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Buddhist Manuscript

c. 1700

Sri Lanka

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Medium
Covers: Gum tempera on wood; pages: charcoal on palm leaves
Measurements
Overall: 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Educational Purchase Fund 1949.227
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

The text is written in Sinhalese script.

Description

Palm leaf material is still used for manuscripts in Sri Lanka. The palm leaves are prepared first by boiling them, drying them in the sun, and then rubbing them with oils. Scribes then use a metal stylus to incise the text. Then charcoal powder is wiped across the pages, filling in only the inscribed lines.
A wood and palm leaf manuscript forms a long, narrow horizontal rectangle. Two painted wooden covers sandwich a thick stack of many thin, tan palm leaf pages. The top cover is a warm reddish-brown, decorated with scrolling leaf-like patterns in muted gold and black. Two small circular holes sit along the centerline. The stacked edges of the pages create a fine, linear texture along the side facing us.

Buddhist Manuscript

c. 1700

Sri Lanka

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