Asian and African studies blog

A unique Mon funeral book located at Wat Koh temple in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, has been fully digitised through the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library, London (reference no. EAP1432/1/18). It contains text passages from the Parivara, a part of the Vinaya-pitaka, written in Mon script. This uniquely illustrated manuscript dates from the 19th or early 20th century. The paintings in central Thai style of the Rattanakosin period (1782- ) depict funeral scenes and practices of morbid meditations to highlight the importance of caring for the dead in Buddhist Southeast Asia.


Scene of Buddhist monks in morbid meditation with corpses set in a natural environment, including a large lizard. EAP 1432-1-18 f.96

This folding book consists of 97 folios with black lacquered covers made from mulberry bark paper, and it contains text in Pali language written in black ink. The text opens with the phrase "yante bhagavatā jānatā passatā ’arahatā samma sambuddhena" and relates to the Buddhist text Parivara. It is the last part of the Vinaya-pitaka (monastic discipline) of the Pali Buddhist canon of the Theravada tradition. Mon script is used by people of the Mon ethnic group in Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Mon language was the lingua franca in the Mon kingdoms in mainland Southeast Asia, e.g. Dvaravati, Haripunjaya, Thaton and Hanthawaddy, from the 7th to 18th century. It was also in use in the Burmese Kingdom of Pagan (9th to 13th century).


First folio of text in Mon script between decorative borders with floral pattern. EAP 1432-1-18 f.4

While the text in this manuscript provides analyses and interpretations of Buddhist monastic rules and offences, the illustrations reflect on death, including violent and untimely death, and funeral traditions. The painting style follows the tradition of 19th-century central Thailand suggesting that the painter was trained in Thailand (formerly Siam). The folio shown below depicts the tragic event of a woman being killed by a tiger. She may have been collecting fruit in a forest as her basket and a knife are scattered on the ground. A man with a machete is seen making a gesture of grief - possibly her partner or a relative shocked about the woman's violent death.


Scene of the violent death of a woman. EAP 1432-1-18 f.3

The following painting refers to the practice of corpse meditation which goes back to the earliest teachings of Buddhism. It is based on a text on "nine charnel ground observations" about meditations on the nine states of decay of the human body. Illustrations of corpse meditation often follow a similar structure: there are bloated, blue or festering corpses on the ground, usually with bulging eyes and a painful facial expression. Stray dogs or wild animals can be seen gnawing on one corpse which is wrapped with a bamboo mat. Next to the corpses are monks, one sitting in meditation and another transferring merit to the deceased by holding the pamsukula cloth. This cloth is made from discarded material to be used as a dust-heap cloth in funeral rites. Symbolising humility and detachment from worldly luxuries, it is often transformed into a robe for monks practising Kammathana (insight) and morbid meditations.


Two monks in corpse meditation, one of them transferring merit to the deceased by holding the pamsukula cloth. EAP 1432-1-18 f.10

The illustration on the folio shown below is a continuation of reflections on the decay of the human body. Scattered on the ground are three bodies and a skeleton, with a lizard gnawing on the woman's body. Blood emerging from the mouths of the dead woman and her baby suggests that they may have been victims of an attack or conflict, or a deadly disease. As before, next to the bodies are monks in meditation and holding the pamsukula cloth.


Another scene of two monks in corpse meditation, one of them transferring merit to the deceased by holding the pamsukula cloth. EAP 1432-1-18 f.30

The uniqueness of this manuscript is owed to its rare illustrations of funeral traditions. The next painting depicts grieving people attending a vigil beside the body of a deceased person. Two men are placing the body, wrapped in white clothes, on a mat before four monks. Traditionally, four monks would chant text passages from the Abhidhamma and the sacred syllables ‘ci ce ru ni’ (representing heart, mental concepts, form and Nirvana), and often they would recite the legend of the monk Phra Malai during the wake on the night following a person's passing. Phra Malai is said to have travelled to the Buddhist heavens and hells, and the story is a reminder to make merit and do good deeds while one still can.


Scene of a vigil with four monks chanting sacred Buddhist texts. EAP 1432-1-18 f.67

On the following folio one can see another step in the funeral procedures: two men are cleansing the face of the deceased with fresh coconut water, which is regarded as the purest liquid which has never come in contact with the impure. It is a symbol of hope for the deceased to be reborn in a fortunate existence. The sacred space is protected by colourful curtains and a canopy (pedan) with a protective yantra drawing to keep evil away.


Cleansing the face of the deceased. EAP 1432-1-18 f.76

The next step of funeral procedures is depicted in the scene below, with four men who are placing the deceased in a coffin. After the cleansing ritual, the body is wrapped in white cloth before the deceased goes on a final journey, the cremation. In the Buddhist tradition, the body is seen as a temporary vessel for the soul or life essences, and cremation is considered a way to release the soul from the body, allowing it to move on to the next life. The illustration also shows a man kneeling on the floor, with offering trays by his side. He is gesturing towards another man with a prisoner's cangue and a machete to stop him from entering the sacred space.


Placing the body of the deceased in a coffin. EAP 1432-1-18 f.84

The last illustration below depicts the cremation. The coffin, placed on an elaborately decorated stand made from fresh bamboo, has been set on fire. Apart from the funeral assistants, everyone else is dressed in white clothes, symbolising purity and detachment from worldly possessions. They are mourning family members and friends of the deceased. A Brahmin priest and three men with an offering tray and a water vessel are preparing for the water pouring ritual to transfer merit to the deceased and their ancestors. Three women and a child have shaved their hair to show respect to the deceased, and to begin the grieving process which signifies a shift from worldly concerns to spiritual contemplation.


Illustration of a cremation with mourners, a priest and funeral assistants. EAP 1432-1-18 f.91

This manuscript has been digitised as part of the Endangered Archives Project Recalling a trans-local past: digitising Mon palm-leaf manuscripts of Thailand. Part 2 (EAP1432) led by Dr Patrick McCormick. Over 900 manuscripts with about 38,000 folios, including 35 illustrated manuscripts, have been digitised and made available online to give free access to anyone who wishes to study these rare and largely under-researched materials.

Further reading and references
Igunma, Jana: Thai funeral rites and ceremonies (British Library, Asian and African Studies blog 2017)
Igunma, Jana: Morbid meditations in Thai manuscript art (British Library, Asian and African Studies blog 2014)
McCormick, Patrick: Recalling a Trans-local Past: Thailand’s Mon-language Manuscripts (15/02/2025) (SEA Junction, 2025)

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian

Historical background: Mamluk and Mongol military rivalries in the 13th century 

The Mongol army’s capture of the ‘Abbasid capital of Baghdad in 1258 was a pivotal moment in Middle Eastern history. After the dust of this battle had settled, the pillaging and destruction of the city’s libraries became a literary trope, amplified in Arab historiography and cultural memory. 

One of the lesser-known as aspects of this famous conquest is the participation of the army of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Anticipating the Mongols’ dominance, the Kingdom had entered into an unequal political alliance – more accurately a vassalage – with them, against their mutual enemies, the newly-established Mamluk rulers of Egypt. The Armenian king Hethum I (1213-1270) himself travelled to Mongolia to pledge his services and be recognised for his loyalty.

Hethum I (seated) in the Mongol court of Karakorum, 'receiving the homage of the Mongols', from a manuscript copy of La flor des estoires d'Orient (Fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient), by Hayton/Hethum of Corycus (nephew of King Hethum I of Armenia), composed in 1307 CE (British Library Add MS 17971, f. 23r).

Equine medicine in war and peace 

Against this historical backdrop, a text recently catalogued for the British Library-Qatar Foundation Project in two copies (Or. 9823, dating to c. 15th century; and Or. 3133, copied 1854), contains historical perspectives on the looting of Baghdad’s caliphal library and the complex nature of Armenian political relationships in the 13th century. On a more intimate level, it also hints at the tale of a nameless Armenian surgeon; an otherwise anonymous prisoner of war whose linguistic and medical prowess gave him a tiny footnote in the history of equestrian medicine in the Middle East.  

This text, elaborately entitled The Matching Pearls Concerning the Knowledge of Precedents (al-Durr al-muṭābiq fī ʻilm al-sawābiq) in Or. 9823 and Formulary of equine medical science (Aqrābādhīn fī ʻilm ṭibb al-khayl) in Or. 3133, is a manual on the characteristics of horses and the treatment of equine diseases and injuries, in 182 or 183 short chapters.  

The work’s preamble and the beginning of the first chapter relate piecemeal a convoluted and rather confusing transmission history. This account, which varies in small but important details in different extant copies, explains that the text had originally been encountered in the Armenian language, and contained many pharmacological terms that could not be understood, until ‘a surgeon from among the captives with understanding of the terminology was found, who translated it into Arabic – that man was valued and expert in his craft.’

Introduction and start of first chapter of al-Durr al-muṭābiq fī ʻilm al-sawābiq (British Library Or. 3133, f. 1v).

The text goes on to state that ‘the Armenian king, in the service of the [now-]vanquished enemy [the Mongols], had taken the Arabic book from the library of the caliphal treasury in Baghdad, and translated it into the Armenian pen (‘qalam’, in Or 9823, or ‘took it to the Armenian realm [‘iqlīm’, in Or 3133] […] during the reign of Baybars’ (Mamluk sultan, ruled 1260-77).  

(British Library Or. 9823, f. 3r) 

The books of horsemanship and characteristics of horses  

The importance of horses to the Mongols and Mamluks, as to most medieval societies, and therefore the desirability of having the best possible understanding of their care and breeding, can hardly be understated. The wealth of Arabic manuals on horsemanship, equestrian medicine, and on animal care in general copied over many centuries makes this clear. 

According to the version of the Armenian translator-surgeon’s explanation related in the text’s preface, it is a compilation of the tried and tested hippiatric knowledge of a certain wise individual, Muḥammad ibn al-Khalīfah [‘son of the Caliph’] Yaʻqūb. Given the content and structure of the Formulary, this name appears to be a corruption of Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb ibn Akhī Ḥizām, a famous horse trainer who, over 350 years earlier in Baghdad, had worked for the ʻAbbasid caliph al-Mu‘taḍid (ruled 892-902), and was the author of a voluminous and highly influential early Arabic hippiatric treatise, The book of horsemanship and characteristics of horses [or: and veterinary science] (Kitāb al-furūsīyah wa-shiyāt al-khayl [wa-al-bayṭarah]). 

The horse's good (ff. 22v-23r, left) and bad (ff. 62v-63r, right) points, from a copy of Kitāb al-bayṭarah, an abridgement of Kitāb al-furūsīyah wa-l-bayṭarah by Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqūb Ibn Akhī Ḥizām, attributed to Abū Muḥammad Aḥmad ibn ‘Atīq al-Azdī, dated 1223 CE. (British Library Or. 1523)

Consisting of two main parts subdivided into numerous short bābs, over the centuries Ibn Akhī Ḥizām’s Kitāb al-furūsīyah was abbreviated, edited, and translated under a wide variety of titles, with the name of its author frequently appearing in corrupted forms.i The text in Or. 9823 and Or. 3133 seems to be one of these spin-off works. But how did this Armenian surgeon – it is uncertain whether his expertise was as a horse veterinarian – find himself in the situation of back-translating the text into Arabic?  

Other names are also mentioned, further confusing the picture: a ‘philosopher’ named Saʻd al-Dīn ibn al-Ẓāhir al-ʻAjamī (‘the foreigner’ or ‘the Persian’) who participated in the composition of the text, and two individuals, Maḥbūb and his companion Abū al-Faraj, who translated it into Armenian (although the BL copies describe them working ‘from’ Armenian, this does not make sense, and another more detailed copy (Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Ms. Orient. A 2087, f. 8v), has them working ‘into’ Armenian). 

Translating on the battlefield 

After repelling the Mongols in 1260 at the battle of ʻAyn Jalūt, the Mamluks retaliated against the Mongols’ Armenian allies with a punitive campaign culminating in August 1266 at the Battle of Meri, where the Armenian army was defeated, the land pillaged, and many civilians subsequently enslaved. Could this have been the occasion of the text’s and/or the surgeon’s capture? Someone with medical skill and linguistic aptitude would have been a useful captive for the triumphant Mamluks, and a useful manual on horse care carried by a soldier or by the army’s veterinary retinue could have been part of the booty. 

However, the introduction to Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Ms. Orient. A 2087 additionally mentions the second battle of Homs of 19 Rajab 680 AH/ 3 November 1281 CE, when Mamluk forces under Sultan Qālāwūn (ruled 1279-90) again defeated the Mongols along with their Armenian military supporters. The Gotha copy describes how the Mamluk commander (and later, sultan) Lājīn assembled a group of Armenian prisoners to translate the book, but they could not understand all its pharmaceutical terminology, whereupon the surgeon was found (f. 2r). 

The Battle of Homs of 1281 in La flor des estoires d'Orient (Fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient). (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS 886, f. 27v [detail]).

Prisoner of history: the captured surgeon 

Either way, this text conjures a melancholy picture of the unfortunate surgeon, imprisoned in an encampment on the plains of Syria. forcibly thrust into the spotlight and obliged to transmit to his captors the secrets of this text on horses. However, probably unbeknown to them all at that moment, it had originally been composed in the same language it was now being translated into.  

And despite the inevitable realisation that the text was not a source of new knowledge but belonged to an already well-established tradition, the story of its transmission was clearly considered remarkable enough, even at the time, to have been preserved throughout its subsequent scribal history, right down to 1854, when Or 3133 was transcribed. 

Amuletic squares in British Library Or. 3133, f. 33r (left) and in British Library Or. 1523, f. 110v (right). 

Jenny Norton-Wright 
Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator, British Library / Qatar Foundation Partnership 

 

Bibliography 

Dum-Tragut, Jasmine, Kilikische Heilkunst für Pferde – Das Vermächtnis der Armenier (Hildesheim: Editorial Olms Verlag, 2005)  

Hayton/Hethum of Corycus, La Flor des estoires de la terre d’Orient, esp Book III: 'On the Tatar nation', in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Documents Armeniens, vol. 2, edited by Jean Dardel (1906; Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1841-1906), pp. 147-219. English translation available at: https://www.attalus.org/armenian/hetum3.htm#26. 

al-Sarraf, Shihab, 'Mamluk Furūsīyah Literature and Its Antecedents', Mamluk Studies Review 8 (2004), pp. 141-200 (esp. pp. 148-52) 

Sbath, Paul, 'Manuscrit arabe sur la pharmacopée hippiatrique', Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte 14 (1931-2), pp. 79-81 and plates i-iii 

Shehada, Housni Alkhateeb, Mamluks and Animals: Veterinary Medicine in Medieval Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 118-20 and 169-70 

See also the research project Encounter in the Corpus of the Horse: Cultural Transfer and Knowledge Transfer between the Christian West and the Muslim East in Late Mediaeval Armenian Equine Manuals (Begegnung im Körper des Pferdes. Kulturtransfer und Wissensvermittlung zwischen christlichem Westen und muslimischem Osten in spätmittelalterlichen armenischen Pferdebüchern), at the University of Salzburg (2022-25).

This guest blog is by Lina Elhage-Mensching, Research Associate at Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony.

This blog post is both a result and a demonstration of the valuable cooperation between the British Library and the Göttingen Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament project, of which the DFG-funded project Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary is a satellite project.[i] I wish to dedicate it to Mrs Ilana Tahan, who sadly passed away and whose contribution was key to the showcase presented in what follows.

The start of the readings from the Holy Week Lectionary, beginning with the passage for early Holy Monday, comprised of a reading from the "Torah of Moses" corresponding to the beginning of Genesis. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 31r)

The showcase presents a manuscript that is preserved at the British Library in London under the shelfmark Add MS 5997.[ii] The manuscript under discussion was the primary source used by Oswald H.E. Burmester[iii] in his study of the structure of the Book of the Holy Pascha, i.e. the Holy Week lectionary used by the Coptic Orthodox Church.[iv] In particular, in volumes one and two of his Le Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte[v], O.H.E. Burmester (1897–1977) collated a total of 21 manuscripts, of which two are Sahidic and nineteen are Bohairic. As he noted, he published the text of the oldest dated Holy Week lectionary[vi] and gave a Concordance Table at the end of his edition with a comprehensive list of all readings derived from the various manuscripts he had studied in his work.[vii] On the ba­sis of his collation, Burmester indicates that, in consideration of the omissions and additions observed in the manu­scripts, the lectionaries could be divided into three categories. The first category comprises fifteen collated manuscripts that belong to the ‘normal type,’ and correspond to the current service of the Coptic Church. The second category is represented by two manuscripts that lack many pericopes of the Old Testament, which led Burmester to suppose that they mirrored the service before the revision by Peter of Behnesā.[viii] The third category is represented by four manuscripts with many additional readings for the day hours’ services, which Burmester assumed to be ar­ranged following Peter of Behnesā’s revision.[ix] The manuscript described in this showcase belongs to the second category.

A folio from the Lectionary featuring passages from the Gospels of Luke and John, as well as a strip from a Syriac manuscript used as a patch. (Holy Week Lectionary. Wādī Naṭrūn, Egypt, 990 AM/1273 CE. Add MS 5997, f 254r)

A Coptic Holy Week lectionary covers all the days from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. During the course of Holy Week, each day is divided into ten hours, with five designated as ‘Hours of the Day’ and five as ‘Hours of the Eve’. The readings for each period are drawn from both the Old and New Testaments. Some Hours comprise more readings than others and extracts from homilies. Moreover, the Psalter in its entirety is recited on Holy Friday whereas the odes of the Old and the New Testament, the book of Revelation, and the Gospel according to John are read in full at various moments on Holy Saturday.[x] The Holy Week lectionary at issue is a bilingual Bohairic­–Arabic paper codex entitled كتاب البصخه المقدسه (The Book of the Holy Pascha), in Arabic only. Originating from Wādī Naṭrūn in Lower Egypt, it is dated to 22nd Toth, 990 AM = 19th September 1273 CE,[xi] The codex consists of 315 folios, measuring 247 x 342 mm each, and featuring a text in two columns of about 25 lines per column. The paper is most probably of local provenance with no watermarks. The parallel Bohairic and Arabic texts are liturgical readings, hymns and prayers for the period between the first Hour of the Eve of Palm Sunday and the first Hour of the Eve of Easter Monday. This lectionary follows the sequence of five Canonical Hours[xii] of the Eve (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) and five Canonical Hours of the Day itself (1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th Hour) for every day of the Holy Week. There is also a 12th Hour on Holy Friday commemorating the entombment of Christ. The readings are pericopes from the Old Testament –the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the Poetry and Wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Wisdom, Sirach), the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel), the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Malachi)– and from the New Testament, i.e., the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul (1Corinthians, 2Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1Timothy Hebrews), and 1Peter. There are no homilies in this Holy Week lectionary.[xiii]

You will find a brief overview of the characteristics of this codex on the Catalog of the Holy Week Lectionary Bohairic website.

The codex structure can be viewed in the Göttingen Virtual Manuscript Room.

A semi-diplomatic edition of the complete codex can be viewed in the VMR workspace.

Since Burmester’s pioneering work, two dated Holy Week lectionaries from an earlier period have been identified. However, one is written entirely in Arabic, and only 26 fragmentary folios of the other survive. Although the manuscript Add MS 5997 preserved at the British Library is not the oldest extant dated Coptic Holy Week lectionary, it is the oldest complete bilingual one. It is therefore highly valuable for the study and research history of Coptic liturgical manuscripts, which is why it was chosen for the showcase.

Lina Elhage-Mensching
Research Associate, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony, currently working on the project ‘Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary.’

For the first time since the cyber-attack of October 2023, access has been restored to some of the British Library’s digitised manuscripts. Included in this pilot project are 23 Bugis manuscripts and a Qur'an manuscript from Madura, as listed here, and we hope more manuscripts will become accessible soon. In the meantime, this blog post highlights alternative paths of digital access to some Malay and Indonesian manuscripts from the British Library collections.

Entry for August 1800, from a Bugis diary from the court of Bone for the years 1795-1812. British Library, Add MS 12357, f. 81v 

The British Library holds about 500 manuscripts from maritime Southeast Asia, and by September 2023 all had been digitised. The manuscripts are listed on project pages for Malay, Lampung, Arabic, Javanese, Old Javanese, Balinese, Bugis, Makasar and Batak. Although the hyperlinks on these pages to the digital images on the British Library website do not work at present, the links to blog posts are still accessible.

Thanks to a collaborative project with the National Library of Singapore supported by William and Judith Bollinger, all the Malay manuscripts from the British Library can be accessed through the Singapore National Library Online site, by searching in the ‘Documents and Manuscripts’ tab with the keywords ‘Malay British Library’. The manuscripts can be read online or downloaded in PDF form.

Malay letter from Sultan Muhammad Yasin of Ternate, 1802. British Library, Add MS 18141, accessed via Singapore National Library Online 

The Library of Congress offers full access with downloadable PDFs to four British Library manuscripts in Arabic, Malay and Javanese:
• Or 15227, an illuminated Qurʼan,19th century, from the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, Patani or Kelantan
• Or 16126, Letter from Engku Temenggung Seri Maharaja (Daing Ibrahim), Ruler of Johor, to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, dated 1857
• Or 14734, Sulalat al-salatin / Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), copied in 1873
• MSS Jav 89, Serat Damar Wulan, with illustrations depicting Javanese society in the late 18th century

Qur’an manuscript from Patani/Kelantan, 19th century. British Library, Or 15227, accessed via the Library of Congress

With the support of Mr S P Lohia, 76 Javanese manuscripts from Yogyakarta now held in the British Library were digitised. On completion of the project in 2019, complete sets of the 30,000 digital images were also presented to Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, the National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas), and the Libraries and Archives Service of Yogyakarta (Dinas Perpustakaan dan Arsip DIY), by the British Ambassador to Indonesia, Moazzam Malik. In April 2023, the digitised copies from the British Library were also provided to the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts (WiLMA) project, in readiness for the WiLMA proofread-a-thon 2023, a crowdsourcing project to automate the transcription of Javanese script, and these 76 Javanese manuscripts from Yogyakarta can now be accessed through Wikimedia Commons.

The 76 Javanese manuscripts in the British Library digitised in the Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta project can be accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Following on from the Yogyakarta project of 2019, through the support of William and Judith Bollinger a further 120 Javanese paper manuscripts in the British Library were digitised in 2023. In addition, support was also extended to Yayasan Lestari (Yasri) for its Sastra Jawa website to romanise 25 Javanese manuscripts for presentation via the  British Library Bollinger Project webpage, and the project is currently halfway completed. The romanised Javanese text is accompanied by thumbnail images of each manuscript page, thus offering digital access so far to 12 Javanese manuscripts from the British Library, including some not available through Wikimedia Commons.

The British Library Bollinger Project on the Sastra Jawa website.

Serat Maliawan, British Library, Add MS 12291, accessed via Sastra Jawa  

Fortunately the cyber-attack did not affect access to the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, which to date has supported 23 projects in Indonesia, listed here.

We hope that it will not be too long before full access is restored to all the digitised manuscripts in the British Library.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

For the first time since the cyber-attack on the British Library in October 2023, access has been restored to 1,000 digitised manuscripts, via a new webpage. On this site the manuscripts are listed in shelfmark order, with brief titles and dates. The hyperlinked shelfmark leads to the manuscript viewer which provides basic metadata, thumbnail view options, and IIIF manifests.

This first stage of restoration includes 46 manuscripts from Asian and African collections, in Arabic, Chagatai, Persian, Ethiopian and Bugis, listed below. We hope to make more digitised manuscripts available soon. In the meantime, finding aids to Asian and African Collections are listed here, while this blog post gives information on alternative links to Asian and African materials in the British Library. 

ARABIC, CHAGATAI and PERSIAN (5 manuscripts)

Illuminated panel from the opening page of a Chagatai manuscript, [Muntakhab-i] Dīvān-i Navā'ī, copied by Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi, 15th-16th century. Or 3493, f. 2v (detail)

ETHIOPIAN (18 manuscripts)

Illuminated page from ኦሪት The Octateuch, ( Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth), 14th-15th century. Or 480, f. 88r 

BUGIS (23 manuscripts)

Compendium of fourteen short Bugis poems, late 18th-early 19th century. Add MS 12346, ff. 2v-3r

Colophon to an anonymous compendium of medicine (Or 9007, f. 134r).

The British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership (the ‘Qatar Project’) is a collaborative digitisation and cataloguing project, the primary output of which is the Qatar Digital Library (https://www.qdl.qa/en). This fully bilingual (Arabic/English) online resource makes available a wealth of historical documentation relating to the Gulf region, as well as Arabic manuscripts on scientific topics and short articles relating to the contents and contexts of these archives and manuscripts.

Phase Three of the Qatar Project began in January 2019 with the addition of a new member of the manuscript team. We could little have imagined how much our working practices would be upended by the impact of the Covid pandemic, which struck a little over a year later.

Page from Anwār Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb by ʻIṣmat Allāh ibn Aʻẓam al-Sahāranfūrī (IO Islamic 1582, f. 13r).

Covid impacts

At the best of times, the progression of a single manuscript, from the moment it is retrieved from the basement shelves, through all the stages of conservation assessment, cataloguing, digitisation, image quality control, editorial checks, translation of the catalogue record, and the final integration of images, catalogue text, and metadata ultimately culminating in upload to the site, can take up to a year. The impact of Covid increased these timescales even further.

Diagram of four of the seven ‘degrees’ (بحور), a type of modal structure, from Kitāb al-inʿām bi-maʿrifat al-anghām by Shams al-Dīn al-Ṣaydāwī (Or 13019, f. 12r).

Working remotely necessitated various modifications to our workflow, primarily in swapping the order in which cataloguing and imaging take place, so that cataloguing teams could remotely access images captured by the digitisation team. In the confusion of spring 2020, these altered ways of working took a while to get in place, and while they facilitated continued cataloguing, they also depended on imaging colleagues being physically on site. Requirements for social distancing within the enclosed environment of the imaging studio also drastically reduced the amount of work the imaging team could achieve. Furthermore, no new manuscripts were able to enter the workflow without undergoing conservation assessment- another job that cannot be done from home! We are very thankful to the imaging and conservation teams, as well as all other colleagues who opted to come on site when permitted, for facilitating progress of the many subsequent stages within the Qatar Project’s workflow. 

Diagram accompanying Chapter Nine: Construction of ‘the Spiral' (al-ḥalzūn), from Mukhtaṣar fī ṣanʿat baʿḍ al-ālāt al-raṣadīyah wa-al-ʿamal bihā by al-Birjandī (IO Islamic 4419, f. ‎43v).

We were able to gradually return to the offices in autumn 2020. Manuscript curators were eagerly anticipating the joys of getting out their light sheets and tape measures and inhaling the smell of aged paper.

Part of contents list from al-Mukhtār min kutub al-ikhtiyārāt al-falakīyah by Yaḥyá ibn Jarīr al-Takrītī (Or 5709, f. 6r). 

Despite all these challenges, the Qatar Project as a whole was able to celebrate the upload of the two millionth image to the Qatar Digital Library towards the end of Phase Three, which wrapped up in June 2022.

Summary of locations the author journeyed to during his mission in Spain, from Natījat al-ijtihād fī al-muhādanah wa-al-jihād by Aḥmad ibn al-Mahdī al-Ghazzāl (Add MS 9596, f. 1v).

Phase 3 Arabic scientific manuscripts

In the third phase of the Qatar Project the manuscript team continued to catalogue and digitise classic texts, including many volumes dating to the 13^th-15^th centuries CE. These included copies of Rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity), Jāmiʻ li-quwá [or, li-mufradāt] al-adwīyah wa-al-aghdhīyah, a handbook of medical materials by the Andalusian botanist Ibn al-Bayṭār (d. 1248), Chief Herbalist to the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil (reg. 1218-38), and Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān, an extensive zoological encyclopaedia by Muḥammad ibn Mūsá al-Damīrī (d. 1405).

Representation of the Kaʻbah and directions of prayer towards it, from a copy of Kharīdat al-ʻajāʼib wa-farīdat al-gharāʼib by Sirāj al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʻUmar Ibn al-Wardī (IO Islamic 1734, f. 59r).

We also continued to make available manuscripts exemplifying the robust and lasting commentary tradition on the exact and medical sciences in Arabic, such as mathematical teaching handbooks designed to clarify abstract theory for the benefit of students, and a copy of al-Jurjānī’s Sharḥ al-tadhkirat al-naṣīrīyah fī ʻilm al-hayʼah, a commentary on Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī's treatise on Ptolemy's Almagest.

Map of Iraq, showing the courses of the Tigris and Euphrates and their outlets at the Gulf, from Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik, by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Iṣṭakhrī (Or 5305, f. 23r).

Many treatises included in Phase Three illustrate the richness of enquiry into more technical subjects, such as geography and travelogues, psychology, military science, agriculture, cookery, and music. One notable early manuscript is a fragment of a miscellany produced around 1000 in a Christian monastic context, of which a larger portion is held by the Bibiloteca Ambrosiana in Milan.  

Beginning of a section entitled ‘Knowing the exaltation and fall of the Planets’, from a fragment of an astrological text (Or 8857, f. 2v).

Besides cataloguing, the team produced blog posts and articles that provide further context to some of the manuscripts digitised in Phase Three (and before), and address their textual content, scribal and ownership histories, and later provenance stories. Links to these articles can be found in relevant sections of the attached downloadable list which summarises the output of Phase Three. (Download QDL Phase 3 Listing of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts)

Illustration of a bow and arrow, from al-Wāḍiḥ fī al-ramy wa-al-nushshāb by ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭabarī (Or 3134, f. 32r).

Ranging in scale from voluminous tomes and illustrated or illuminated presentation copies, through to intimate, palm-sized notebooks probably never intended for circulation; from manuals of practical instruction to works of theoretical systematisation; and written between ca 1000 CE and the late 19th century, this group of 87 volumes illustrates some of the immense diversity and longevity of scientific scholarship in the Arabic language. The impact of Covid on the world during this period demonstrated ever more clearly the value of digitisation projects accompanied by enhanced cataloguing and translation, which support and encourage global research into the Arabic manuscript field, as so many others.

Page from the contents list of Kitāb al-ishārāt fī ʻilm al-ʻibārāt by Khalīl ibn Shāhīn al-Ẓāhirī (Add MS 9690, f. 6r).

Jenny Norton-Wright, Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator

Asian and African Studies blog post summaries of manuscripts digitised by the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership during the first two phases

First 40 (Phase 1)

Second 40 (Phase 1)

Next 125 (Phase 2)

Download QDL Phase 3 Listing of Arabic Scientific Manuscripts

Illuminated opening of Kitāb al-ṭabīkh by Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Karīm al-Baghdādī (Or 5099, f. 2v).

Diagram of the planetary spheres, from a copy of Rasāʼil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ (Or 8254, f. 196r).

The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is pleased to announce that after 5 years, the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Project successfully concluded in December 2022. Generously sponsored by the Bei Shan Tang Foundation, the Project aimed to publish online 793 manuscript copies of the Lotus Sutra from Dunhuang currently in the Stein collection at the British Library. This has resulted in over 374,000 cm of conserved material and nearly 17,000 new images for the IDP website.


Image of Or.8210/S.6791, conserved and digitised by the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Project.

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most influential scriptures in Mahayana Buddhism, and is thought to contain the Buddha’s final teaching, complete and sufficient for salvation. The Stein collection contains over 1000 copies of the Lotus Sutra in Chinese, which were acquired by Sir Marc Aurel Stein in 1907 and 1914, when he visited the so-called ‘Library Cave’ (Cave 17) at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, in the present-day Gansu Province in China.

Before and after conservation photos of Lotus Sutra Scroll Or.8210/S.3796, one of 793 manuscripts conserved through the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Project.

Only a small portion of these had been previously digitised, and the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Project was organised to make images of the remaining manuscripts available online. Thanks to the sustained efforts of the Project team since 2017, 790 scrolls and 3 booklets have been stabilised and conserved to enable digitisation, and photographed to produce high-resolution images that are now freely available to the public on the IDP website. 

Image of Or.8210/S.155, a Chinese Lotus Sutra scroll with Tibetan divination texts on the back. Conserved and digitised as part of the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Project.

Through the thousands of new images online, the Project has significantly increased global access to these important materials. In an effort to document the methodology of the Project, team members have published several articles, such as Digitisation Officer Francisco Perez-Garcia’s The Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Project: the collaborative work between the Heritage Made Digital team and the International Dunhuang Project team (published in the Library's Digital Scholarship blog, 14 March 2022). More about the digitisation efforts of the project can be found in the article How to Digitise Scrolls: A Step-by-Step Guide from the Lotus Sutra Project by Senior Imaging Technician Jon Nicholls (published in the Library’s Asia and Africa blog, 2 August 2021).


Image of Or.8210/S.3579, featuring a custom-made core developed by conservators on the Project.

Throughout the Project, the Conservation team also undertook critical research on preservation techniques and innovative storage solutions, shared via published articles like Conserving paper: reflections on cultures of conservation in Europe and East Asia by Paulina Kralka (published in The Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 24 May 2022) and Lotus Sutra Project: Storage Solutions by Paulina Kralka and Marya Muzart (published in the Library's Collection Care blog, 07 December 2020 and the IFLA Journal, 21 July 2021).

We wish to express our enormous gratitude for the efforts of the Project team, including Tan Wang-Ward, Marie Kaladgew, Marya Muzart, Paulina Kralka, Tania Estrada-Valadez, Vania Assis, Jon Nicholls, Ambrose Hickman, Isabelle Reynolds-Logue, Giancarlo Carozza, and countless others who have contributed throughout the lifetime of the Project.

Image of a panel discussion at the Lotus Sutra Conference in the Foyle Suite of the British Library. (Left to right: Dr Eric Tzu-Yin CHUNG, Dr Paul Harrison, Dr Stephen F Teiser, Ven. Miao Duo, Roxanna Pang, Dr Luisa Elena Mengoni.)

To celebrate the close of the Project, the IDP hosted a conference at the British Library on 15 – 16 December 2022. The conference, titled ‘The Lotus Sutra: the Teachings, Transmission and Material Culture of a Sacred Buddhist Text’, included a keynote speech from Dr Stephen F Teiser and presentations from other experts, in addition to a panel of the Project team discussing their results and methodology.

The full programme of the conference is here:  Download IDP Lotus Sutra Conference Programme

The lectures were recorded and are now available on the IDP YouTube channel: 
• Opening Ceremony of the Lotus Sutra Conference (15 – 16 December 2022) 

Panel 1: Teachings of the Lotus Sutra
Chaired by: Luisa Elena Mengoni
• Keynote presentation: ‘The Lotus Sutra: Creating Buddhist Scripture’ by Dr Stephen F Teiser (15 December 2022) 
• 'When Being Original No Longer Matters: Reflections on the Sanskrit Text of the Lotus Sutra and its Uses' by Dr Paul Harrison (15 December 2022) 
• 'Lotus Sutra: Applying the Teachings in an Everyday Life' by the Venerable Miao Duo 妙多法師 and Roxanna Pang (15 December 2022) 
• ‘Deciphering the Exhibition of The Arts of the Lotus Sutra at the National Palace Museum' by Dr Eric Tzu-yin Chung 鍾子寅 (15 December 2022) 
• Panel 1 Discussion: Teachings of the Lotus Sutra 

Panel 2: The Lotus Sutra at Dunhuang
Chaired by: Sam van Schaik
• ‘Universal Gate of Salvation: Guanyin at Dunhuang’ by Dr Roderick Whitfield (16 December 2022) 
• ‘Dividing and Structuring the Lotus Sutra in Manuscript Form’ by Dr Costantino Moretti (16 December 2022) 
• ‘At the Intersection of Image, Text and Ritual: The Lotus Sutra in Mogao Murals’ by Dr Neil Schmid (16 December 2022)
• ‘Pieces of a Puzzle: Fragments of Chinese Manuscript with the Lotus Sutra' by Dr Imre Galambos (16 December 2022) 
• ‘The Guanyin Sutra at Dunhuang as Seen Through the British Library Collection’ by Mélodie Doumy (16 December 2022) 
• Panel 2 Discussion: The Lotus Sutra at Dunhuang 

Panel 3: Preserving the Lotus Sutra at the British Library: From Physical to Digital
Chaired by: Mélodie Doumy
• ‘Locating the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Project’ by Tan Wang-Ward 王潭 (16 December 2022) 
• ‘The Lotus Sutra Project at the British Library 2017–2022: A Conservators’ Perspective’ by Marie Kaladgew, Paulina Kralka & Marya Muzart (16 December 2022) 
• ‘Conservation Case Studies from the Lotus Sutra Project at the British Library 2017–2022’ by Tania Estrada-Valadez, Marie Kaladgew, Paulina Kralka & Marya Muzart (16 December 2022) 
• ‘Seeing Things Differently: The Imaging of Lotus Sutra Scrolls’ by Isabelle Reynolds-Logue (16 December 2022) 
• Panel 3 Discussion: Preserving the Lotus Sutra at the British Library: From Physical to Digital 

Anastasia Pineschi, International Dunhuang Project, British Library

In May 2022 the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project was launched, aiming to digitise a further 120 Javanese manuscripts from the British Library collection. We are delighted to announce that 40 of these Javanese manuscripts have now been published online, and can be accessed directly through the live hyperlinks on the Digital Access to Javanese Manuscripts page or via the Digitised Manuscripts portal. On completion of the project by 2023, all the Javanese and Old Javanese manuscripts written on paper in the British Library – numbering over 200 – will have been fully digitised. Highlighted in this blog are some of the newly digitised Javanese manuscripts.

Sĕrat Gada (Gonda) Kusuma, copied by Tiyangsĕpoh.  British Library, Add 12297, ff. 2v-3r 

The Bollinger project will make accessible a large number of illuminated Javanese manuscripts from the collection of John Crawfurd, many of which may have been decorated in the scriptorium of the Pakualaman court in Yogykarta. The Pakualaman principality was founded in Yogyakarta in 1812 by the British to reward Prince Paku Alam for his support for the British military campaign against Sultan Hamengkubuwana II of Yogyakarta. Paku Alam I was on very cordial terms with John Crawfurd, British Resident of Yogyakarta from 1811 to 1814, a relationship cemented by their shared interests in Javanese literature and history. In addition to his portion of manuscripts seized from the royal library of Yogyakarta following the British attack in 1812 (and digitised in 2019 through the Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta Digitisation Project), John Crawfurd also commissioned many further copies of Javanese texts, and these may have been adorned with illuminated frontispieces or wadana by artists from the Pakaualaman. Two distinct styles of illumination can be distinguished in Javanese manuscripts in the Crawfurd collection.  One is a more classical style with essentially rectangular frames, on which has been superimposed a diamond-shaped outline, in many cases taking the form of ornamental arches on the three outer sides of the text on each page.  A fine example is shown above, on a manuscript of the Sĕrat Gada (Gonda) Kusuma, Add 12297.  These frontispieces derive from the broader Islamic tradition of decorated frames, symmetrical around the central spine of the book, which often adorn the initial double opening pages.

A rather different style of illuminated frontispiece associated only with Yogyakarta has been termed wadana gapura, 'gateway frontispieces', or wadana renggan candhi or ‘frontispieces decorated as temples’ (Behrend 2005: 49), alluding to the temple-like structures of the decorated frames surrounding the text block on each page, with a plinth-like base and architectural features such as columns, arches and windows, often with ‘brick’ detailing. These wadana gapura are identical on each of two facing pages, rather than being symmetrical about the gutter of the book as in the case of the more classical double-page wadana described above. Shown below is another manuscript of the same literary text, Sĕrat Gonda Kusuma, Add 12295, with a temple-style decorated frontispiece.

Sĕrat Gonda Kusuma. Dated jalma muni catur sirna, which must be read from left to right [A.J. 1740/A.D. 1813]. British Library, Add 12295, ff. 1v-2r

In a recent blog, Dick van der Meij has noted that while in Javanese manuscripts in the British Library, the 'classical' wadana  tend to enclose the start of the text which then continues without any hiatus onto the following pages, in manuscripts with 'temple'-style wadana gapura, the illuminated frames are placed a few pages before the start of the text proper, and the text within the decorative frames is written by a different hand from that found in the body of the main text itself. Moreover, the opening lines of the text are usually repeated within the decorative frames, and a small floral marker is then placed at the appropriate place in the main text (probably indicating to a reciter the point where the text from the frontispiece rejoins the main text). These devices all suggest that these temple-style illuminated frames were added after the main text was copied, at a second distinct stage within the manuscript production process.  It could be hypthesized that the examples of 'temple' wadana in Javanese manuscripts in the British Library mark the very beginning of the development of this artistic genre at the newly-formed Pakualaman court in Yogyakarta. 

Sĕrat Gonda Kusuma, 1813, showing the start of the text, in a different hand from that on the illuminated pages, with a small floral marker indicating where the texts join up. British Library, Add 12295, f. 3r (detail)

In addition to the two illuminated manuscripts of Sĕrat Gonda Kusuma highlighted above, there is another copy in the British Library also now available online, Add 12294, and the digitisation of so many Javanese manuscripts greatly enhances the task of comparative literary analysis.  Many Old Javanese texts known today have survived through copies preserved in Bali, which are generally written on palm leaf (lontar). A few manuscripts in the British Library which contain Old Javanese texts on paper appear to be copies made for British patrons from palm leaf exemplars sourced from Bali. Among these is a copy from the Crawfurd collection of the Bhāratayuddha kakawin, the Old Javanese version of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata, which was composed in Java probably around the 10th century. The manuscript shown below, Add 12279, opens with the Old Javanese text, followed by a word-for-word explanation in modern Javanese, but half-way through the volume (from Canto 22 on f. 147r), the text continues in Old Javanese only.

Beginning of Bhāratayuddha in Old Javanese, accompanied by translation into Modern Javanese, 1814. British Library, Add 12279, f. 2v.

Another copy of the Bhāratayuddha (MSS Jav 25), from the Mackenzie collection, gives the Old Javanese text in Balinese script written in black ink, accompanied by an interlinear Modern Javanese translation in red ink, and is dated 28 August 1812. According to the inscription on the first page, this manuscript was sent to Col. Colin Mackenzie by the son the of Panembahan of Sumenep in Madura. This manuscript is also due to digitised as part of the Bollinger project, and will soon be available online.

Opening page of Bhāratayuddha with inscription by Colin Mackenzie. British Library, MSS Jav 25, f. 1r.

Bhāratayuddha, in Old Javanese in Balinese script written in black ink, with interlinear translation into modern Javanese in red ink. British Library, MSS Jav 25, ff. 6v-7r.

In the late eighteenth century the Old Javanese Bhāratayuddha kakawin inspired the composition of the Bratayuda kawi miring, probably the work of the Surakarta (Solo) court poet Yasadipura II (Tumenggung Sastronagoro, 1760-1844). The term kawi miring or ‘sloping/inclined Old Javanese’ is explained by Barbara McDonald in her Ph.D. thesis (1983: iii) as describing ‘a particular genre of literature which emerged in the Central Javanese courts of Surakarta in the late eighteenth century. As the term literally suggests, texts classified as kawi miring were considered to have been written in a poetic medium that ‘inclined’ towards the ‘kawi’ texts of the Old Javanese period.’ The British Library holds several copies or parts of the text of the Bratayuda kawi miring, including a newly digitised manuscript, MSS Jav 15.

Bratayuda kawi miring. Incomplete, ending at Canto XXI: 10. British Library, MSS Jav 15, f. 5v.

Soon to be digitised is MSS Jav 23, which contains just six cantos of this work. Both these versions can now be compared with an earlier manuscript of the Bratayuda kawi miring, MSS Jav 4, dated 1797, originating from the kraton (palace) library, which was digitised during the earlier Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta Digitisation Project. The late eighteenth-century date of this beautiful manuscript suggests it may be amongst oldest known copies of this text.

Bratayuda kawi miring, 1797. British Library, MSS Jav 4, ff. 2v-3r.

The Modern Javanese version of the Bhāratayuddha kakawin, the Sĕrat Bratayuda, is found in two manuscripts in the British Library, one of which, Add 12326, has just been digitised. According to a note by Crawfurd, this manuscript was copied for him ‘from a manuscript supplied by one of the princes at Djocjakarta (i.e. Yogyakarta)’. A fragment of Serat Bratayuda is also found in MSS Jav 9, which will soon be digitised too.

Serat Bratayuda, early 19th c.  British Library, Add 12326, ff. 3v-4r.

While the Crawfurd collection primarily consists of historical and literary works, the Mackenzie collection is also strong in primbon, compendia of various texts on religious-mystical knowledge.  One such volume is MSS Jav 30, dating from the 18th century, which contains a range of texts including suluk, mystical songs, as well as a primbon with many magical drawings for protection and divination, as shown below.

Primbon, with various rajah or magical drawings, 18th century.  British Library, MSS Jav 30, ff. 136v-137r.

Also newly digitised are a number of Islamic manuscripts, with texts in Javanese written in Arabic (pegon script), including IO Islamic 2448, which contains a work on the mi‘raj, the ascension of the prophet Muhammad.

Colophon to a Javanese text on the Risālah fī al-isrāʾ wa-al-miʿrāj. IO Islamic 2448, f. 65v.

Photography of all 120 manuscripts in the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project has now been completed, and over the coming months, once all the images have passed the quality control stage, the manuscripts will be published online. Keep on eye on the Digital access to Javanese manuscripts page, where each shelfmark will be hyperlinked as it becomes available online.

Further reading:
T.E. Behrend, Frontispiece architecture in Ngayogyakarta: notes on structure and sources. Archipel, 2005, (69): 39-60.
Barbara McDonald, ‘Kawi and Kawi miring: Old Javanese literature in eighteenth century Java.’ 2 vols. PhD thesis, the Australian National University, 1983.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia