EAP756/5

Rvā raṅʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pronounced Ywa-yin-kyaung) in Panʻʺ toṅʻʺ village (pron. Pa-daung) holds a mid-sized collection of palm-leaf manuscripts dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Very few of these manuscripts (SB-PD-YYK 002, 029) were produced for that place or another monastery in Pa-daung. The rest comes originally from several monasteries in Halin, e.g. from Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ and Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ.

Manuscripts originally produced for Rvā raṅʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ are too few to suggest any clear provenance. On the basis of their copy dates, it might be surmised that this corpus of palm-leaf manuscripts was built at the turn of the twentieth century. Typical of village collections created at that time, it was focused on titles having curricular, liturgical, and preaching uses. The collection continued to receive a few ceremonial additions such as ritual manuscript SB-PD-YYK 015 as late as the 1920s.

Manuscripts inherited from Halin have completely different profile and reflect the versions of scriptural canon that were established and maintained at several monasteries of that town (see EAP 756.1 and EAP 756.3) as well as literary and specialized works on such subjects as medicine, astrology, and magic. They provide a valuable complement to manuscripts that we managed to document at Halin, adding more items from Udinʻ Jeya/Ketumālā and Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ collection (SB-PD-YYK 005, 009, 023, 034) as well as manuscripts produced for yet unidentified monasteries in the early eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. This evidence is of help for tracing the careers of Udinʻ Jeya and Ketumālā as well as for studying the dynamics of textual production and circulation in Halin and Shwebo areas.

Several manuscripts coming from Halin contain editorial emendations in red pigment apparently made when new copies were taken from these manuscripts. They constitute an important material for studying editorial and copying practices and understanding Pāli scholarship in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Burma.

Unfortunately, the collection contains no archival or historical documents that would have been extremely useful for understanding the context of the monastery and its holdings better.

Custodial history: Earlier custodial history of the collection is not known in any sufficient detail. It is certain that the core of the archive originally belonged to Moʻ kvanʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ and Mra sinʻʺ tanʻ kyoṅʻʺ monasteries in Halin and that these manuscripts were inherited from these or other monastery there in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, but we do not know the precise itinerary and the circumstances of this transfer. Manuscripts originally produced for Rvā raṅʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ are too few to attempt any reconstruction of their background. We also have no idea what was happening to the archive amassed at Rvā raṅʻʺ kyoṅʻʺ from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Some forty years prior to our survey, the collection was stored in two separate locations – one cabinet in the shrine room of the monastery and the other in the ordination hall. The part kept in the ordination hall got damaged as the roof of the structure was leaking. Then, the manuscripts were mishandled by novices and schoolboys. After that, Ūʺ Uttama, the previous abbot, burned that part of the collection. The number of manuscripts thus lost is estimated by the present abbot as equal to approximately forty bundles. The capacity of the cabinet where the manuscripts were stored suggests that the count was roughly between twenty five and forty.

During the tenure of the present abbot which started in 1996, the cabinet remaining in the shrine room was shifted to a preaching hall as the roof in the monastery started to leak too. Visiting the site in November 2014, our team found the manuscripts, especially the sizeable ones, in very good or even excellent condition. Apparently, the collection was always stored in an inhabited building, so the manuscripts suffered no damage from rodents or elements. Roughly a half of bundles had well-preserved wrapper clothes added at some point in the 1920s or 1930s. Small-sized manuscripts and stray folios (items SB-PD-YYK 006, 020, and 036 to 049) were found bound up in kampalve, a transportation wrapper made of woven thin bamboo strips.

Administrative context: Administrative context of manuscripts is not known beyond the fact that they are owned by the monastery and are in the custody of its abbot. The core of the collection must have been inherited by one of the earlier abbots from a monastery in Halin.

Extent and format of original material: The collection is comprised of forty eight palm-leaf manuscripts or manuscript fragments and one lacquer manuscript. There are also bundle marks, covers, and wrapper cloth from further four manuscripts. Four palm-leaf manuscripts were digitized in the framework of this project. 4 series.

Owner(s) of original material: The current custodian is Ūʺ Indavaṃsa, the abbot of Rvā raṅʻʹ kyoṅʻʺ.