The Khom-Yor Scripts in Prince Thamthibet Chaiyachetsuriyawong's "Nanthopananthasut Kham Luang” Thai Manuscript

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the Khom-Yor script in "Nanthopananthasut Khamlung", a Thai manuscript, focusing on the use of script and paleography to identify certain remarkable features distinguishing the Khom-Yor script from other Khom scripts in Thai. The findings show that the Khom-Yor script is written in gold and red to record the Pali language. Moreover, there are also variations in some characters resulting either from orthographic or elaborated variants. When Khom-Yor and Khom-Banchong scripts were compared, many differences were found indicating the salient characteristics of the Khom-Yor script, i.e. the use of thick and thin lines, the use of coiled lines, the writing of tails and the angling of lines. All of these make the Khom-Yor script more beautiful with devirse demensions, and explicitly reflect the meticulousness of the elaboration of this script.