Manuscripts on palm leaves (Tamil. ஓலைச் சுவடி) - manuscripts written on dry palm leaves. Such leaves were a substitute for paper in some regions of Asia as far back as the 15th century BC. e. [1] , and possibly much earlier [2] . The material was dried and fumigated leaves of borassus or umbelliferous lily .
After creation, each document could exist only for a certain period of time, after which its contents were copied to another set of processed palm leaves. With the spread of Indian culture in Southeast Asia in many countries such as the Philippines [3] , Thailand , Cambodia, and Indonesia , collections of documents written on palm leaves began to appear. In Indonesia, palm leaf manuscripts are called lontaras. After the massive distribution of book printing in Asia in the 19th century, the cycle of copying documents on palm leaves came to an end. Currently, many governments are making efforts to preserve the remaining similar documents [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .
In 1997, UNESCO recognized the Tamil collection of medical documents as part of the Memory of the World . Tamil Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization, collects, stores, digitizes, and posts such documents on the Internet [9] .
Notes
- ↑ http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~zshi/Papers/kbcs04_261.pdf
- ↑ Literature | The Story of India - Photo Gallery | Pbs
- ↑ Vedic Empire - Indian Origins of Filipino Customs
- ↑ IAS Memory of Asia palm-leaf manuscript preservation (link not available) . Date of treatment August 2, 2012. Archived February 4, 2012.
- ↑ Conservation and Digitisation of Rolled Palm Leaf Manuscripts in Nepal
- ↑ 論述 貝葉 經 整理 與 編目 工作 unopened (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment August 2, 2012. Archived on March 8, 2012.
- ↑ 渐 行 渐 远 贝叶 经
- ↑ Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts
- ↑ Interview: Digitalizing heritage for the coming generation. Archived October 17, 2011 on Wayback Machine Bhasha India. Microsoft Retrieved January 17, 2012.