorter and “less aggressive” than the ones noted in images 7-13. Perhaps these were written by different people or at different times or using different instruments. There are no marginal notes. This section seems somewhat varied, however. Occasionally the diagonal lines above letters disappear for a line or two, and especially the last two pages of this section seem to become a bit more “chaotic.”

• Notably, in image 15 there is a small box on the left side of the page containing some writing. It seems like this was a very intentional addition as the main writing makes room for this box.

• Image 24 also has a notable section where a sequence of letters all have the same open circle shape above them (potentially the i diacritic).

• Image 25 has an abnormal penciled in drawing on the left side.

27-28: the writing becomes more sparse again with no diagonal lines on top. One small sequence is circled

29-30: calendar

31: “Title page” Drawing, dates, info about the location in Lao script

32: blank

33-34: Writing without lots of lines on top. The top of 33 is in pencil, as well as the bottom of 34.

34-36: Pencil writing with lots of “aggressive” diagonal lines

37: Pencil writing is extremely faded. It seems there are fewer diagonal lines.

38-40: There could have been pencil but it is basically nonexistent as these end pages are very damaged. Likely that at least the last page has always been blank, like the first page.

Back cover

Notes:

• I have numbered these according to what number image they are in the file Pr uploaded because it is easier to reference

• The orientation seems to flip from the calendar page (image 29) through the end (image 40)

• There is damage to the pages around both the front and back cover

Our manuscript closely resembles one of the manuscripts from the field trip in physical structure, size, and script; most of the other manuscripts were in the accordion style. I had some difficulty finding information on whether different physical styles of manuscripts (book-like, accordion, palm-leaf, etc.) are any indication of the purpose or nature of their content. If there is a correlation between physical form and usage then this would be useful to consider.

It appears that our manuscript was handwritten and somewhat varied in its ink and writing style, leading me to believe that it was created informally by an individual (or individuals) and not any sort of professional printing service. The cover and binding also appear handmade, although not just anyone could create such a book. The creator must have had at least minimal knowledge of bookmaking.

As our course is titled “Buddhist Magic,” we have been blindly working under the assumption that this is at least in part a religious manuscript. However, I believe that a bit of analysis can substantiate this postulation. First of all, we know that the majority of the manuscript is written in a variety of the Tham script. Most sources on this script are quick to mention that it has a history of being used for religious texts, so the script choice is a good indication that the manuscript is indeed religious, although not absolute proof. Additionally, some of the sections which are sparse on diagonal lines also contain multiple instances of the Sanskrit/Pāli syllable om. As I outlined in my week five discussion post, I believe that this is a good indication that an Indic language is being written. Indic languages like Sanskrit or Pāli would primarily appear in Southeast Asian manuscripts on religion as they may tell parts of stories or outline recitations for spells.

In Buddhist Magic by van Schaik and in one of the manuscripts which Dr. Walker translated for us on the field trip, we became familiar with a certain manner through which Indic recitations are introduced. Usually the problem or situation along with instructions for its solution is spelled out in the language of the manuscript, followed by a short recitation which may be partly Indic, partly Southeast Asian, and partly “meaningless” rhythmic syllables. This structure would necessitate blocks of Southeast Asian text broken up by small sections of Indic/Southeast Asian text. This is very similar to the structure on images 14-26. This also provides further evidence for the religiosity of the manuscript.

Other parts of the manuscript lack the diagonal lines and appear more similarly to what I have thought is potentially an Indic language (images 5, 27-28, 33-34). There are two possibilities. These may be extended blocks of Indic text. Perhaps an entire story is being told in Pāli. Alternatively, there is a separate explanation for the variation in the writing style and it is still a Southeast Asian language being written.

Lastly, the appearance of Lao on the “drawing” page seems notable. If this manuscript were used in a formal environment in Laos (such as within the education system), then it may make sense why the “information page” of sorts is in the national script. Sometimes script usage can be somewhat arbitrary and a certain script may be present only for political reasons. For example, the native Tifinagh script of North Africa appears on many signs in Moroccan cities although few city-dwellers speak this language and even fewer are literate in its writing system. This is mainly a political rather than practical attempt to include the language. While I don’t think this is quite analogous to the usages of Lao/Tham scripts in our manuscript, the political-practical dichotomy may be applicable.

Alternatively, there is a strong practical reason for the script shift. Perhaps this is content related, as we find the Lao script on the drawing page, which deals with key information on location and dates, as well as the calendar pages, which deal with calendrical and potentially astrological information. Perhaps such content is more suited to the Lao script than the more religious Tham script, although this explanation is unsatisfactory for me as the astrology seems highly related to religion and spiritual belief systems.

Victor

Manuscript structure map

Pages 1 - 2: These are opposite sides of the cover binding, made from what appears to be linen with stitched patterns. They’re worn down but still in decent condition.

Pages 3 - 4: These are folded, damaged pages that also happen to be mostly blank. There is one line of characters but they’re difficult to decipher; the closest I could find is Burmese, with the “da” and “ña”:

Pages 5 - 13: This is where the main text begins. The script appears to be either Burmese or Khun, given the use of many circular characters. The text appears to be annotated with several long curves under characters, and these annotations change throughout the pages:

Pages 14 - 28: The text continues, and it’s difficult to tell if the script has changed given the similarities between Burmese, Shan, Lu, and Khun, but the handwriting noticeably changes from the earlier pages. The handwriting in these pages is smaller and the characters are subtly different compared to the previous group of pages:

Pages 29 - 30: These pages contain the chart that we’ve focused on in class, and follows a Gregorian calendar and the lunar cycle, where the columns are months and each row maps several dates to single characters. The script is definitely different and looks like Lao.

Page 31: This page is one of the first in the manuscript and introduces us to the contents of the manuscript both textually and visually. The script appears to be Lao, with pictures of a rat and a goat along with start and end years corresponding with the Chinese zodiac. Also, a divine being waves what appears to be a flag. In class we were able to decipher this as a manuscript that came from a children’s school in Southeast Asia.

Page 32: This is a blank and damaged page.

Pages 33 - 34: The script on these pages appear to be either Lanna or Khun. It’s unclear whether the author of these pages coincides with the author of one of the previous groups of pages.

Pages 35 - 38: These pages have increasingly faded text and damage / folds, but the script and handwriting are reminiscent of those in pages 5 - 13.

Pages 37 - 42: These pages are either folded, blank, damaged, or faded to the point where any text on them isn’t legible.

Pages 43 - 44: These are also opposite sides of the cover binding, similar to pages 1 - 2 but without the stitched patterns.

Reflection

We agreed in class that the manuscript is dated to the mid-1900’s, and so the more traditional packaging of the manuscript seems like it was deliberate, considering that more modern ways of presenting text were available at the time (e.g. via printed books) that would be easier to reproduce. This indicates that the authors of the manuscript either didn’t have access to these modern methods of printing, wanted to preserve the traditional presentation of manuscripts for some purpose, or both. There’s also the possibility that the manuscript is incorrectly dated and is much older than it claims to be, but we should consider that unlikely and can take the dates at face value. It’s reasonable that, for religious and cultural reasons, the traditional presentation of religious texts be preserved, which explains the handwritten nature of the manuscript and the linen bindings (we know the manuscript is at least partially related to Buddhist teachings given the transliteration done in previous assignments).

As mentioned in the mapping, the annotations, scripts, and handwriting change rather frequently throughout the manuscript. This would suggest that different authors contributed to it, perhaps as a way of distributing the work of authoring it and/or incorporating expertise from a breadth of authors. Also, certain pages are much more faded than others, indicating that the different authors might have contributed to the manuscript at very different times, with the faded pages having been written at a much earlier time. The missing pages, folding, and fading of the manuscript suggest that the owners of the manuscript either didn’t have the means to properly store it to minimize damage, or didn’t value it enough to bother doing so.

Compared to other manuscripts we’ve seen, the spliced nature of this manuscript is quite unique: it appears to have different authors, each potentially using different scripts. Most manuscripts we’ve observed have had consistent script and handwriting throughout and presumably were written by one person. We’ve discussed in class that some monks would memorize verses for later recitation; given that we’ve transliterated some pages to understand that Buddhist verses are written in the manuscript, it could be that this manuscript is a conglomeration of these verses. Several monks may have memorized different parts of the verses, and were able to transcribe their memorized verses in the manuscript before passing it to the next monk, resulting in the complete, cohesive set of verses. This would make sense if the verses are too long for any one person to completely memorize on their own and serves as a way to distribute the work.

Maria

A map of the manuscript based on its digital version:

Pages 1&2: Cover page. The material is brown and worn with green and red embroidered striped pattern running down the cover vertically. Image 2 is significantly more colored and focused than image 1 and I assume that image 2 is how the manuscript would appear in the days when it was first made. Image 1 depicts the cover as we know it to be, tattered and worn.

Pages 3&4: This page contains no writing except for scrambled text at the bottom of the page. This is the first interior page and it is significantly crumpled and worn. The physical separation of pages 3 and 4 is murky, as it seems like they've been adhered together by time and wear. Page 4 is the back of page 3 and contains no script. It appears dirty and is likewise very crumpled at the bottom. The pages seem thin and vulnerable.

Page 5: This is the first page which contains significant, legible text. Though worn, page five is clearly intact and is filled with horizontal writing that begins at the top left corner and continues down the page, left to right. There is a small header at the top of the page which, as we discussed in class, translates roughly to: “ink no good for writing”. The header was likely written not with the intention to present the writing beneath it, but instead was scribbled by someone likely trying to find a good working pen.

The text appears to all be Tham Lanna or Khun, as was discovered in class and individually among the class members.

Near the bottom of the page in the middle of a line of writing is a fish drawn around words. After further investigation in class, we concluded that the writer made an error here and transformed the mistake into an artful indication that what is within the fish is to be disregarded when engaging the text.

Pages 6-13:

• Here begins very legible Tham Lanna script that continues for seven or so pages.

• Page 6 includes purple or red dots scattered throughout the text. The text on page 6 is double spaced and occasionally circled with a pen or ink not used to make the original markings of the text, or at least were not used to create the original writing at the time it was written.

• On Page 7 the circles continue. By circles I mean that certain words or phrases at the beginnings of lines are circled. We know these are words and/or phrases that begin sentences because we identify them all as following a symbol which marks the end of a sentence, a period of sorts.

• On Page 7, 13 phrases are circled. Additionally there are a series of circled text bubbles perpendicular to the text on the left hand side of the page. The red dots on the page correspond to the circled words somehow as they are only found next to a circled portion of text.

• Pages 8 - 13 include more of the same. The red dots continue to follow circled portions. It is clear now that the bubbled texts on the side of the page are indeed annotations, they are set in line with the text in which the annotations can be found. The side bubbles are mini versions of the in-text phrases, most likely for ease of identification.

Pages 14 - 28:

• Page 14 appears to be different script. The text on this page is noticeably less “swoopy” than the pages prior. Here also the red dots, circled phrases and side annotations have stopped.

• Page 15 returns to the “swoopy” text. In the middle of the page on the left side is a box that is outlined in ink with a border of diagonal lines. The original author must have been the one to make it because the text accommodates it, as in the text around it is indented.

• In pages 16 onward, the “swoopy” text and lack of annotations continue.

• The top portion of age 24 is Tham Lanna and and the lower is Pali. I am unsure why that switch appears there.

• Tham Lanna continues on pages 26 until pages 27 and 28 which are in Pali. Again, the significance of that switch is unclear to me.

Pages 29 - 30:

These pages present a calendar in Lao. Page 29 depicts a lunar calendar in a chart form with months listed in the topmost row closest to the binding of the manuscript. Transliteration of that row reveals that the names of the months are written such that when pronounced they sound like the names of months in French. This is how it was determined that this page of the calendar depicts months July through December. The calendar tracks new and full moons whereby full moons are depicted by open circles next to their corresponding symbol and new moons are depicted by open circles. In earlier weeks, we discovered as a class that the seven day week is present in the calendar and is demarcated by a repeating symbol that iterates every seven boxes throughout the calendar. Likewise a repeating pattern is found depicting every ten days. This page holds a lot of information. The author, or perhaps a later annotator, also attempted to liken the information to the 30 or 31 day rotating solar calendar as denoted by the leftmost column of ascending numbers 1-30.

Page 30 is the calendar content continued. It lacks an organizing top-most row but it can be assumed that the content being recorded is towards the same end as on the previous page. Indeed although there are no explicit labels of the month, the Hindu-Arabic numbers on this page hint at the recordings of the movements of the moon during months February through August.

Page 31: Page thirty one is a title page of sorts. Lao text continues. Here we find many words but also hand-drawn pictures. After careful work, we discovered as a class that the image of the person with the three boxes above it depicts a goddess who is heralding in the New Year. The text within the boxes - the “boxes” make up the banner the goddess wields - says roughly “New Year’s Day”, “Wednesday” and “Days” among other words.

At the top of the page is a line of words and numbers which serve as labels for the contents below. The numbers indicate that the page was made in 1949 and we assume that the calendar of the previous pages pertains to the previous year. Also on this page are drawings of a rat and an ox which are significant because, as we discovered, they represent 1948 the Year of the Rat and 1949 Year of the Ox.

Page 32: This page has been left blank. Perhaps intentionally.

Pages 33& 34: Tham Lanna text resumes here though it appears to be written in opposite orientation to the previous pages. Two different ink types exist on page 30, as the top portion is much more faded than the bottom. The end of the page is tattered.

Page 34 is more of the same. Likewise here two different inks have been used. This page mirrors the previous page 33 in both orientation and ink, as in the orientation seems to have flipped again and the ink that is faded is on the same “bottom” half of the page respectively.

Pages 35-37: A new script is clearly evident here. We speculate that these pages are written in Pali, the language of Theravada Buddhism. The text is legible and orderly.

Pages 38-39: It is likely that Pali text continues though the ink is so faded that the text is hard to make out.

Page 38 in particular is bent and worn and potentially void of text altogether.

Pages 40-42: These pages are very crumpled and worn. They are thin and tattered and don’t appear to include any text.

Pages 43&44: These are images of the back cover of the manuscript. It is similar to the front cover though shorter and without decorative embroidery.

Reflection

The manuscript is a multifaceted work composed in multiple languages and styles of art including hand-drawn images and an intricate lunar calendar. For analytical purposes, it easily divides into three sections wherein three different lives of the manuscript reside. Section 1 consists of pages and pages of text which run in one orientation that makes sense if the cover page with the decorative embroidery is seen as the top cover. Section 2, I’d say, consists of the calendar and the title page. It runs from pages 29 - 31 of the PDF images. Finally, section 3 consists of the remaining pages which are lines of text in different languages and written in opposite orientation of section 1.

That there are multiple sections of wildly varying content in the manuscript suggests that it was composed over time by multiple authors. Likely the manuscript passed hands multiple times. Transliteration of the text's portions reveal that some pages depict spells while others are phrases for recitation. Interestingly, section 3 appears to be the oldest as it is the most worn and faded of the sections. The faded nature of the ink may relate to the lasting power of the ink itself and not necessarily indicate that it was written before section 1. Section 3 above all, though, is most readily explained in terms of purpose and can be likened to the purpose of section 2. The Pali text of section 3, Prof. Walker helped us uncover, appears to be lines of recitation that the students of the school which is labeled on the title page in section 2 used for practice. The calendar and title page of section 2 were likely made as a way to label and/or organize the Pali text that precedes it respective to the orientation of the section 3. Therefore it is imaginable that a school master or monk made sections 2 and 3 for students’ usage and posterity.

The purpose and author of section 1 is more ambiguous. This section sees different pages of Tham Lanna text, some which are annotated heavily while others are not, followed by Pali and again Tham Lanna thereafter. Perhaps the author of sections 1 and 2 discarded the manuscript and someone who needed extra pages years later picked it up for the purpose of recording spells. Then, I suppose, they too discarded it and yet again the manuscript moved hands into the possession of someone who annotated the Tham Lanna text and may have added their own contributions in Lao and Pali. The varying languages of the manuscript, particularly in section 1 which was likely written after sections 2 and 3, suggest that it traveled geographically not only linguistically.

This one manuscript is a representation of the great diversity of Southeast Asian Buddhism.