Asian and African studies blog

Edmund Edwards McKinnon (1936-2023) – known to all as Ed McKinnon – first came to Indonesia in the 1960s to work in the field of plantation agriculture in Sumatra. After discovering the mediaeval harbour site of Kota Cina near Belawan, Deli in 1972, he embarked on an MA and then a PhD in art history at Cornell University leading to his doctoral dissertation of 1984 on Kota Cina: its context and meaning in the trade of Southeast Asia in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Thereafter, alongside his professional consulting career, he never ceased to be deeply involved in archaeological and art historical research in Sumatra. Ed McKinnon published widely on subjects ranging from early inter-regional commerce between the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China; the trading activities of the Tamil guilds in west Sumatra; medieval trade ceramics in Sumatra; the location of the historic Sumatran ports of Lamuri and Fansur; and on Batak material imagery. In March 2023, over fifty years after his initial work at Kota Cina, he returned to North Sumatra and on this visit – much-feted in the Indonesian press – he urged the Governor to take measures to protect the many historical and archaeological sites of world importance. His sudden passing of a heart attack, on 23 June 2023, came as a great shock to his family, friends, colleagues and admirers.

Ed McKinnon in the museum store room at Muara Jambi, during the First International Conference on Jambi Studies, 2013. Photograph by A.T. Gallop.

Over the past few years, Ed McKinnon generously donated to the British Library a number of rare books relating to the history of north Sumatra from his personal collection, some dating from the 1970s. These books were mostly printed in Medan, the capital of the province of North Sumatra and the second largest city in Indonesia, and an important centre of the Malay press since the 1920s. One such local publication is a history of the city of Medan, Sejarah Kota Medan (2012) which by coincidence shows on page 2 a photograph of Ed McKinnon in a very characteristic activity: sorting through ceramic sherds.

Sejarah Kota Medan (2012). British Library, YP.2020.a.625

The oldest book donated by Ed McKinnon to the British Library was a work by the Sumatran writer and poet Dada Meuraxa published in 1974 on a cultural history of Sumatra, covering the whole island from Aceh in the north to Lampung in the south.

Front cover of: Dada Meuraxa, Sejarah kebudayaan Sumatera (1974). British Library, YP.2018.a.162

Also dating from the 1970s are three booklets by M.B. Purba, a retired army officer, all concerning the art and cultural heritage of the Simalungun Batak region to the north east of Lake Toba.

Three booklets by Let. Col. (Retired) M.B. Purba on aspects of Simalungun Batak culture: a history of the Simalungun Museum in Pematang Siantar (1978); a compendium of painted and carved design motifs (1979); and a treatise on the cultural traits of the Simalungun people (1977). British Library, YP.2018.a.165; YP.2018.a.163; YP.2018.a.164

A pictorial account of the growth of the Simalungun Museum in Pematang Siantar, from a single building in 1939 to a cluster of 11 traditional structures in the 1970s. M.B. Purba, Museum Simalungun (1978). British Library, YP.2018.a.165, p. 29

Another group of books given by Ed McKinnon relate to the renowned historian and cultural figurehead, Tengku Luckman Sinar (1933-2011), who published widely on all aspects of Sumatran Malay history and traditions. Tengku Luckman Sinar was the third son of Sultan Sulaiman Syariful Alam Syah (r. 1879-1946) of Serdang, on the northeast coast of Sumatra. Following the declaration of Indonesian indepencence in 1945 and the ensuing ‘Social Revolution’ in east Sumatra, which saw violent local uprisings against aristocratic families for perceived collaboration with the Dutch colonial forces, for most of the 20th century the royal courts of Sumatra lost all political power and functioned purely as guardians of traditional customs. However, after the fall of President Suharto in 1998 and subsequent state decentralisation, in many parts of Indonesia sultanates were revived and played an increasingly visible and influential role. Thus in 2001, after a long professional career as a writer and academic, and following the deaths of his two older brothers, Tengku Luckman Sinar was installed as Sultan Lukman Sinar Bashar Shah II of Serdang. The donations from Ed McKinnon include a biography of Tengku Luckman Sinar by his daughter Tengku Mira Sinar, accompanied by the programme of the launch event for that publication in Medan in 2016.

Publications relating to Tengku Luckman Sinar of north Sumatra donated by Ed McKinnon.

List of books donated to the British Library by Ed McKinnon, 2017-2022:
• Dada Meuraxa, Sejarah Kebudayaan Sumatera. Medan: Firma Hasmar, 1974. YP.2018.a.162
• Purba, M.D., Lingga Sitopu, S.A., Mengenal Lukis & Ukir Tradisional Simalungun (Painting and Ca[r]ving). Medan: M.D. Purba, 1979. YP.2018.a.163
• Purba, M.D., Mengenal Kepribadian Asli Rakyat Simalungun. Medan: M.D. Purba, 1977. YP.2018.a.164
• Purba, M.D., Obyek Wisata Museum Simalungun. Medan: M.D. Purba, 1978. YP.2018.a.165
• Sejarah Kota Medan. Medan: Pemerintah Kota Medan, Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah, 2012. YP.2020.a.625
• Yayasan Kesultanan Serdang (Medan). Sumatera Utara tempo doeloe. Koleksi gambar: Tuanku Luckman Sinar Basarshah II S.H. Medan: Yayasan Kesultanan Serdang, 2009. YP.2020.a.665
• Tengku Luckman Sinar. Mengenang kewiraan pemuka adat dan masyarakat adatnya di Sumatera Utara menentang kolonialism Belanda, oleh Tuanku Luckman Sinar Basarshah. Medan: Forkala, 2017. YP.2020.b.124
• Tengku Mira Sinar. Tengku Luckman Sinar, Melayu Nusantara dan strategi kebudayaan, oleh Tengku Mira Sinar; editor dan kata pengantar, Heddy Shri Ahimsa-Putra. Yogyakarta: Kepel Press, 2016. YP.2018.a.3499
• Peluncuran buku: ‘Tengku Luckman Sinar, Melayu Nusantara dan strategi kebudayaan’. Medan, 2016. YP.2020.a.664
• Ragam Pusaka Warisan Leluhur Nusantara: Pekan Raya Sumatera Utara, 18-24 Maret 2016. [Medan]: Pusaka Semenda Deli, 2016. YP.2023.b.194
• Tengku Lah Husny, Lintasan Sejarah. Peradaban dan Budaya Penduduk Melayu-Pesisir Deli, Sumatera Timur 1612-1950. Medan: privately printed by T. Lah Husny. (n.d. (1975))?. [shelfmark pending]

Ed and Sinta McKinnon at the British Library, June 2022. Photograph by A.T. Gallop.

Selamat jalan, Pak Ed.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

(Updated with correct date of birth, 1.8.2023)

This blog post on the use of manuscript textiles in Thailand and Laos, illustrated by examples in the British Library's Southeast Asian collections, is by Chevening Fellow Methaporn (Noon) Singhanan, who also took all the photographs of the items.

Thai and Lao manuscript textiles have a rich history that dates back to at least the 18th century. Buddhist teachings and scriptures, written on palm leaves or paper, were highly valued, and often adorned with intricate designs, illustrations, and calligraphy. Manuscript textiles were created to protect and preserve these texts from dust, humidity and insects and, as a result, many were transformed into beautiful pieces.


Luxury manuscript textile from northern Laos, made from a re-used tube skirt of exquisite quality, combining a silk and silver-thread tapestry (border) with a large piece of Ikat fabric (main body) and a cotton waistband. Ca. mid-20th century. British Library, Or 16886

Manuscript textiles were fabrics, usually made from finely woven cotton or silk, occasionally also hemp, using a variety of weaving techniques, such as tapestry and ikat. They were created in many different shapes and patterns and often were a mixture of materials, for example silk brocade with cotton lining. Sometimes they included repurposed monk’s robes, ritual cloths, curtains and women’s skirts. Another type of weaving used bamboo slats interwoven with colourful cotton yarn and pieces of fabric in order to provide greater strength.


Manuscript wrapper using bamboo slats that were inserted while weaving the textile with red, green, black and white cotton yarns. It was used to wrap ten palm leaf bundles containing Buddhist scriptures in Northern Thai Dhamma script, dated between 1827-74. British Library, Or 12401/B-C 

For centuries, textiles have been an integral part of women's lives in Thailand and Laos. From spinning raw cotton into yarn to weaving cloth, women have played a significant role in the creation of textiles. Often women planted the cotton shrubs, picked the cotton and dyed the yarn themselves. Textile production was a way for women to earn money and contribute to their families' income. In addition to their economic importance, textiles also held cultural significance. Traditional clothing and fabrics often reflected a community's values, beliefs, and history. Women were responsible for preserving these traditions by passing down textile-making techniques from generation to generation.

These manuscript textiles ranged from the luxurious to simple, and the materials used and their quality often reflected the wealth of the person offering the item. Decorative elements of these textiles include innovative geometric patterns and nature motifs.


Detail of a handwoven cotton shoulder cloth re-purposed as a manuscript wrapper with diamond pattern in red colour on white background, with a simple red-and-black border design. Used to wrap ten palm leaf bundles with texts on the perfections of the Buddha in Northern Thai Dhamma script, ca. 1880-1920. British Library, Or 16865

Manuscript textiles were highly appreciated works of art due to the time and skill required to create them by hand, and enjoyed an exceptional level of popularity in Northern Thailand and Laos during the 18th and 19th centuries. They showcase the skill and creativity of the master weavers who created them, offering a glimpse into the rich history and traditions of the area. Manuscript textiles also provided an opportunity for women artisans to express their devotion to their faith through weaving. The textiles were believed to carry the energy and power of the teachings they encased.


Detail from a handwoven silk-and-cotton manuscript textile depicting two large butterflies surrounded by colourful geometric patterns. Originally this was either a bedroom curtain or a shoulder cloth, then re-used to wrap palm leaf bundles. Northern Laos, ca. mid-20th century. British Library, Or 16597

In Theravada communities in Southeast Asia, the main form of accruing merit for men was to be ordained as a monk for a period, during which they learned to study and copy the scriptures. Although ordination remained an option for women, it was not widely practiced and even forbidden in some monastic orders. This meant that most women at that time could not study the scriptures in the formal way men did. Instead, the Buddha’s teachings were learned orally, and female devotees acted as patrons of the monastic communities and devoted themselves to supporting the Sangha (monastic order) in other forms. Since weaving has been a strongly gendered profession in Northern Thailand and Laos, creating cloths to store and preserve the scriptures was considered an important form of accruing merit for women.

Weavers had to learn to use a variety of techniques in order to create beautiful fabrics. Materials were selected carefully, and an elaborate cloth woven with a meditative state of mind counted as a valuable offering to honour the Buddha. Handwoven fabrics made in this way were therefore more refined and of a higher quality than handicrafts used in everyday life. Creating textiles on the basis of belief and faith in Buddhism was regarded as one of the Dhamma practices, with the hope that the produced virtue will contribute to a happy rebirth in the next life.


Detail from a handwoven manuscript textile depicting the popular chicken-and-ancestor motif. Northern Laos, ca. mid-20th century. British Library, Or 16597

The copying of manuscripts preserved the Buddhist teachings that were written down and passed on for centuries. Manuscripts were also used in meditation and prayer and were considered sacred objects. Manuscript textiles, which were used to wrap up the manuscripts in order to prevent damage by dirt, dust, intense sunlight, or insects, were thus comparable to protecting the Buddha’s words.

Sponsoring and offering manuscripts to a Buddhist temple has traditionally been an important and widely practised way of making merit, and as a result one would be re-born in fortunate circumstances. Anisong (Pali: ānisaṃsa) manuscripts praising the benefits of meritorious acts and gift-giving enjoyed great popularity across Thailand and Laos, and were often  themselves presented to monasteries alongside other manuscripts with beautiful cloth wrappers. Anisong texts frequently mention the virtue of creating scriptural manuscripts as a special meritorious act. It is believed that “one script character yields the same merit as the creation of one Buddha image” (Peltier 2014: 183).

Many Anisong manuscripts specifically mention the importance of offering textiles to wrap scriptures. A frequently found quote is: “A person who offers manuscript textiles will have a prosperous life full of barns, clothes, and plenty of food. The person who provides the manuscript cloth will go to the celestial palace, which will be decorated with various precious gems after their death” (Wichian 2006: 315).

In Lao culture, a common practice was to re-purpose tube-skirts (Pha Sarong or Sinh) or shoulder cloths (Pha Biang) - often the most luxurious a person or family owned - as manuscript wrappers. An explanation for this practice is that “… people donated Pha Sarong or Sinh because their son or daughter had died when they were very young. Their children thus had had no chance to wear beautifully woven clothes, so during their funeral ceremony the parents did not burn beautiful Sinh cloth with the bodies, but instead produced palm-leaf manuscripts wrapped with Sinh cloth to make merit for their dead children in the hope that in the next life they would live long enough to wear plenty of these clothes” (Legends in the weaving 2001: 89).

Handmade cotton cords with loops used to string three bundles of a palm leaf manuscripts containing Buddhist texts in Pali language with plain wooden covers. Central Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 4888

In addition to the manuscript wrappers, people could offer a cord made from silk or cotton yarn, which was used to string palm leaves together to create bundles or volumes of palm leaf scriptures. A method of binding palm leaf books going back to the first millennium was to put a looped cord through a hole that was drilled through the palm leaves on the left side; another hole on the right side was often left empty for ease of flipping the leaves while reading. Northern Thai and Lao Anisong manuscripts often contain a dedicatory phrase like “whoever offers the cords to string the palm leaf manuscript will dwell with the wise and not lose their treasures” (Wichian 2006: 319) or “Whoever ties a rope to a book will have a lot of wealth and infinite perseverance” (Wichian 2006: 315).


Handmade cotton cords with tassels, no loops, in dark red colour used to string five bundles of palm leaf manuscripts containing a Pali grammar, with lacquered and gilded covers. Central Thailand, 19th century. British Library, Or 4890

A white cotton cord mixed with long hair to string a palm leaf manuscript, with dedicatory inscription mentioning a woman from Lamphun Province as donor. Northern Thailand, 1949. British Library, Or 16985H

Manuscript textiles were not only works of art in and of themselves, but also mirror the social status and beliefs of the people who created them. For Northern Thai and Lao women the act of weaving wrappers and cords was analogous to the act of weaving the thread of faith, thus ensuring the preservation and continuation of the Buddha’s teachings.

Many of the practices and beliefs relating to manuscript textiles described above are still in use in Northern Thailand and Laos today. Since 2015, there has been a campaign with local communities and students to revive the custom of creating and offering traditional manuscripts with textiles at Lampang Province's Pongsanuk Temple. There are now many workshops and cultural events taking place in Northern Thailand to teach about making manuscript textiles in various techniques.


Creating manuscript textiles using colourful yarns by intertwining them with bamboo sticks. Methaporn Singhanan, Chiang Mai, Thailand, November 2020 (photo courtesy of จดหมายเหตุกรุงศรี Jod Mai Hed Krungsri)

Methaporn Singhanan, Chevening Fellow at the British Library 2022-23 

References and further reading
Andaya, Barbara Watson. Flaming womb: repositioning women in early modern Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, c2006.
Arthid Sheravanichkul. Narrative and gift-giving in Thai Ānisaṃsa texts. Buddhist narrative in Asia and beyond. Edited by Peter Skilling and Justin McDaniel, Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University, 2013, pp. 37-46. 
Gordon, Alec and Napat Sirisambhand. Evidence for Thailand's missing social history: Thai women in old mural paintings. International Review of Social History, 47(2), pp. 261-275. 
Legends in the weaving - ຜ້າແພນີ້ມີຕຳນານ [Phā phǣ nī mī tamnān]. Vientiane: The Japan Foundation Asia Center, 2001
Peltier, Anatole-Roger ed. อานิสงส์กลุ่มชาติพันธุ์ไท ในภูมิภาคลุ่มน้ำโขงและสาละวิน [ʿĀnisong klum chāttiphan Thai nai phūmmiphāk Lum Nam Khōng læ Sālawin] = Ānisaṃsa in Tai Buddhism = Les Ānisaṃsa dans le Bouddhisme Tai. Chīang Mai: Mahāwitthayālai Rātchaphat Chīang Mai, 2557 [i.e. 2014]
Seeger, Martin. Gender and the path to awakening: hidden histories of nuns in modern Thai Buddhism. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2018
Sundara, Ajahn. Women in Theravada Buddhism. British Library, 2019 
ผ้าห่อคัมภีร์วัดคงคาราม: ประวัติศาสตร์(ที่อยาก)บอกเล่า [Phā hō̜ khamphī Wat Khongkhārām: prawattisāt (thī yāk) bō̜k lao]. 2557 [i.e. 2014]
วิเชียร สุรินต๊ะ; อุไร ไชยวงค์ [Wichīan Surinta; ʿUrai Chaiyawong]. อานิสงส์ล้านนา: การปริวรรตและสาระสังเขป [ʿĀnisong Lānnā: kānpariwat læ sāra sangkhēp]. Chīang Mai : Sathāban Wičhai Sangkhom, Mahāwitthayālai Chīang Mai, 2549 [i.e. 2006]
อุไร คำมิภา [ʻUrai Khammiphā]. ผ้าห่อคำภีร์ใบลาน: ศรัทธาและปรารภนาแห่งสตรีไทย [Phā hō̜ khamphī bailān: satthā læ prārop nā hǣng sattrī Thai]. Nakhon Rachasima: King Rama IX Commemorative Library.

In collaboration with the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO), the British Library is currently digitising its complete collection of 70 palmleaf manuscripts from Java and Bali, written in Old Javanese, Javanese and Balinese. For a full list of manuscripts being digitised click here.

Ramayana in Old/Middle Javanese, from Bali, early 19th c. British Library, Add MS 12278 

For centuries palm leaf was the standard writing medium throughout India and Southeast Asia. The leaves, usually of the palmyra or talipot palms, were cut, treated and dried. Text was incised on the leaf with a sharp stylus or knife and then rubbed with ink, which settled in the grooves of the letters. Completed books were usually provided with hard covers made from either bamboo or wood, cut to the same size as the palm leaves, and a cord fed through the holes made in the leaves either at the centre or the ends, and wrapped around the bundle. Single leaves could also be used for letters, notes and other short documents.

In Java and Bali it is the palmyra that is used for palm leaf (lontar) manuscripts, which usually have four lines of text on each page. However, probably the oldest palm leaf manuscript in the British Library from Indonesia is a copy of Sang Hyang Hayu (MSS Jav 105) written in Old Javanese not on palmyra but on gebang (Corypha gebanga, Corypha utan Lam.), the use of which is associated with very old manuscripts from west Java. Until recently only 29 manuscripts on gebang were known to exist, mostly dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, with the oldest dated 1334 (Aditia Gunawan 2015); the British Library manuscript MSS Jav 105 brings  the number of this small corpus up to 30.  Although many leaves are intact, there are countless small fragments which have been grouped together on small strips of laminate, as shown below.

First page of Sang Hyang Hayu, Old Javanese text written on gebang leaf, ca. 15th-16th c.; each folio has been backed with laminate. British Library, MSS Jav 105, f. 1v 

Fragments of broken leaves from Sang Hyang Hayu, Old Javanese text written on gebang leaf, ca. 15th-16th c. British Library, MSS Jav 105

The most intriguing and potentially significant collection of palm leaf manuscripts from Java in the British Library is grouped together under shelfmark MSS Jav 53, acquired by Col. Colin Mackenzie during his stay in Java from 1811 to 1813. Mackenzie himself described them thus: “Twenty-four MSS. written on Cadjan [i.e. kajang] leaves in the Hindoo manner, most of them in the Javanese character, and some in a character yet undeciphered. From explanations of the titles of some they appear to belong to the ancient (or Dewa) religion of these islands; but though a native of superior intelligence was found capable of reading them, the prejudices of religion prevented any further information of the contents of books supposed to be adverse to the Muhammedan tenets. This difficulty might, however, have been got over. These MSS. are apparently ancient, and brought by the civility of a regent from a long deserted house in the distant forests, where they had lain neglected for years.” (Blagden 1916: xxix).

Ricklefs & Voorhoeve (1977: 65) identified the regent in question as Kyahi Tumenggeng Puger, and suggested that the manuscripts probably constituted a single collection from the vicinity of Puger on the south coast of East Java. MSS Jav 53 in fact consists of 35 separate manuscripts now numbered MSS Jav 53 a to MSS Jav 53 ii. Many of the manuscripts are damaged with leaves out of order, and some contain multiple texts, and so the discrepancy with Mackenzie’s own figure may be due to a miscount or result from manuscripts being separated into more than one bundle over the years.

First page of Sanghyang Kalimahosadha, in Old Javanese. British Library, MSS Jav 53 h, f. 1v 

Last page of Sanghyang Kalimahosadha, in Old Javanese. British Library, MSS Jav 53 h 

John Crawfurd served alongside Colin Mackenzie in the British administration of Java (1811-1816). Crawfurd formed a large collection of some 80 Javanese manuscripts which he sold to the British Museum in 1842 and are now in the British Library, of which however only six are written on palm leaf. They include two manuscripts in Old (or Middle) Javanese – a law book, Kutara Manawa, and a copy of the Ramayana – presented by the Rajah of Buleleng, on the north coast of Bali, on the occasion of Crawfurd’s visit in 1814. Unusually, both manuscripts are of the type called embat-embatan, consisting of palm leaves folded along the ridged centre of the leaf, yielding double thickness folios (van der Meij 2017: 193).

The Raja of Buleleng, shown with a piece of palm leaf in his left hand and knife for writing in his right hand. 'Raja of Bliling, in the Island of Bali, with a Female attendant', engraving by W.H. Lizars from a drawing by Capt. Delafosse, probably done in 1814 when Crawfurd visited Bali. From John Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago (Edinburgh, 1820), frontispiece to Vol. 3. British Library, T 11071 

Inscribed: ‘Ramayana, according to the Javanese paraphrase, in the Kawi or ancient character. This MS. was given to J. Crawfurd Esq. by the Rajah of Bliling, in the island of Bali.’ British Library, Add MS 12278, f. 1r. 

First page of the Ramayana in Old (or Middle) Javanese, showing the start of canto 19. British Library, Add MS 12278, f. 2v 

There is a rich tradition of illustrated palm leaf manuscripts in Bali called prasi, containing images ranging from depictions of narrative scenes from literary epics, to magical diagrams and calendars. From the early 20th century onwards, many examples were made for the tourist market, usually with illustrations on one side of the leaf and very brief captions on the reverse.

Usada, medical texts in Balinese, before 1938. British Library, Or 16801, f. 56v 

Illustrated scenes from Adiparwa; unusually red pigment is also used in the drawings in addition to black ink. Bali, before 1938. British Library, Or 16802, f. 4v 

Illustrated scenes from Bharatayuddha, with the names of the characters in roman script. Bali, 20th c. British Library, Or 13379, f. 6r 

One of the most commonly-found Javanese texts in palm leaf manuscripts is the Carita Yusup, the tale of the Prophet Joseph, the Nabi Yusuf of the Qur’an. There are eight palmleaf Javanese manuscripts of this story in the British Library collection, as well as other copies of this text on paper, with versions also found in Malay. Although Javanese palm leaf manuscripts are rarely decorated, several copies of the Carita Yusup and other Islamic texts have decorative frames on the first page enclosing just two lines of text, as shown in the two manuscripts below.

Carita Yusup, in Javanese, with an ornamental border; the first leaf is of double thickness and has been sewn together through the holes with thread. British Library, Or 9809, f. 123r   

Carita Yusup, in Javanese, with an elegantly decorated frontispiece. British Library, Or. 13329, f. 1r 

Over half the palm leaf manuscripts from Java and Bali held in the British Library to be digitised through this project are now already online, and the project will be completed within 2023.  There have been many challenges in digitising this collection of palm leaf manuscripts. Some of the manuscripts are in poor condition, with edges of leaves damaged by insects or by careless handling over the years. Sometimes the main issue is unsympathetic repairs with materials and methods which would nowadays be avoided, such as synthetic laminate across the whole leaf, which has lessened legibility of the text (as can be noted in the gebang manuscript above). Often the manuscripts are unstrung with leaves out of order, with new incorrect foliation or numbering (added by library staff in pencil) exacerbating the problems, meaning that the digitised images are often not in correct order.  One common problem is that when original Javanese foliation is present, in the digitised version the leaves are presented with the side bearing the folio number first (as is the norm for most British Library manuscripts), although this is in most cases actually the second page of the leaf.

Nonetheless, we hope that the advantages of having the manuscripts fully accessible digitally in their entirety, all with IIIF manifests, on the British Library's Universal Viewer from where images can be downloaded, will compensate for the inconveniences noted above. All the digital copies can be accessed directly via the British Library's online manuscripts catalogue, and as more manuscripts become available online, the direct links will be added to the catalogue records.

Further reading:

C.O. Blagden, Catalogue of manuscripts in European languages belonging to the Library of the India Office. Vol.I. The Mackenzie Collections. Part I. The 1822 Collection & the Private Collection. London: Oxford University Press, 1916.
Aditia Gunawan, Nipah or gebang? a philological and codicological study based on sources from West Java. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2015, 171: 249-290.
Jana Igunma, The beauty of palm leaf manuscripts: (1) Central Thailand (Blog, 20 November 2014)
Jana Igunma, The beauty of palm leaf manuscripts: (2) Northern Thai, Lao and Shan traditions (Blog, 23 January 2015)
Dick van der Meij, Indonesian manuscripts from the islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Julia Wiland, Rick Brown, Lizzie Fuller, Lea Havelock, Jackie Johnson, Dorothy Kenn, Paulina Kralka, Marya Muzart, Jessica Pollard & Jenny Snowdon, (2022) A literature review of palm leaf manuscript conservation—Part 1: a historic overview, leaf preparation, materials and media, palm leaf manuscripts at the British Library and the common types of damage, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 45:3, 236-259; (2023) A literature review of palm leaf manuscript conservation—Part 2: historic and current conservation treatments, boxing and storage, religious and ethical issues, recommendations for best practice, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 46:1, 64-91.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asia 

[Updated with Blagden reference on 3.7.2023.]

When the Sanskrit scholar Dr Reinhold Rost (1822-96) was appointed librarian of the India Office Library (IOL) in 1869 “He found the Library a scattered mass of priceless, but unexamined and unarranged manuscripts…” (Dictionary of National Biography). Among these manuscripts were seventeen folding books with texts in Thai language, bare of any illustrations or decorations. While Rost was familiar with numerous South Asian languages, in order to achieve his aim of cataloguing the library’s entire collection it proved very useful that he personally knew members of the Royal Asiatic Society from his previous post as the Society’s secretary from 1863-9. Many of them were scholars of Asian languages (see Rost’s correspondences, MSS Eur A86), including Henry Alabaster. Shortly before Rost’s IOL appointment, Alabaster had returned from Siam (since 1939 known as Thailand) where he had been working in the British Consular Service since 1857. The collaboration between Rost and Alabaster to create a “Catalogue of Siamese manuscripts” between ca. 1870-2 would later have an impact on the development of libraries and librarianship as a profession in Thailand.


Bangkok in the 1850s. Source: Travels in the central parts of Indo-China, Cambodia, and Laos, during the years 1858, 1859, and 1860. Memoir of H. Mouhot with illustrations. London, 1864.

Henry Alabaster, born on 22 May 1836 in Hastings, studied Classics and Chemistry at King’s College and gained the equivalent of a degree as an Associate of the College in the Applied Sciences in 1855. A year later he joined the China Consular Service and arrived in Hong Kong in September 1856, following his younger brother Chaloner Alabaster, an employee of the China Consular Service who worked closely with Sir John Bowring. As a result of the “Bowring Treaty” (Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between Great Britain and Siam), signed in 1855 and ratified a year later, a British consulate was established in Bangkok. Alabaster was transferred there as a Student Interpreter in March 1857. By 1864 he was Interpreter and had access to the royal library where leading Thai scholars introduced him to the Sanskrit and Pali languages and Buddhist scriptures. From 1867 he represented the British Consul when absent, serving as Acting Consul. In his role as interpreter he arranged for the attendance of Sir Harry Ord, then Governor of the Straits Settlements, at the solar eclipse event near Hua Hin on 18 August 1868, which King Mongkut (Rama IV) used as a powerful demonstration of the sovereignty and independence of the Siamese kingdom. However, a few weeks later the king died from malaria, and a series of unfortunate events, disagreements with the Siamese regent and within the Consular Service, and his own poor health, all led to Alabaster’s return to England in 1869.


Front cover and title page of The modern Buddhist…, a translation from Thai by Henry Alabaster. London, 1870. British Library, Siam.254

Back in the UK, Alabaster was not idle: apart from having three children with his wife Palacia between 1869-72 he worked on two books while living in London. In 1870 his translation from Thai with the title The modern Buddhist; being the views of a Siamese Minister of State on his own and other religions by Chao Phya Thipakon was published by Trübner & Co. The following year his second book, The Wheel of the Law. Buddhism illustrated from Siamese sources, appeared from the same publisher. However, with his growing family and the burden of supporting an elderly relative, financial pressures may have led him to look for additional sources of income. The fact that the IOL librarian Reinhold Rost was making great efforts to get the Thai and other manuscripts in the library’s collection catalogued at the same time when Alabaster was in London was a lucky coincidence.

There is no doubt that Rost gave Alabaster a thorough introduction into the standards of cataloguing manuscripts in Asian languages. While the British Museum was regarded as a pioneer in the methods of cataloguing manuscripts and artefacts, in the case of the cataloguing of Thai manuscripts Alabaster really made his mark, thanks not only to his skills and expertise as an interpreter for Thai, but also due to the knowledge of Thai literature he had acquired during his time in Bangkok. The “Catalogue of Siamese manuscripts” (MSS Eur B104) he produced for the IOL contains the most comprehensive and systematically compiled descriptions of Thai manuscripts one could find at that time.

Preserved fragments of the front cover and first page of Henry Alabaster’s original handwritten “Catalogue of Siamese Manuscripts”. British Library, MSS Eur B104 

The catalogue, recently restored from fragile fragments at the British Library’s Conservation Centre, contains detailed descriptions of the seventeen Thai manuscripts that Rost had found in the IOL, divided into three thematical sections: 1) Royal edicts and books of laws; 2) Miscellaneous; and 3) Novels and dramas.

Each record begins with the title of the text which was either found in the manuscript itself or worked out by Alabaster from the contents, followed by a short summary of the text. The second part of each record consists of a physical description of the manuscript, including writing materials, colour and book format, item size, number of folios, number of text lines on each folio, date (if found in the manuscript) or an estimated period of creation, remarks on spelling/grammar and handwriting. Where possible, Alabaster also included aspects of the historical and cultural context of the manuscript. Where previously published works or research on these texts existed, he added not only the bibliographic details but also the main points of these publications. Selected text passages were translated by Alabaster from Thai.

For example, the first record (MSS Siamese 1) describes “An Introduction to the Code of Siamese Laws founded on the Dharma Shastra” with a “portion of the Law of Married Persons” (ลักษณาพระ ธรรมศาสตร์ ลักษณาผัวเมีย). The text was written with white chalk pencil on black paper in folding book format. In addition to the physical description of the manuscript, Alabaster provided some historical context of Thai laws and a summary of a revised set of laws from the Ayutthaya period which were included in the Three Seals Code (กฎหมายตราสามดวง) of 1805. This is followed by references to secondary sources and translated text passages from this volume.

First paragraph of the Law of Married Persons in Thai language. British Library, MSS Siamese 1 

Bearing in mind that these laws date to before 1805, and in their essence possibly even to before 1767, some extracts Alabaster translated state: “A paramour shall be fined for his first offence and fined double for his second offence, but not fined at all for his third. The husband who still loves a woman who has thrice dishonoured him shall be punished … A man who boasts of former intimacy with a married woman shall be fined … Those guilty of incestuous offences shall be put in irons, branded, tattooed in the face, exposed with leather cords round their necks, fired at with cross-bow shots, flogged, and floated away … on rafts. Expiatory offerings shall be made to avert misfortune from the country” (pp. 3-4). Whilst these translations need to be treated with caution as they are uncritical (and unverified) interpretations of a Western male with the worldview and using the language of Victorian England, they give insights into the nature of Thai legal texts from the late Ayutthaya and Thonburi periods which are worth being fully translated and researched further.

The second record (MSS Siamese 2) describes “Kathu Phra Aiyakan, A Compendium of Laws” (กระทู้พระไอยการ), a text on assaults, abuse and the appraisement of fines, written with black ink on white paper. Again, Alabaster provided translations from this volume: “In cases of abuse if the aggressor abuses not only one individual but his family also, he shall pay a double fine. In cases of mutual abuse half the fine only shall be levied, and that not as compensation but as a fine to government”. Another paragraph, perhaps selected by Alabaster on reflection of the common practice of corporal punishment in European schools, states: “A man [person] who strikes another with a blank book shall be fined as though he had struck him with his hand, but if the assault is committed with a book of the Classics the offender shall be fined twice as much as he would have had to pay for assaulting with a stick.” (p.5)

First paragraph (following the ๏ fong man symbol) of the “Kathu Phra Aiyakan” law in Thai language. British Library, MSS Siamese 2

The last two records in the section on royal edicts and books of laws describe the text “Laksana Tat Fong” (ตัดฟ้อง) (MSS Siamese 3) that regulates plaints/allegations and dismissal of cases, written in white chalk on black paper; and the text “Phra Tham-nun” (พระทำนูน) or Royal Law (MSS Siamese 4) which includes rules for the general conduct of judicial business. This text was also recorded in white chalk on black paper.

All four texts described in this section were included in the Three Seals Code, but some were combined with other laws under a different title. At the end of the section, Alabaster discussed the amalgamation of older laws and the change of order and titles of some texts in the reformed legal code from 1805. His summary “Some of the Laws do not appear at all in the new code having been repealed or altered … Another notable difference is that in this volume [MSS Siamese 4] we find a special form appointed for taking the evidence of devotees, whilst the new Code states that devotees shall be treated in the same manner as other laymen …” (p.9) clarifies that the texts found in these four volumes are older than the Three Seals Code. Alabaster’s detailed descriptions, referencing secondary sources and brief discussion of the historical context of the manuscripts in his catalogue were extraordinary and well above the usual standards of Thai manuscript cataloguing at the time.

Nothing is known about the scribe(s) of these four texts or exact creation date(s) as they do not contain colophons, but they were formally accessioned into the library of the East India Company in 1852 (IOL from 1858). There they remained unexamined until Henry Alabaster started working on his catalogue, before a consequential career change took him back to Bangkok in 1872, which will be discussed in the upcoming second part of this blog post.

References and further reading

Alabaster, Henry. Henry Alabaster of Siam: correspondence 1857-1884 and career. [Great Britain]: Alabaster Society, 2009.
Alabaster, John S. Henry Alabaster of Siam 1836-1884: serving two masters. [Great Britain]: Alabaster Society, 2012.
Correspondence of Henry Alabaster and Palacia Alabaster (Accessed 14 May 2023)
Datta, Rajeshwari. “The India Office Library: Its History, Resources, and Functions.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 36, no. 2, 1966, pp. 99–148. JSTOR (Accessed 12 May 2023)
'List of the members of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. New Series, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1873), pp. 1-16. JSTOR (Accessed 12 May 2023) 
Orchiston, Wayne and Darunee Lingling Orchiston. “King Rama V, Sir Harry Ord and the total solar eclipse of 18 August 1868: power, politics and astronomy”. Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 24(2), 2021, pp. 389-404 

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

This is the third and final part of a blog post about the provenances of all the Batak manuscripts now held in the British Library. The first part looked at manuscripts in the British Museum up to 1900; the second described manuscripts from the library of East India Company, later known as the India Office Library; and this post looks more recent acquisitions to the present.

Studying provenance histories of manuscripts involves consulting multiple sources, primarily the items themselves. In the first post in this series, it was noted that Add 15678 – the third Batak manuscript to enter the British Museum – was acquired in 1846 from Joseph Lilly (1804-1870), a well-known London bookseller. More recently, a close examination of this Batak pustaha has revealed more information on its biography, including a brief sojourn in a royal British collection.


A blank page in the Batak pustaha containing notes by a British Museum official. British Library, Add 15678, f. 66v and cover

The final leaf of the manuscript, shown above, bears some notes in black ink by a British Museum staff member recording the shelfmark as ‘15,678’ and adding ‘Sussex Sale Lot 2’. The ‘Sussex Sale’ refers to the sale by auction of the library of Augustus Frederick (1773-1843), Duke of Sussex and ninth child of King George III. The Duke was a great bibliophile, who assembled a collection of over 50,000 books and manuscripts, especially strong in theology. This library was built up from 1819 to 1830 through individual purchase rather than by acquiring large collections, overseen by the Duke’s librarian and surgeon, Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.


The Duke of Sussex pictured in his library, surrounded by tall bookshelves. Image source: Peter Kidd, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773–1843) 

The Duke died in 1843 having acquired considerable debts in his lifetime, and his complete library, the Bibliotheca Sussexiana, was sold at auction by Messers. Evans of Pall Mall in six parts over many days between July 1844 and August 1845. The manuscripts were dispersed in the second part of the sale, held over four days from 31 July 1844, and Lot 2, described as ‘An Oriental Manuscript, written on the Bark of a Tree’, is the Batak manuscript now catalogued as Add 15678. The hand-written note on the manuscript also states ‘Purch? of J. Lilly, 12 Jan. 1846’, the question mark perhaps indicating that rather than being purchased from Joseph Lilly, he may have been commissioned by the British Museum to acquire this Batak manuscript at the Sussex sale, to add to the two already held in the Museum by that date (Add 4726 and Add 11546).

The main text in this pustaha, with Toba Batak writing, is Poda ni pamusatan ni porsili si balik bija na bolon, on an image given to the spirits as a substitute for a patient. Although there is no information on how this Batak manuscript ended up in the royal Sussex library, it is most likely to have come via an East India Company official serving in west Sumatra.  The Batak manuscripts given by Richard Parry (Resident of Bengkulu 1808-1810) to the India Office Library  in 1817 bear notes showing an awareness of the religio-medicinal contents, and it is possibly these aspects that might have appealed to Pettigrew, the Duke’s surgeon who played an important role in building up the royal library.

First page of the auction catalogue for the Second Part of the sale of the Bibliotheca Sussexiana held on 31 July 1844; Lot 2 refers to the Batak manuscript now held as British Library Add 15678.

Little is known about the provenances of most of the Batak manuscripts acquired in the 20th century other than the names of the individual donors of vendors. Or 6898 was purchased from D. Admiraal in 1908, while Or 8196 was presented by Lt. G. C. Hartley in 1918. Two small pustaha, Or 11761 and Or 11762 (one with an exceptionally finely carved wooden cover) were both presented by Miss F. Sprange on 11 March 1944. Or 12587 was presented by Mr A. Matthewson in March 1961, while Or 13330, comprising two bone amulets, was acquired in August 1971, but nothing is known of its origins.


Left, Or 11761, with its finely carved wooden covers, plaited rattan strap and carrying string; and right, a side view of Or 11762, which only has one wooden cover at the top. British Library, Or 11761 and Or 11762 

In 1973 the British Library was founded by bringing together the collections of the British Museum Library and a number of other libraries. In the department variously named Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books, Oriental Collections, Oriental and India Office Collections, and now called Asian and African Collections, manuscript acquisitions continue to be assigned shelfmarks in the ‘Or’ ('Oriental') sequence. The first Batak manuscript acquired by the newly-formed British Library, Or 13957, was received from Mr R.E. Hughes in August 1980. Or 14808 was bought from Sotheby’s, 28 April 1993, lot 188, and was said to have been the property of the late Prof. Dortmund. In 2010 Or 16736, an inscribed bamboo cylinder, was purchased from Thomas Artmann of Bonn; he had purchased it in an antique shop in Bonn in 2009, but the manuscript appears to have been in Europe for some decades because it is accompanied by a note in German stating that it had been identified by Dr. P. Voorhoeve (1899-1996) of Leiden.


Bamboo cylinder inscribed with a divination text in Karo Batak. British Library, Or 16736

A decade later, in 2019 the British Library purchased a small collection of five Batak manuscripts, Or 16995-16999 from Brian Corrigan of Dublin. Corrigan had bought them in an auction conducted by Fonsie Mealy, Carlow, on 20 November 2018, of the entire contents of Milford House, Carlow, Ireland. The house had been in the Alexander family since around 1800. Although there is no evident connection with Sumatra, one family member – Major John Alexander III (1850-1944) – was known to have been in Africa and Tibet in the late 19th-early 20th century, and the contents of the house listed for auction included a small number of Oriental ‘curios’, including two Burmese Buddha figures, Japanese netsuke and Imari ceramics, and Chinese ceramics. All this suggested that the Batak manuscripts had been brought to Ireland around the turn of the last century.


Illustration from the Fonsie Mealy auction catalogue of 20 November 2018, lot 392, where the Batak manuscripts (now Or 16995-16999) were described as ‘Coptic books’.

The Batak manuscripts in the British Library were all digitised in 2022 in collaboration with Hamburg University and are listed here. Recataloguing the manuscripts online as part of this project provided an impetus to carry out new provenance research, which involved a lot of googling of the individuals involved with the term ‘Batak manuscripts’. By chance, this internet research also brought up a Batak manuscript being offered for sale by a Clive Farahar, a rare book dealer based in Somerset, which led to the most recent Batak acquisition by the British Library in 2022. Or 17025 is a pustaha containing on one side a text on divination using the cock oracle, and on the other, a prescription for destructive magic. A paper label attached to the upper wooden board reads: "From a visit to the British Museum 19.4.72. This is the note book of a medicine man dictated to his pupils. It comes from Sumatra and is approx. 200 years old. There are about 20 in the British Museum. No one can translate it. Medicine books often have cocks."


A Batak pustaha brought to the British Museum for identification in 1972. British Library, Or 17025

Researching provenance in the present day is of course easier in that information can be obtained directly from the vendors concerned. Clive Farahar informed me he had recently purchased the Batak manuscript from another dealer, Dr Christian White of Ilkley, Yorkshire. In turn, White had purchased it at a sale at Chorley's Auction House in Gloucestershire on 31 January 2017 as Lot 470, described as a 'Sumatra medical book', from 'the estate of the Late Mr Arthur Golding Barrett'. Arthur Golding Barrett (1904-1976) was a well-known antique dealer in the mid-20th century specialising in 17th-century European metal works. White presumed that Golding Barrett had come into possession of the Batak manuscript during his active dealing days, most likely around the 1950s or 1960s. Or 17025 is the only Batak manuscript in the British Library not yet digitised, which we hope to do soon.

The information presented in these three blog posts has tried to trace the provenance histories of all the 38 Batak manuscripts in the British Library. Three broad scenarios can be sketched. The earliest acquisitions in both the British Museum and the India Office Library can be linked to the presence of the East India Company factory at Bengkulu from 1684 to 1824, which managed a string of smaller British trading posts positioned along the west coast of Sumatra northwards, reaching into Batak territories. The second wave of acquisitions, later in the 19th century, appear to derive from Dutch colonial expeditions into north Sumatra, and concurrent Christian missionary campaigns. Around the turn of the 20th century, Orientalist interest spurred a surge in collecting Batak manuscripts as bibliographic trophies, such as those which ended up at Milford House in Ireland.

However information about the actual moments of exchange, when these manuscripts passed from their traditional owners into the hands of Europeans, largely remains unrecorded. Undoubtedly a number were seized in military expeditions, or forcibly confiscated by Protestant missionaries, while others may have been copied especially for a foreign collector, or purchased or presented. It is the earliest acquisitions of Batak manuscripts in the 18th and early 19th centuries, notably by Alexander Hall and Richard Parry from the East India Company base at Bengkulu, which evidence glimpses of a genuine interest in the contents on the texts and a process of knowledge exchange, while many later acquisitions were little more than exotic curiosity collecting.

Further reading:
M.C. Ricklefs, P. Voorhoeve and Annabel Teh Gallop, Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain. New edition with Addenda et corrigenda. Jakarta: Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, 2014.
Blog, 18 April 2022, The provenance histories of Batak manuscripts in the British Library (1): The British Museum collection to 1900 
Blog, 20 June 2022, The provenance histories of Batak manuscripts in the British Library (2): The India Office collection 

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia 

Through the generous support of William and Judith Bollinger, 120 Javanese manuscripts from the British Library’s collection have just been digitised and are now fully accessible online. The manuscripts date from the 17th to the early 20th centuries, and are written on paper in both Javanese script (hanacaraka) and adapted Arabic script (pegon), and include a few manuscripts in Old Javanese. A full list of the newly-digitised manuscripts can be found here.

Menak story, early 19th c. British Library, Add MS 12296, ff. 1v-2r

The manuscripts include those collected by John Crawfurd and Colin Mackenzie, two East India Company officials who served under Thomas Stamford Raffles during the British occupation of Java (1811-1816), as well as more recent acquisitions in the British Library. The Crawfurd collection is especially rich in Javanese literary and historical works, many of which are adorned with beautiful frontispieces with double illuminated frames (wadana) surrounding the text. These are probably the work of artists from the Pakualaman, the minor court of Yogyakarta, which was founded in 1812 following the British attack on the Sultan’s palace in Yogyakarta. The Pakualaman was created by the British as a reward for their ally Prince Natakusuma, who was installed as Paku Alam I. Seven of these manuscripts have the traditional Javanese ‘diamond-on-rectangle’ style of double decorated frames, as shown above, while 11 others have ‘gateway’ (wadana gapura) style decorated frontispieces, in the form of architectural constructs resembling ancient temples (candi), replete with pedestals, columns and domes, as in the example below.

Babad Sejarah Menteram, early 19th c. British Library, Add MS 12287, ff. 2v-3r

The newly-digitised collection also includes many manuscripts from the coastal (pesisir) regions of the island of Java. Among the highlights is a finely illustrated copy of Panji Jaya Kusuma, which was created in the port-city of Surabaya on the north coast of Java for a female patron, named in the text as Nyonyah Sakeber, ‘Madame Gezaghebber’. She has been identified by Peter Carey as the wife of Frederik Jacob Rothenbühler (1758-1836), the German-born Chief Administrator (Gezaghebber) of the Eastern Salient of Java (Oosthoek), in the decade 1799-1809. The use of the title nyonya hints that she was probably a local Javanese or of mixed blood.

Panji Jaya Kusuma, Surabaya, 1805. British Library, MSS Jav 68, ff. 31v-32r 

Other manuscripts are of particular interest for their texts rather than any decorative features, including a compilation of the works of Kiai Haji Ahmad Rifai of Kalisalak (1786-1870). He was a pioneering Javanese religious scholar renowned for establishing a school (pesantren) where the curriculum was based not on the standard corpus of Arabic works, but on his own compositions in Javanese written in pegon (Arabic) script. Kiai Haji Ahmad Rifai actively commentated on various social issues, and for example issued a fatwa (religious verdict) banning the smoking of opium and tobacco. His wide influence attracted the attention and suspicion of the Dutch colonial authorities, and in 1859 he was exiled to Ambon in the Moluccas for the rest of his life.

Nazham tazkiyyah and other works by Kiai Haji Ahmad Rifai of Kalisalak, 1845. British Library, Or 13523, f. 2v

One of the manuscripts digitised is a very simple and plain-looking manuscript of a primbon – a compendium of religious texts and prayers pertaining to divination. Both from the handwriting, and the Javanese treebark paper (dluwang) on which it is written, this manuscript looks extremely old, and may date back to the early 17th or even late 16th century. It is wrapped in an official document from Cirebon dated 1849, possibly linking the manuscript to that region of coastal west Java. The manuscript was presented to the British Museum in 1905 by A. W. Hurst Boram. Digitisation of these Javanese manuscripts has also spurred further research into their provenance histories. In this case, it turns out that the donor, Boram, was married to Hendrika Cornelia Albers, who had been born in Cianjur, as her father Christiaan Albers (1837-1920) was a Dutch missionary in west Java. It is thus likely that the manuscript originated from west Java.

Primbon, possibly early 17th century. British Library, Or 6622, ff. 4v-5r 

The completion of the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project drew on the skills and support of many different staff across the British Library, with the particular challenges of commencing this project in the middle of the coronovirus pandemic, and across two national lockdowns in 2020 when all British Library buildings were closed. First, conservators checked every single manuscript to ensure they were in a fit state for digitisation, and made repairs as necessary, as shown below with a copy of an Old Javanese inscription which was originally folded, ragged and torn. Next the manuscripts were all photographed in the Imaging Studios, yielding a total of 35,880 digital images, amounting to 4.2 TB of data. Each of these images then had to be checked for quality control by the BL’s Heritage Made Digital team – with some images having to be reshot if, for example, a stray hair was visible on the page – and finally all the manuscripts were published online on the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts portal. Over the next few years, the digital images will be migrated to the new Universal Viewer, where they will all be equipped with IIIF manifests.

A paper copy made during the British administration of Java of the Hantang inscription dated 1135 (now in the National Museum of Indonesia, see below), with an interlinear transcription of the Old Javanese text into modern Javanese characters, and translation into modern Javanese in cursive black ink. This manuscript had to be cleaned, repaired and flattened prior to digitisation. British Library, MSS Jav 95, top   

The top of the Hantang stone inscription of 1135, with the Narasiṅha emblem of Jayabhaya at the top. Museum Nasional, Jakarta, D.9 (photograph by A.T. Gallop, 2011).

William and Judith Bollinger always made clear their wish to see collaborations embedded at the heart of this project, for which British Library has partnered with the National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas). On 24 May 2023, the British Library welcomed the Director of the National Library of Indonesia, Mr Muhammad Syarif Bando, and senior colleagues, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, and four manuscript curators from Perpusnas will soon be visiting the British Library to contribute their expertise on Javanese manuscripts and enhance the metadata of the catalogue descriptions. On the same day, at an event to celebrate the completion of the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project, Dr Luisa Elena Mengoni, Head of the Asian and African Collections at the British Library, presented to Mr Bando a hard drive containing a complete set of the digital images of the 120 Javanese manuscripts.  The British Library will also be collaborating with MANASSA, the Association of Indonesian Manuscript Scholars, on a small project to promote the use and study of these newly-digitised Javanese manuscripts.

The Director of the National Library of Indonesia, Mr Muhammad Syarif Bando, and senior colleagues, with Prof. Khairul Munadi, Education and Culture Attache at the Indonesian Embassy in London, and British Library staff, celebrating the completion of the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project on 24 May 2023.

Building on earlier projects to digitise Javanese manuscripts in the British Library – notably the Javanese Manuscripts from Yogyakarta Project (2017-2019) funded by Mr S. P. Lohia, which digitised 75 manuscripts originating from the palace of Yogyakarta taken by the British in 1812, and an earlier project supported by the Henry D. Ginsburg Legacy (2012-2017) – this means that all the Javanese manuscripts written on paper held in the British Library, numbering around 200, are now digitised. [The British Library is currently also collaborating with the EFEO DHARMA project to digitise the 70 palm leaf manuscripts written in Javanese, Old Javanese and Balinese, which will be completed later this year in 2023.] The critical mass of Javanese manuscript literature now available online has also led to a new collaboration with the Foundation for Javanese Literature, Yayasan Sastera Lestari (Yasri). The beautifully illustrated British Library manuscripts Serat Damar Wulan (MSS Jav 89) and Serat Sela Rasa (MSS Jav 28) were amongst the first to be digitised, and Yasri has romanised these texts and made them accessible online on the sastra.org website, with page-by-page hyperlinks to the digitised manuscripts. Thanks to support from the Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts project, Yasri will now be romanising twenty more Javanese manuscripts from the British Library covering a range of literary and historical texts including Serat Banten (Add MS 12304), Serat Sejarah Demak (Add MS 12333) and Serat Babad Sengkala (Add MS 12322).

The Yasri page on sastra.org with the romanisation of Serat Damar Wulan, British Library, MSS Jav 89.

Other collaborations which have evolved in tandem with the increasing number of Javanese manuscripts from the British Library now online are with Wikimedia Indonesia. In March 2023 the Wikisource Competition (Kompetisi Wikisumber 2023) was held to transcribe Javanese manuscripts into machine-readable Javanese script, focussing on British Library manuscripts already romanised by Yasri such as Serat Damar Wulan, in order to facilitate cross-checking. Wikisource loves manuscripts is a pilot project to enhance the OCR (optical character recognition) and HTR (hand-written text recognition) capabilities of Transkribus to transcribe Javanese and other Indonesian scripts, using digitised manuscripts from the British Library. But alongside these technologically ambitious projects, there are countless scholars, readers and artists who are daily delighting in reading and reciting these Javanese literary gems, and gaining inspiration from their beautiful illuminations and illustrations.

Blog posts
16 May 2022, Bollinger Javanese Manuscripts Digitisation Project: 120 more Javanese manuscripts to be digitised 
15 Aug 2022, 40 more Javanese manuscripts now accessible online 
26 September 2022, Frederik Jacob Rothenbühler and his wife as collectors of Javanese manuscripts in the early 19th century, by Prof. Peter Carey, Jakarta

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asia 

This guest blog is by Jim Potter, an independent researcher who studies the history of Tenasserim, and Ni Ni Aung, a resident of Myeik (Mergui), who assisted in the translation, transcription and interpretation of this letter.

Burmese shell book, Myeik, ca. 1907. British Library, Or 16052.

This extraordinary memorial (Or 16052) was presented to a bayinkan (ruler) who visited southern Myanmar around 1907. It is a beautiful letter in formal Burmese, printed in silk and encased in an oyster shell, but it was also clever diplomacy from a place that had dealt with capricious foreign kings for centuries. In fact, the region's port was founded by a distant kingdom in 1531 when Ayutthaya ended the long, autonomous history of Tāṇa-sirī (sometimes pronounced ‘Tenasserim’). Silt had shuttered the old roadstead at Tawnauklae, so the Thais established a new one at Khe Hill. They called it Marit. Myanmar called it Myeik. Europeans called it Mergui (Sein 1929, chs. 10-11).

Tenaserey, 1688: detail from 'Map of the coast of Pegu and Tenaserey with the neighbouring islands on the scale of 8 leagues to an inch', by John Thornton, 1688. (This map was drawn shortly after the violent ending of Samuel White's tenure as shahbandar or harbour master of Marit, the true story of which remains to be told). British Library, Add MS 39178C

After 1531, monsoons and geographic isolation meant that local lords remained little bothered by sovereigns in Ayutthaya, Bago, Ava, Calcutta or Rangoon. One imagines that the ok-phra Marit (official in charge of Mergui under Thai rule) who dealt with strange new Europeans in 1622 might have found sympathy with the Myeik myowun (equivalent official under Myanmar rule) who governed its beleagured stockade in 1780, or deputy commissioners who administered sleepy Mergui after 1825. All of these ‘mayors’ were granted a large degree of autonomy at the price of neglect from the capital.

For the latter rulers, Mergui became a backwater of the British Empire. Lacking teak and with its overland trade route displaced by steam power, it was a place where disfavoured civil servants were exiled into obscurity. When E.M. Ryan arrived in 1857 he called the assignment “a species of banishment” and demanded “any other appointment ... in a more civilized part of the world.” (Mss Eur F699/1/2/2/68). Maurice Collis half-agreed during his time there in the 1930s, though he wept when he left.

The waterfront of Mergui, ca. 1897. Photo by William Sutherland in his article, "South Tenasserim and the Mergui Archipelago", Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 14, no. 9 (1898). 

Arguably, this isolation allowed the town to retain its unique identity, vibrant culture, and admirable tradition of tolerant diversity. However, it slowed development to a crawl, and government reports included Mergui almost as an afterthought. Maps of Burma casually lopped off Tenasserim when it didn’t fit on the page.

An opportunity to counter the neglect came during a visit by Lieutenant-Governor Herbert Thirkell White. The dates are uncertain, but possibly he arrived in 1907 after seeing a report on Mergui’s progress (IOR/V/27/314/29), and prior to a tour of Burma by the Earl of Minto, Viceroy and Governor-General of India. Though the viceroy did not venture to the far south, his visit was a grand affair judging by the entourage and security arrangements (Mss Eur E254/31). If this timeline is correct, civic leaders of Mergui were surely savvy enough to recognize the opportunity of direct appeal to the seats of British power.

Many others desired the same access, of course, and most were better placed for success. If the town wanted to get attention, how better than with a beautiful letter, written on silk stretched across ornate brass frames, enclosed within a huge oyster shell from the Mergui Archipelago where the ingaleik bayinkan (English governor) had enjoyed his recent holiday?

(Left) the back cover of the oyster shell book, and (right) the inside back cover, showing the intricately carved brass leaf attached to the 'binding'. British Library, Or 16052.

The red cloth wrapper of the shell book; Myeik residents say the textile is Karen-style, though other ethnicities would wear it as well. British Library, Or 16052, wrapper.

The letter is written in poetic phrases, but it is not a poem. Instead it mimics the way officials reported to Myanmar kings by humbly lowering themselves to the floor, raising their palms together above the head in letoakchi (signifying profound deference to a superior) and speaking short phrases interrupted by calm breaths. For example, to describe the dangers of the sea during the southwest monsoon, the authors wrote:

ဒေဝါသွန်းချိုး (rain drops come)၊ စည်မူရိုးဖြင့် (sound of Muyo-drum to represent thunder)၊ ထစ်ကြိုးအဟုန် (strongly strike)၊ လေပြင်းသုန်လျက် (strong winds blow)၊ အမ္ဗန်ညှိုးညံ (strike with anger)၊ ဂရက်မြန်လျက် (choppily)၊ သည်းထံစွာရွာသွန်းသော (rain heavily)၊ မိုဃ်းဥတုအခါဝယ် (in the rainy season)၊

This structure and language are troublesome for precise translation into English prose. We believe the version given to Lieutenant-Governor White would have been something like, “It being dangerous to travel in the sea during the strong winds, thunder and heavy, angry rains of the monsoon ....”

The second page of text of the shell book. British Library, Or 16052, f. 2r.

The letter also contains a notable contrast: respectful metaphors such as, “It gave us great happiness in seeing you, like a flower being watered”, are placed beside emphatic requests for costly improvements. Perhaps the authors knew their unique letter would be seen and decided to push the rare opportunity to the limit.

Their requests were well-chosen. Transportation had always been a problem in Tenasserim, so the letter begins by suggesting that recently built large roads should be connected by new smaller ones. Besides bringing ‘prosperity and happiness”, the authors note how this network would aid mining operations. In fact, a decade later Tenasserim became a major source of wolfram which was essential for munitions in the First World War (Myanmar National Archives MNA 1/7 1148 & 1162; IOR/L/E/7/1369-1370).

"The main street of Mergui", ca. 1907, photo by R.N. Rudmose Brown in “The Mergui Archipelago: its people and products.” Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 23 (1907).

Similarly, the people asked for a steamship “to run once a week between the towns of Palaw, Myeik, Bokpyin and Maliwun”. The first- and last-named places had promising tin mines, while Bokpyin was close to the pearling grounds. It was unnecessary to remind the governor that a steamer could also help secure the vast Mergui Archipelago, which had been a haven for pirates, poachers and plunderers for thousands of years. In turn, residents would finally be freed from monsoonal isolation and the leaky vessels that had been assigned to the coast (see, for example: “Rangoon Tavoy & Mergui”, c. 1892, James Caird Library, BIS/7/2).

Unidentified wreck in the treacherous waters of the Mergui Archipelago.

Public health came next. Requests included a safe water supply, reclaiming swampy land in Nauklae Quarter, a new hospital, and a sewage system. The items seem especially targeted towards cholera. Reports showed that it was extant throughout the year across Tenasserim, and periodically erupted in terrifying epidemics with shocking fatality rates (IOR/V/27/44/3; IOR/V/27/60/87; Mss Eur G66; MNA 1/7 92).

   
Harbour maps: (left) detail of "Mergui Harbour," Marine Survey of India, 1885, British Library, Maps SEC.12.(218.) [digitally enhanced for viewing]; (right) detail of HIND 1036 Mergui, 1st ed., Great Britain War Office, September 1945. Nauklae Quarter is the southern part of town.

Residents stated plainly: “The many developments shown above will cost a large amount of money, so the municipality needs increased funding.” They were eager to do their own part by securing a loan to pay their way, and by establishment of a bilingual science school to grow the local economy. History and geography had made communities of Tenasserim exceptionally strong and self-reliant. In the new century, though, they needed help to keep pace.

Did the letter get the governor’s attention? We haven’t yet found correspondence on the matter in the India Office Records, but we do have a 1912 Mergui gazetteer by G.P. Andrew. He reported that road transport remained so poor that farmers were unable to develop agricultural markets. On the other hand, a series of bridle paths had been hacked through the forests in 1908-9, and more plans were either being drawn or “in contemplation”. Unfortunately, the government continued contemplating for another thirty years (IOR/L/MIL/17/19/23).

Better success occurred at sea. By 1909 the British India Steam Navigation Company had changed its fortnightly service from Rangoon into a weekly voyage. The BISN augmented this with a separate weekly steamer to Mawlamyine, while the paddleboat Amarapoora called at smaller coastal towns between Palaw and Victoria Point (Kawthaung). This network was connected to Penang by the Koe Guan Steamship Company, a Thai-Chinese family firm that employed old British shellbacks as captains (Andrew 1912; Blain 1940).

For public health, Andrew reported that a new hospital was “about to be erected”. This seems to be the same structure that now serves the administration of Myeik Public Hospital in Kankaung Quarter. Marks on old roof tiles lead to an Indian company that was founded in 1916, so either construction was delayed by the war or the new hospital was damaged by a massive town fire around 1913. As always, the people endured and rebuilt.

Myeik Public Hospital, built ca. 1912. Photo by Jim Potter.

Residents said they wished to combat the “ninety-six kinds of illness”. The hospital aided this traditional cause, and new scourges were slowly brought under control as well. The last epidemics of smallpox and cholera likely occurred during Japanese occupation in the Second World War, and in the terrible aftermath when Mergui struggled to rejoin the world (Mss Eur D1080/20–28).

Nauklae Quarter was slowly transformed from a swamp into a busy neighbourhood (MNA 1/7 1217 & 1248). Likewise, Myeik’s water and sewage systems were stabilised, though their construction was a process rather than a single event. Larger civic improvements were accomplished in the boom years of the 1920s and again after independence. In particular, the Myeik District Pyidawtha Association did extensive public works in the early 1950s (Maung Pye Chan 1989). Nonetheless many residents still rely on the town’s ancient wells for washing and bathing.

Amoulyedwin well, Myeik, 2019. Photo courtesy of Jamie Skinner. 

Can we therefore conclude that Myeik’s beautiful shell letter to the Bayinkanmin-ashin-thakin-phaya (the full honorific title of the governor) was a qualified success? It would seem so, which might be a good thing to remember in our disposable days of spam and Instagram.

The full text of the Burmese letter in Or 16052 with a transcription and English translation can be found here: Shell letter transcription and translation.

Further reading:
U Gyi Sein. Tanintharyi Yazawin: the chronicles of Tenasserim. Thet Ko Ko, tr., Jim Potter and the people of Tanintharyi, eds. (James & Hook Books; 2023). Originally published as: တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းမြိတ်ရာဇဝင်တော်ကြီ : “Tanintharyi Division Myeik Chronicle.” (English-Myanmar Printing Press; Myeik Township; 1929). The Myanmar text is available on archive.org.
Andrew, George Percy. Burma Gazetteer, Mergui District, volume A. (Gov. of Burma; Rangoon; 1912).
Blain, William. Home is the Sailor: the life of William Brown, master mariner & Penang pilot. (Sheridan House; New York; 1940).
Collis, Maurice. Into Hidden Burma. (Faber & Faber; London; 1953).
Maung Pyae Chan. ဓာတ်ပုံကပြောသော မြိတ်သမိုင်း မှတ်တိုင်များ, ‘Historical Landmarks of Myeik in Photos’ (Than Swe; Yangon; 1989). English translation forthcoming.

Jim Potter and Ni Ni Aung

When first published in 1783, The History of Sumatra by William Marsden represented the first systematic account of the island of Sumatra published in English or any other European language. The History (henceforth) was highly praised by contemporary scholars and writers and secured Marsden’s reputation as an author, linguist and collector, a reputation that continues to the present day.

Born in 1754 in County Wicklow, Ireland, Marsden was raised in a moderately wealthy family and at the age of 16 joined his elder brother in the service of the English East India Company (EIC henceforth) at Fort Marlborough, now Benkulu, in western Sumatra, Indonesia, as a writer. Marsden remained in Sumatra for 8 years, rising to the rank of Principle Secretary to the EIC Government but resigned from his post aged 24 and returned to London in December 1780, where he pursued a career as an author scholar and later as the First Secretary to the Admiralty (1804-1807).

During his time in Sumatra however, Marsden not only fulfilled his role for the EIC but became an avid collector and documented of the island’s languages, fauna and flora – all of which came to underpin the contents of the History with its chapters of ‘beasts’, ‘vegetables’, ‘medicinal shrubs’, ‘gold, tin and other metals’ and ‘languages’ to name just a few.  

The success of the 1783 first edition was such that a second edition quickly followed in 1784, at the same time in which Marsden was firmly establishing himself in London’s networks of science and learning, following his appointment as a fellow of the Royal Society (1783) and the Society of Antiquaries (1785). Marsden continued to write and publish following the second edition of the History, including a Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language (both 1812), a translation of The Travels of Marco Polo (1818) and Numismata Orientalia Illustrata (1823-5) one of the most influential early publications on Asian coinage produced in Britain and Europe. These works illustrated the broad range of subjects - from linguistics to coins to travel accounts that interested Marsden following his return from Sumatra. The History was also translated into German (1785) and French (1788) however Marsden was keen to prepare a new edition of the History, updated with new information and illustrations acquired from his friends and connections still in Sumatra. It would be this updated version, the third edition of 1811 with an additional 100 pages of text and 19 plates containing 27 engraved illustrations of the plants, animals, people, tools and landscapes of Sumatra. Of the 27 illustrations, twelve record different animals found in Sumatra that are described in the main text of the History. What is interesting is that all but one of the illustrations of animals in the History were based on watercolour paintings and pen and ink studies now held in the Visual Art collections of the British Library.

These original works include a study of a Sunda or Malayan pangolin, shown standing in profile on an outcrop of rock, with its coat of scales clearly delineated. This watercolour with pen and ink sketch was used as the basis for plate 10 of the History, and although the original painting is not signed, according to the engraving, the work was made by ‘W. Bell’ believed to have been Dr William Bell, a Company surgeon based in Sumatra in 1792.

Plate 10 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a Sunda pangolin and the original watercolour with pen and ink sketch, NHD1/16, 1784-1808

The original paintings for other works labelled as being the work of ‘W. Bell’ in the History are also found in the Library’s collection of natural history drawings, including pen and ink studies of the skull of a serow, a mammal similar to a goat or antelope and a muntjac skull, also known as barking deer.

Plate 13 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skull of a ‘Kambin-utan and a Kijang’ alongside the original ink drawings; above NHD1/11; Below NHD1/10, 1784-1808

The details of bone, horns, fractures and teeth of both of these sketches has been carefully copied onto a single plate by the Flemish engraver Anthony Cardon (1772-1813) who engraved all of the animal illustrations in the History.

Whilst the work of ‘W. Bell’ is used for 6 of the animal illustrations in the History, a second artist’s work is also included. This artist is unnamed by Marsden in the History, their work simply signed ‘Sinensis del.’ indicating that the work was the creation of an artist from China. This includes a rather stunning double page engraving of a flying lemur hanging from the branch of a langsat tree, holding an infant on its body whilst two giant squirrels sit and climb on the other end of the branch eating the fruit of the tree.

The original painting for these engraving has at some point become divided into two pages – with the squirrels on one page and the lemur and young on another. However the tip of one of the squirrel’s tails continuing across onto the second page indicates that at one point these two separate pages were once joined or at least were meant to be viewed together as shown in the engraved illustration. The original painting is faithfully reproduced in reverse in the engraving, including the botanical details of the interior of the langsat fruit shown in the lower right of the page.

Plate 9 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a flying lemur hanging from a branch with two giant squirrels other the other end, alongside the original watercolour paintings; left NHD2/285; right NHD1/18, 1784-1808

Other works by a Chinese artist include a detailed study of a long tailed porcupine and a pair of greater mousedeer (also known as greater chevrotain) that are both painted without any background or surrounding details. Nonspecific landscapes have however been added to the engraved plates in a style similar to those included in the original works by ‘W. Bell’.

Plate 13 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a long tailed porcupine, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/17, 1784-1808

Plate 12 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a greater mouse deer, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/18, 1784-1808

 A hand written pencil note on the painting of the greater mouse-deer indicates the small scale of these animals and states that they should not be shown too large on the resulting plate to ensure this diminutive nature is accurately reflected in the published work.

The majority of the animal illustrated in the History show mammals, however there is one image of a reptile – a study of a common flying dragon which is also stated to be the work of a Chinese artist in the History although no signature is found on the delicate watercolour on which this engraving was based. The original watercolour shows a dorsal and ventral view of the reptile, highlighting the different colouration on the top and bottom of the common flying dragon as well as the outspread skin that allows the lizard to glide through the air.

Plate 10 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a ventral and dorsal view of a common flying dragon alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/26, 1784-1808

A third artist, Eudelin de Jonville, is also referenced in the History’s illustrative animal plates. Although little is known about de Jonville, EIC records show that he worked as a cinnamon surveyor in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, between 1798 and 1800 when he travelled with Major-General MacDowall to the Court of Kandy, where he remained until around 1805. The one work by de Jonville in the History is a set of four studies of the beaks of different species of hornbill – two illustrating the great pied hornbill, one of a Malabar pied hornbill and finally one image of a rhinoceros hornbill. As with the previously mentioned engravings, the original pencil sketches of these studies is in the Visual Arts natural history collections,  each with a scale in inches added to illustration to provide the accurate measurement of each species.  Although also unsigned the original pencil sketches is accompanied by a letter written in French by de Jonville to Marsden describing the hornbill of Sri Lanka, strengthening the attribution of this work to the artistry of de Jonville.

Plate 15 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skulls of three species of hornbill alongside the pencil sketches, NHD1/5, 1784-1808

The original paintings described above are all part of a larger collection of natural history studies collected by Marsden following his return from Sumatra in 1780. These include watercolour and pen and ink studies of fish, shells, a buffalo and several birds alongside the animals discussed above. In total 35 paintings acquired by Marsden are now in the Visual Art collections following their donation by Marsden’s widow to the EIC library after his death in 1836. The collections of the EIC library and that of the India Office Library have subsequently been transferred to the British Library, where they are now available to view in the Library’s reading rooms.

By Cam Sharp Jones, Visual Arts Curator

Further reading:

Mildred Archer, Natural History Drawings in the India Office Library, 1962.

John Bastin, The British in West Sumatra (1685-1825): a selection of documents, mainly from the East India Company records preserved in the India Office Library, Commonwealth Relations Office, London., Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1965

Diana J. Carroll, "William Marsden, The Scholar Behind The History of Sumatra." Indonesia and the Malay World 47 (2019): 66-89.

William Marsden, The History of Sumatra: Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island. By William Marsden,... The Third Edition, with Corrections, Additions, and Plates. ed. 1811.

William Marsden, with introduction by John Bastin, The history of Sumatra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986

Annabel Teh Gallop, Early Views of Indonesia: Drawings from the British Library, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.