We have got visitors! The Rylands holds one single Shan manuscript that has until now kept its secrets from us (Shan MS 1). At the end of February 2024, two colleagues from the British Library – Myo Thant Linn, this year’s Chevening Fellow from Myanmar, and Maria Kekki, Curator for Burmese – visited us and uncovered some of the secrets of our precious Shan manuscript!
Who are the Shan people?
The Shan are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia. They constitute the biggest minority of Myanmar (Burma), but they can also be found in Thailand, the Southern regions of China, and India. In colonial times, there were dozens of Shan principalities, which eventually became the federation of Shan States, and more recently the Shan State (Fig. 3).
The Shan refer to themselves not as Shan but as Tai. The term ‘Shan’ is mostly used by outsiders (including Europeans), and its origin is not entirely clear. It probably comes from a Mon word ‘rhmanna’ meaning “stranger.”
Shan written culture has its origins in around the 13th century. However, since most Shan manuscripts have been written on perishable plant material such as sa paper (paper made from the bark of mulberry trees) or mai san (paper made from bamboo shoots) the oldest extant items are rarely older mid-19th century.
The Shan are mostly followers of the Theravada Buddhism (the oldest school of Buddhism). The Shan language belongs to the Tai languages, it is written in a variety of Shan scripts.
Actually, one of the reasons why it was so difficult to tackle this item is because it was written in an old Shan script called Tai mao (Lik Tho Ngouk), which not many people can read nowadays. Luckily, Myo Thant Linn, who is a professional reciter in his home country, had no difficulty reading this script.
What is the Rylands Shan manuscript about?
It turns out that the manuscript contains the Sutta Nibbana Maun Tham (the essence of the discourses on Nibbana) by Sao Dhammadinna (or Thaṃmatiṅna, 1541-1640 CE), the oldest known Shan author.
The Sutta Nibbana is one of the most important Shan works containing Buddhist teachings. It is a widely copied text that has a central role in the Shan Buddhist ritual of donating books for the services held in memory of the deceased. Moreover, one of the main reasons for making manuscripts in Shan culture is to commemorate a deceased person. Myo explained to us that by donating a book the relatives can ensure that the deceased person would become a good spirit and not black ghost. Interestingly, the text itself emphasises that donating books, though it gains merit to the donor, is not enough. It is much more important to be a good person and live a virtuous life.
According to the first folio and the colophon on the last folio, the Rylands manuscript was ordered in commemoration of Cao Mon Tham Phya, the ruler of Guangxi, who was 33 years old when he died. It was ordered by E O Len Siu and E Kham possibly two sisters who, if we dare to speculate, might have been the daughters of the deceased ruler. We can find the date of the completion at the bottom of the first folio given as 6 January. The date is given in a formula and, sadly, the year is omitted.
‘Suspended book’
If you have a closer look at the Rylands Shan manuscript, you can see that it is written on a very thin, almost silk-like paper, most probably bamboo paper. Unlike sa paper, which is sturdy enough to be written on both sides and bound as in a concertina format (creating a folding book), bamboo paper or mai san is so thin that that the ink soaks through, and therefore it is double folded and has text only on one side. This is what we can see in the Rylands Shan manuscript: each folio is double folded with script only on one side of the layer. This folios are sewn together at the top with a textile cover at the back and stored rolled up. They are also called ‘suspended books’ or pap kin.
The botanist who also collected manuscripts
How did the Rylands acquire this manuscript? According to the few records we have, it was purchased in 1932 from Clementina Traill (1877-1937), the widow and fellow botanist of George Forrest (1873-1932) as part of a collection of Moso/Naxi and Tibetan manuscripts (some of these Naxi manuscripts are digitised and available online). Between 1904 and 1928 the famous Scottish botanist Forrest, ‘the Indiana Jones of plant collectors,’ had altogether seven expeditions in Southwest China and Burma (today Myanmar) and collected 31000 herbarium specimens in Province Yunnan. Apparently, he had acquired the manuscripts on “his recent expedition in China”.
Exactly where and why George Forrest acquired this manuscript alongside with plant specimens? The answer may lie in one of the documents among his papers held at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.
Further readings
Cochrane, Wilbur Willis. The Shans. Volume I. Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma, 1915. Print.
Khur-Yearn, Jotika. “A Study of the Shan Lik Loung Literature: A Timeline of Shan Authors and Their Works”, Journal of Tai Studies, vol. 2, 2018 (revised version of the Mapping Classical Shan Literature, a Master Dissertation, City University of London, 2015: https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:14267/)
McLean, Brenda. George Forrest : Plant Hunter. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club in association with the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 2004.
Paterson, Leonie. George Forrest (1873-1932). Blog on Botanic Stories, RBGE Personal & Project Stories. Published 4 March 2015.
Shan manuscripts, compiled and edited by Barend Jan Terwiel. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003.
Woolf, Jo. George Forrest: ‘the Indiana Jones of plant collectors’. Blog post on the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s website. Published 4 May 2023.