EAP756/8

Manuscripts kept at the Muṃ rveʺ Jetavanʻ kyoṅʻʺ monastery (pronounced Monywe Zetawun-kyaung) are what remains of a hugely important archive accumulated by successive abbots of this institution. At its prime, the collection featured an impressive corpus of Buddhist texts and works in Pāli and Sanskrit, comprehensive selection of Burmese legal, historiographic, and literary compositions, and a range of archival and intelligence documents. Prolific literary activity and social networking of presiding abbots of the monastery also materialized in hundreds of drafts, notes, notebooks, messages sent and received, and authored works. Key roles in this manuscript production and collection were played by Vicitta (1715–1801), Ariyāvaṃsa Ādiccaraṃsī (1766-1834), and Uttamabuddhi (1898-1973) known as the first, second, and sixth abbots of the monastery. Especially prominent was Ariyāvaṃsa Ādiccaraṃsī recognized as an erudite scholar, eloquent poet, and foremost historiographer.

Unfortunately, the collection was never thoroughly documented and studied, but, instead, fell prey to predatory collecting and looting of cultural artifacts. The full scope of collection is not known, and one needs to rely on incomplete and scattered references to gauge it. A list of Pāli and bilingual (nissaya) Buddhist texts acquired by the founding abbot by 1780, a short list of manuscripts presented by one of the donors in c. 1780-1790s, and an incomplete register of manuscripts held by the monastery between 1862 and 1872 survive in situ, but more recent handlists to the collection have not been found so far.

In 1957, Myanmar Ministry of Culture with UNESCO assistance sponsored a six-month project to survey manuscripts and antiquities in the country. The responsibility to implement the survey fell on U Aung Thaw and U Min Naing, two officials from the Department of Archaeology. As a part of the project, U Aung Thaw briefly visited Muṃ rveʺ Jetavanʻ kyoṅʻʺ and noted down the scope of collection as explained by the incumbent abbot (who at that time was Uttamabuddhi). The report prepared by U Aung Thaw stated that manuscripts were stored in ten large teak-wood boxes and comprised approximately 2,500 titles, the majority of which were texts on Buddhism and Pāli grammar. Here, it is worth noting that efforts at surveying and collecting manuscripts made after Burma’s independence hinged on a wrong premise that Buddhist works in Pāli were already available in print and so only texts on “secular” subjects deserved attention. Hence, the report further mentioned that titles dealing with “history, astrology, medicine, and literature number about 250”. The appendix to the report listed the titles of 24 works.

Since 1957, no handlists or catalogues of Muṃ rveʺ Jetavanʻ kyoṅʻʺ collection have been publicly circulated. However, shelf-mark numbers inscribed on surviving manuscripts suggest that at least two different inventories of “non-scriptural” manuscripts in the collection might have been produced over the last seventy years. It is reasonable to assume that this work was probably carried out by university staff or students, yet these inventories, if they exist, remain to be located.

Based on the information contained in the 1957 report and preliminary research in Monywe and other libraries, we managed to list about seventy titles belonging to the category of works on “history, astrology, medicine, and literature”. In addition to that, approximately fifty palm-leaf manuscript fragments and some thirty complete or fragmentary leporello manuscripts still survive in situ. A range of titles was also discovered at other locations.

Custodial history: The collection of manuscripts kept at Muṃ rveʺ Jetavanʻ kyoṅʻʺ continued to grow organically until the late nineteenth century. However, it apparently saw no major new acquisitions between the 1880s and 1920s, during the final decades of large-scale manuscript production in Burma. As it seems, the latest additions to the archive resulted from retrospective collecting of copies of works authored by the first two abbots from other monasteries in the area. At the same time, a gradual dispersal of collection was happening too, as more and more literature and history enthusiasts visited the village, borrowed manuscripts to study, recopy or publish, bought them, or took them away as gifts. That trend has greatly accelerated from the late 1960s and reached its peak during the transition from the BSPP government to a direct military rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a result, 2,500 titles mentioned by U Aung Thaw dwindled to less than two hundred.

Local informants relate that some valuable manuscripts were confiscated by senior military personnel during or following the political turmoil of 1988 and then sold. In the early 1990s, several chests with manuscripts were taken away to Monywa at the initiative of regional military commander. For almost three decades, these were kept at the Basic Education High School no. 2 in that city. In 2019, they were moved to the University of Monywa and their present status is not known. A certain part of the collection was also apparently sold to dealers in antiquities, for not less than ten complete manuscripts have been acquired on a market in Bangkok in c. 1994 and are now preserved in the library of the Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation at Nonthaburi. Additionally, a range of titles displaced from the 1950s to the 1980s were located by us at the Universities’ Central Library and the library of the Department of Historical Research in Yangon as well as at the Museum of Buddhism and Burmese Culture in Sagaing. Together with a dozen of manuscripts recovered from Monywe village and more than a hundred complete and incomplete items surviving in situ, this is what remains of once huge archive. The rest have been either dispersed or lost as a result of damage, sale to antique dealers, predatory collecting, and irresponsible borrowing by institutions and individuals.

Administrative context: Manuscripts remaining at Muṃ rveʺ Jetavanʻ kyoṅʻʺ are owned by the monastery and in the custody of the current abbot. Depending on their age, they have been held there for a hundred to approximately two hundred and fifty years. The scope and significance of the collection primarily stems from contributions of the first two abbots of the monastery. As it seems, they might have held the position of a head of local monastic community in the 1790s and in the 1820s. Moreover, they were patronized by well-endowed and socially prominent patrons. Vicitta had a connection with Lakʻ vai Noʻrathā Ūʺ Ne (1723-1791), an important court official who has long served as one of ministers of palatial affairs (’a tvaṅʻʺ vanʻ). Perhaps, even more crucial was the connection between Ariyāvaṃsa Ādiccaraṃsī and his patron Maṅʻʺ krīʺ Mahā Sakʻ toʻ rhaññʻ (fl. 1809-1837) who served as a royal treasurer and a minister of palatial affairs. The latter was likely instrumental in Ariyāvaṃsa Ādiccaraṃsī’s career at the court where Ariyāvaṃsa composed several influential works including two revisions of an official royal chronicle. Subsequent abbots from the third to the sixth made considerable efforts to preserve the legacy of their predecessors and, apparently, made a focused search for their works in the archives of neighboring monasteries, complementing the range of autograph and early copies surviving in situ.

Extent and format of original material: The collection features approximately 200 manuscripts or manuscript fragments of which four were digitized in the framework of the project. 4 series.

Owner(s) of original material: Ūʺ Jānadhamma, the present abbot of the monastery, is the current custodian. He stands on the shoulders of his predecessors.