On August 27 MSU President Dr. Supachai Samappito attended the opening of a seminar which hopefully will pave the way for future networks and regional seminars on the conservation of ancient documents from the Isan area. Over a hundred academics and interested people were in attendance at the conference room in the Faculty of Engineering.
It is not well known internationally there are many ancient documents in northeastern Thailand. These documents are commonly called palm leaf manuscripts and, although they do not look as such, have been written on palm leaves in ancient text. Mostly these ancient texts were written by monks and kept in monasteries.
Mahasarakham University Northeastern Leaf Inscription Conservation Center is a research institute located in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Here are stored valuable palm leaf manuscripts which are going through the slow process of transliteration and transference to digital format.
There are a huge number of palm leaf manuscripts which have not been translated and therefore the modern world is unaware of the knowledge they contain. They may date back as far as the fourteenth century and besides containing information concerned with Buddhist teachings may also contain information about the history behind the many ancient sites dotted all over the Isan area. Scholars would agree verbal knowledge passed down becomes unreliable after a century or so. Who knows what secrets these ancient palm leaf manuscripts may reveal? It is also excitingly unknown how many have yet to be discovered.
MSU project specialist from the Palm Leaf Inscription and Conservation Center, Associate Professor Dr. Weenah Weespan, spoke at the seminar which discussed ways in which these precious artefacts can best be conserved, transliterated, archived, managed and studied. Those interested can
click here to see a brochure (in Thai and English) giving more information about the work of the MSU Northeastern Leaf-inscription Conservation Center.
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