EAP756/1

The collection of palm-leaf and leporello manuscripts deposited at the Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pronounced Nyaung-ko-bin-kyaung) in Halin village includes a sizeable corpus of Pāli and bilingual (Pāli and Burmese) Buddhist texts copied in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to ensure the availability of Buddhist scriptural canon. In addition to that, the collection features about 150 nineteenth-century manuscripts produced for curricular usage by novices and junior monks, a dozen of manuscripts intended for monastic ritual uses, and a range of leporello notebooks reflecting various aspects of local monastic life.

Important identifiable components or versions of the canon are manuscripts that formerly belonged to the scriptural library (piṭakat tuik) of the Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pron. Mawgun-kyaung), manuscripts coming from the Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pron. Mya-thein-dan-kyaung), and manuscripts accumulated at the Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pron. Taik-thit-kyaung) by monk Ūʺ Nandimā who was the abbot at Re pū kyoṅʻʺ (pron. Ye-pu-kyaung) and Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ.

Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ and Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ, two once prominent monasteries, are long gone. The former is defunct for about a century, while the latter collapsed some forty years ago, and so local memory of them is quite stereotyped and unreliable. The following overview of origins and history of their archives is based on the examination of twenty-five surviving manuscripts attributable to Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ and one hundred sixty nine manuscripts attributable to Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ as well as on collating these data with scraps of information gleaned from other sources.

As far as our ignorance goes, Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ was a monastery founded by Udinʻ Jeya (pron. Udein Zeyya, fl. 1740-1786). That native of Halin started his service as an official under King Alaung-min-taya (r. 1752-1760) and rose to the positions of assistant judge (ta rā cacʻ vanʻ thokʻ) and senior assistant minister (vanʻ thokʻ krīʺ) at the Lhvatʻ toʻ, the chief administrative body of pre-colonial Burmese polity and the then Supreme Court. During this career which lasted to, at least, 1786, Udinʻ Jeya had also received multiple other titles of distinction, such as Kyoʻ Thaṅʻ Nandamitʻ (pron. Kyawhtin Nandameit), Caññʻsū Kyoʻ Thaṅʻ (pron. Sithu Kyawhtin), Ne myuiʺ Mahāsīhasū (pron. Nemyo Mahathihathu), Caññʻsū Jeya Kyoʻ Thaṅʻ (pron. Sithu Zeyya Kyawhtin), and Ne Myuiʺ Nanda Caññʻsū (pron. Nemyo Nandasithu).

The founding abbot of Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ was monk Ketumālā (1745/6 – c. 1815). Ketumālā made a notable monastic career that somehow paralleled the career of his patron. Its highlights included becoming a laureate at royally-sponsored annual scriptural exams for schoolboys and novices in 1764, the appointment to the ranks of supervising editors of royal scriptural manuscripts (piṭakatʻ toʻ kraññʻʹ) in 1783, and designation as one of eleven examiners at the exams for novices in 1784. In 1785 or 1786, Ketumālā became a laureate at royal exams on the Vinaya enjoying the recognition as the only person who managed to memorize the entire canonical Vinaya together with the Kaṅkhāvitaraṇī, Buddhaghosa's commentary on monastic discipline.

In 1780-82, Udinʻ Jeya and his wife sponsored a copy of scriptural canon for Ketumālā which formed the core of a scriptural library (piṭakatʻ tuikʻ) built at the Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ monastery. This collection continued to be periodically updated even after Ketumālā disrobed in 1790, as the latest surviving manuscript bearing an attribution to that monastery is dated to 1802. It is also clear that Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ accumulated manuscripts predating its establishment (mss WL-HL-NKB 175, 291, and 304) though the avenues through which this was achieved are currently not traceable.

The remains of Udinʻ Jeya’s scriptural canon are now mostly preserved at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ (manuscripts WL-HL-NKB 059, 080, 089, 150, 155, 170, 182, 184, 186, 223, 279, 298, 299, 302, 305, 310, 311, 316, and possibly, WL-HL-NKB 112) though some manuscripts were found elsewhere (e.g., see EAP 756.5). The significance of Udinʻ Jeya/Ketumālā's collection goes well beyond being artifacts associated with important historical figures. These palm-leaf bundles represent a part of the earliest surviving Burmese scriptural canon sponsored by a single donor. Such large-scale donations reflecting the entire Tipiṭaka have been a form of elite merit-making since, at least, the thirteenth century; however, all collections predating Udinʻ Jeya's gift are currently known only from literary references, not as physical archives. Udinʻ Jeya/Ketumālā's collection thus constitutes critically important materials for the study of Buddhist scholarship and elite scribal resources in Burma, enabling comparisons with other identifiable collections from Halin as well as from other locations.

In the 1780s and, probably, in the late 1770s, Ketumālā has also been active in editing Pāli texts. Some of these editions are found in the collection of Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ (WL-HL-NKB 009, WL-HL-NKB 155.3). Later, several of Ketumālā’s manuscripts were re-edited and re-copied in Halin receiving an imprint of a new round of editorial emendations. All these editions are relevant for research into Pāli scholarship in Burma as well as for understanding elite Buddhist scripturalism, editorial practices involved in manuscript recopying, and Burmese manuscript culture in general.

Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ was another historical monastery at Halin. Its establishment is attributed to Maṅʻʺ Lakʻ vai Sundara, an important late eighteenth-century judge and literati, one of whose wives is believed to be a native of this salt-manufacturing town. The evidence on such venerable origins of the monastery is, however, purely anecdotal and might be a result of confusion. What is, however, suggested by the manuscripts from Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ, now kept at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ and Rhve gū krīʺ kyoṅʻʺ (see EAP 756.3), is that in the mid-nineteenth century Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ might have vied with Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ for the role in preservation of scriptural canon. Acquisition strategy and focus of the abbot or abbots who presided over Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ during that period was, however, somewhat different. These persons or person, whose names we were not yet able to identify, relied on distributed patronage of local inhabitants versus large-scale donation sponsored by a single donor (the case of Udinʻ Jeya/Ketumālā's collection) and prioritized bilingual texts over ones in monolingual Pāli.

Ūʺ Teja, a monk educated in Mandalay and an abbot of Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ from the 1870s to c. 1913, had also invested substantial effort in amassing manuscripts. The remains of these collections provide additional facets of the lives of scriptural canon in Upper Burma in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A significant number of palm leaf manuscripts currently held at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ have bundle marks, marginal titles, and ownership and donor identifications executed by a single, well-recognizable hand that differs from diverse hands that copied these manuscripts. Such identifications feature the names of three monasteries, that is Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ, Re pū kyoṅʻʺ, and Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ, and one monastic name (Ūʺ Nandimā). This latter person is identified as the abbot of Re pū kyoṅʻʺ in ms WL-HL-NKB 270.5 and as the person who has repaired a manuscript kept at Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ in ms WL-HL-NKB 273.1. As Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ was built near Re pū kyoṅʻʺ and is known to have superseded it, it seems likely that Nandimā had accumulated manuscripts from Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ, Re pū kyoṅʻʺ (and, perhaps, other locations) at Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ and made an inventory of them. Doing that, he noted ownership, origins, and titles of manuscripts, added cover folios, restored manuscript bindings, and made new bundle marks. Dates added with Nandimā's hand to mss WL-HL-NKB 203.1, 236.3, and 266 indicate that this work was carried out in 1895 and 1896.

Manuscripts amassed by Ūʺ Nandimā at Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ, now partially lost in a fire that destroyed the historic building of that monastery in 1989 and partially preserved at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ, Rhve gū krīʺ kyoṅʻʺ (see EAP 756.3), and libraries outside of Halin (e.g. Universities Central Library in Yangon and Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation in Bangkok), testify to yet another strategy and teleology of building a scriptural corpus.

In contrast to Ketumālā and abbots of Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ, Ūʺ Nandimā does not seem to commission new copies of manuscripts, or seek after recently available titles. In fact, his acquisitions did not target anything text-specific. As certain mistakes in attributions made by him suggest, he hardly read the manuscripts beyond colophons or marginal titles. Instead, his contribution was very much akin to activities of modern librarians whose job in Burma is limited to maintaining the archives they manage to build, plus to producing inventories of diplomatically re-copied titles.

In a comparable way, Ūʺ Nandimā has acquired his great merit by ensuring the preservation of the canon by taking over whatever he could from defunct historical monasteries and re-binding these manuscripts. His labelling of bundles ensured the accessibility of the canon (at least in the way he understood it) at his recently built, brand-new, and, reportedly, quite impressive Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery. Accessibility as a condition dependent on inventorying, labelling, and storing manuscripts in an organized way appears to have been a priority in Upper Burmese manuscript libraries from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Thus, not only our current ability to work with these manuscripts is heavily indebted to Ūʺ Nandimā, but his efforts at updating the tools for navigating the collection offer important case evidence on the technologies of maintenance of Buddhist scriptural assets at a stage when gradual displacement of manuscripts by printed editions has begun.

Custodial history: Ūʺ Tejaniya, the present abbot of Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ, inherited the manuscripts in a condition witnessed by the project team, from his predecessor U Nāga in 1980. The owner’s knowledge of the collection does not go beyond 1960 when he first arrived at that monastery as a student. According to him, the collection was once reorganized in the mid-1970s when the manuscripts were placed in manuscript chests in a way the project team saw them during our first visit to the monastery. Additionally, one manuscript chest (referred to as chest no. 5 by us) was moved to Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ from the Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery in about 1978.

As was already noted, our knowledge on the origins of the collection is dependent entirely on the examination of manuscripts and their in-depth cataloging. From that, it appears that U Nāga’s predecessors at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ did not engage in manuscript production and recopying of their own and, instead, had inherited a significant share of their collection through several acquisitions that might have paralleled the scenario of chest no. 5 brought in 1978. Most of sizeable palm-leaf manuscripts in chests nos. 1, 2, 3, and 6 represent the assets that must have been brought to Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ from Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ at some point in the first half of the twentieth century. These manuscripts were not originally the property of Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ but were amassed there from a range of earlier monasteries in Halin of which at least two, namely, Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ and Re pū kyoṅʻʺ, are identifiable.

Small-size palm-leaf manuscripts stored in chest no. 1 have even more diverse origins and might have once been held by up to fifty different owners. Given that they have been all placed together during the 1970s reorganization, we were unable to determine the scenario of their acquisition by looking at the pattern of their storage. It is equally possible that small manuscripts came in as a bulk import from another monastery in the same way as the sizeable ones, or that they were accumulated incrementally over time to cater to curricular, scholarly, and administrative needs of inhabitants of Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ.

As for leporello manuscripts stored in chest no. 4 they have not yet been studied to the degree necessary to determine their provenance. The contents of chest no. 5 brought from Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ are made exclusively of sizeable palm-leaf manuscripts and fall into two roughly equal categories. The former of these are manuscripts previously owned by monks from Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ while the other is made of manuscripts labelled as held at Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ. This suggests that manuscripts in the chest might have been mixed by Ūʺ Paṇṇava, the abbot of Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ in the 1950s, who moved in there from Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ and was the abbot of Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ later on.

Administrative context: The collection of Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ is owned by the monastery and administered by the abbot. Historically, it is connected to a range of earlier monasteries in Halin and vicinity. For the last several decades, Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ has remained the biggest site in Halin where manuscripts were stored. It is not entirely clear how this condition came about. It is possible that the administrative rank of the monastery’s abbot at the turn of the twentieth century might have been a factor behind the accumulation of substantial manuscript resources at this monastery. In other words, if manuscript holdings at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ date back as far as the early twentieth century, an important social position of the guiṅʻʺ thokʻ charā could have allowed this person to inherit or become a custodian of manuscripts from other monasteries in Halin that became defunct. Yet, as Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ, a site from which the contents of chests no. 2, 3, and 5 were arguably moved, was inhabited throughout the twentieth century and remains functioning now, this suggests that the acquisition of manuscripts from Tuikʻ sacʻ was guided by other concerns.

Of these, the most logical scenario would be a transfer of incumbency at Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ to a monk having a relationship with Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ. Exactly that had happened at Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ resulting in mixing of manuscripts from both Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ and Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ in chest no. 5 that was brought from that latter monastery.

Since the mid-twentieth century, antiquarian interests of the last two abbots of Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ as well as few ownership transitions at the monastery might certainly have contributed towards the preservation of collection.

Extent and format of original material: The collection features approximately 520 manuscripts and manuscript fragments among which there are 391 palm-leaf manuscripts and manuscript fragments, approximately a hundred leporello manuscripts and manuscript fragments, seven lacquer manuscripts, and twenty bundle marks of presently missing palm-leaf manuscripts. One hundred and fifty six manuscripts were digitized as a part of the project. 156 series.

Owner(s) of original material: Ūʺ Tejaniya, the abbot of the Ññoṅʻ kuiʺ paṅʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery, is the current custodian of this collection. He is the latest of fifty or more monastic owners who had contributed in one way or another to the emergence of this archive.