Conservation and Storage of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Central Region of Thailand

Abstract

Conserving and inheriting on the wisdom heritage of the ancestors is the important mission of the Fine Arts Department based on the stream of royal speeches of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn that preserving cultural heritage is the preservation of the nation. Therefore, the conservation and storage of ancient palm leaf manuscripts in their original form is an important duty under the responsibility of the National Library of Thailand.

The Hand Writing Inscription Group is a sub-division under the supervision of the National Library of Thailand, which is responsible for preserving and storing ancient documents in the form of palm leaf manuscripts that remain in various places, especially in temples all over the country. There are still many palm leaf manuscripts appearing after Thai people decreased the popularity of making palm leaf manuscripts offering to the temples in order to continue the perpetuation of Buddhism. This is due to the creation of the first Thai script edition of the Tripitaka in the reign of King Rama V.

There are up to 180,000 palm-leaf manuscripts remaining as ancient objects left in various temples in the central region of Thailand. We have organized a system of storage of palm leaf manuscripts in at least 30 temples in 15 provinces, in the central region of Thailand over the past ten years until present. However, there is only a small fraction of manuscripts from the estimation that has been maintained and stored systematically for searching. This accounted for one-third of the total number of palm leaf manuscripts expected to exist in the central region or approximately 30 percent that were systematically stored according to academic principles. As for the rest of the palm leaf manuscripts, they are still on the conservation and storage process.