KAMALIKA PIERIS

Palm leaf manuscripts are now valued as historical documents and collections of palm leaf manuscripts are carefully preserved in libraries, in Sri Lanka and abroad. Most of the palm leaf manuscripts available in these collections date only from 18th and 19th century.  The palm leaf is a perishable item.  Manuscripts of an earlier period are rare and are greatly valued.

Sri Lanka has the greatest number   of these palm leaf manuscript collections. This indicates the value placed on palm leaf manuscripts in this country. The largest collection in Sri Lanka and possibly in the world, is in the National Museum Library, Colombo. The collection exceeds 5000. It includes the collections of H.C.P. Bell, W.A. de Silva, Ananda Coomaraswamy and E.B Gunaratne as well as the poetry section of the Hugh Neville collection.  In 1938, W.A. de Silva prepared a Catalogue of palm leaf manuscripts in the Library of the Colombo Museum.” This was published by the Museum.

 The Museum library has   the oldest palm leaf manuscript in the country, the Cullavagga, dated to 13 century. Cullavagga gives an account of the religious life of the sangha and the legal confines of their conduct.    The last chapter carries the earliest known account of the Buddhist Great Council at Rajagaha.

The library has a copy of Buddhaghosa’s commentary on Digha nikaya.  The cover is of silver embossed with white sapphires. The library has a copy of Sumangala Vilasini  ,  one of the Bodhiwamsa (Ref No 1823) in Sinhala giving the history of the Sri Maha Bodhi,   and the Mahavagga, copied by the Peramuna rala of Siyambalapitiya Galboda korale, completed on October 1802 and offered to Malwatte.  

The Museum library has approximately 300 medical manuscripts   Saddharmaratnavaliya manuscript  says that doctors had to be paid for their servicesand travelling expenses. It said that physicians jealously guarded their knowledge of medicine and kept their prescriptions for medical   remedies in safe custody.

University of Peradeniya has the next largest collection of 4000 items. Peradeniya has the   UNESCO recognized copy of the Mahavamsa and the 13 century Visuddhi Magga Tika.  The library  has the de Saram and Hettiarachchy collections and  several collections of palm leaf manuscripts  donated to it.When I was studying at Peradeniya in the 1960s, the Main Library displayed    palm leaf manuscripts and their decorative covers, in a case, upstairs, by the staircase, where the readers would not miss it. That was our introduction to palm leaf manuscripts.

The National Library of Sri Lanka (est. 1990) has a small but distinctive collection of 523 items which include Sinhala vedakam, Sinhala bana katha and Yantra mantra gurukam . It has a rare literary manuscript, Diya Savol Sandeshaya, dated April 26, 1904. It begins with the evocative phrase “Sarada Sarada Somi Paharusamu.”  It provides a unique glimpse into the late-modern period of Sinhala literature. The manuscript is in good condition, with beginning and end intact. it measures 50 cm in length.

Other state institutes also have collections. The Institute of Indigenous Medicine, Rajagiriya   has 700 palm leaf manuscripts. The collection includes  Besajja Manjusa , the oldest medical manuscript  in Sri Lanka . The collection also has a very old, valuable manuscript on acupuncture, written in Sinhala. The manuscript is reproduced in full in the book Palm leaf manuscripts of Sri Lanka” by Sirancee Gunawardana.  She comments, it is well illustrated. The human form is drawn clearly and acupuncture points indicated.

 There are   valuable private collections of palm leaf manuscripts, acquired by knowledgeable collectors. University of Kelaniya has digitized and made available the manuscripts of 13 private collections.  The Danton Obeyesekera   collection includes an ath-veda-pota containing prescriptions. James D Alwis collection has a copy of the Jataka Atuwa getapadaya. L.S.D Pieris has an extensive collection of Yantra manuscripts and medical manuscripts as well as a copy of the  Rajavaliya.   It was noted that SWRD Bandaranaike also  had a collection of palm leaf manuscripts .

Private collectors seem to have been specially interested in the pansiya panas jataka. K.V.J. de Silva’s collection   had a magnificent pansiya panas jataka.  The collection assembled by Rohan de Silva and Jacques Soulie at the Suriyakantha Centre for Art & Culture, Handessa, also has on display a palm leaf manuscript of the Jataka stories, dated to late Kandyan period, in exceptional condition. Its clarity of script, leaf preparation, and intact binding show the highest standards of Sri Lankan scribal craftsmanship, the Centre said.

The largest collection in a    foreign library  (western) is probably the collection in the British Library, London, which has around 2464   Sinhala palm leaf manuscripts .  The major portion of this collection is the Hugh Neville collection of 2227 palm leaf manuscripts. Everybody has heard of the Hugh Neville collection and most think that this is the only collection of Sri Lanka palm leaf manuscripts in the world and that we must be grateful to Hugh Neville for collecting them.  Some probably think he wrote them. They do not know of the much larger collections in Colombo and Peradeniya.

Hugh Neville (1869 – 1886) came to Sri Lanka during the British period   as private secretary to the Chief Justice. He later became an Assistant Government Agent. He travelled across the country   collecting palm leaf manuscripts. They were mainly 19 century manuscripts. Hugh Nevill   observed that just one in his collection may be 100 years old.  I have no copy over 200 years old, he said.[1]

Hugh Neville died in France, but London acquired the palm leaf collection at the instigation of D.M de Z. Wickremasinghe.  They were catalogued  by K.D. Somadasa and published  in seven volumes, titled  ‘Catalogue of the Hugh Nevill Collection of Sinhalese manuscripts in the British Library”.  The British Library, in 2021, digitized and made freely available online, four Sinhalese palm leaf manuscripts from the Hugh Nevill collections, namely Dighanikaya, Majjhimanikaya and two copies of Mahavamsa.

The libraries of Cambridge  and Oxford Universities have Sri Lanka palm leaf manuscripts. Bodleian Library in Oxford has the Mahavamsa manuscript which was used by Turner for his English translation.  Jinadasa Liyanaratana has examined some of the manuscripts in Cambridge and  has catagloued  24 Sinhala manuscripts of which 6 were medical texts, others were on Buddhism. This was published in Journal of the Pali Text Society, Vol. XVIII, 1993, pp. 131-47[2]

The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester holds over seventy manuscripts from Sri Lanka, mostly on Theravada in the Pali language in Sinhalese script” . They are probably from the Rhys Davids collection. The manuscripts date from the 17^th-19^th centuries and include copies made in Sri Lanka for T.W. Rhys Davis.  There are  complete manuscripts of the Paṭṭhāna-Pakaraṇa and Nettipakaraṇa, which are rare even in Sri Lanka. 

There are palm leaf manuscripts at Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the Azistische Kjust Museum, Amsterdam, and Bavarian State Library in Munich .  Paris has the Talapata sent from the  Udarata chiefs  to Dutch governor Falck.   Jinadasa Liyanaratne  examined and  wrote on the   Sinhalese Medical Manuscripts in Paris”   for  Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient  Année 1987   pp. 185-199[3] The Netherlands collection included 135 medical manuscripts.

The palm leaf manuscript collection   in the Royal Library, Copenhagen is well known. It was obtained by Rasmus Rask who came to Sri Lanka in 1822 in search of them. The collection was catalogued by C.E. Godakumbure. The catalogue is available in Gunawardene’s Palm leaf manuscripts of Sri Lanka”(p 339). This collection contains the manuscripts collected by Ven. Kapugama Dharmachandra who lived in Dadalla, Galle. He converted to Christianity and his extensive collection, went to Denmark, said Gunawardana.[4]   

Small collections of palm leaf manuscripts are held in various other foreign libraries in the west. Casey Wood,  (b 1856) an American ophthalmologist who had in interest in medical research, toured the world after retirement. In Sri Lanka he connected with Andreas Nell, also an eye surgeon, obtained palm leaf manuscripts, mainly medical, which he then donated to institutions and individuals all over North America. At least 50 different recipients have been identified.[5]McGill University has a collection of 27 palm leaf manuscripts gifted by him.[6]  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York has one manuscript on display[7]. (continued)

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[1] Stephne C Berkwitz. Buddhist history in the vernacular. P .  115..

[2] https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/jpts/article/view/28096/27490

[3] https://www.persee.fr/doc/befeo_0336-1519_1987_num_76_1_1723

[4] Sirancee Gunawardana Palm leaf manuscripts of Sri Lanka .  (1977 )p 1-9, 35,41-43,50,127,129,140-146,248,286-292,339-,

[5] https://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/repositories/8/resources/1303

[6] https://hiddenhands.ca/sri-lanka-essays/

[7] https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll4/id/47247/.