EAP756/7

The collection of the Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery in Kyīʺ kanʻ toṅʻ rvā village (pronounced Kyigan-taung-ywa Taik-thit-kyaung) is comprised of three manuscripts and one bundle of unwritten palm leaves prepared for copying. All manuscripts fall into the same timeframe (early twentieth century) and appear to be survivors of a relatively small corpus of commonly used Buddhist texts. The selection of available titles suggests that originally the scope of the collection might have been between three and four dozen manuscripts.

The present custodian was unable to provide reliable information on the provenance of manuscripts. Arguably, the collection might date to the time of foundation of the monastery. While historical monasteries tend to have more diverse selections of materials, newly established ones usually possess only the property of their founders. In that case, the manuscripts might be the legacy of the founding abbot and likely were meant to satisfy curricular and ritual needs of a modest rural monastery.

Marginal title in manuscript WL-KGT-TTK 002 refers to one of the families who sponsored it as the donors of a manuscript cabinet. If that cabinet was given to Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ (of which we cannot be completely sure) this reference might serve as a confirmation of our estimate of the original size of the collection (the capacity of cabinets produced at the turn of the twentieth century usually varied from twenty to forty manuscripts). Marks on manuscript covers also indicate that the collection might have included twenty to forty other bundles.

The attribution of collection to a founder abbot rather than interpreting it as manuscripts brought along by Ūʺ Vimala (c. 1887-1952), the earliest known presiding monk, also rests on the following reasoning. The manuscripts were copied between 1907 and 1911. Though these dates tally well with the age when Ūʺ Vimala might have needed such manuscripts for his education etc., the fact that manuscript WL-KGT-TTK 002 was sponsored by residents of Kyigan makes this connection less likely. Ūʺ Vimala was a native of Thazi village in Sagaing area and came to Kyigan only later. Given that, it seems more logical to find him being supported by residents of his own village, rather than by people from Kyigan.

The collection must have been amassed in the early twentieth century. Dated manuscripts belong to a short timeframe between February 1907 and July 1911.

Custodial history: According to Ūʺ Sujana, the amount and condition of materials witnessed by the project team in the late 2014 remained so since 1960 when he first came to the monastery as a schoolboy. Our team visited Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ on November 16, 2014 to clean, reorganize, and catalog the manuscripts. Additional visit was made in November 2016 to take an additional image for our digital record.

Administrative context: The collection of Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ is owned by the monastery and is in the custody of its abbot. It represents the last few manuscripts surviving in a group of two villages of Kyigan. Their administrative context is not known beyond that.

Extent and format of original material: The collection is comprised of three palm-leaf manuscripts and a bundle of uninscribed prepared palm-leaves. After the completion of our work on a project, the abbot informed us that he had discovered another manuscript at his monastery which we have not yet seen. One manuscript was digitized in the framework of this project. 1 series.

Owner(s) of original material: Ūʺ Sujana, the present abbot of Tuikʻ sacʻ kyoṅʻʺ, as well as his predecessors in this capacity acted as the custodians of the collection.