Manuscripts from the Kingdom of Siam in Japan

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the textual contents of the illustrated samut khoi-s in Thailand, are examined. Samut khoi manuscripts are an important resource for the study of Siamese and Buddhist literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Samut khoi-s are divided into two groups. Both groups use a script called "Khom" (อักษรขอม), but one group uses a thin character set, and the other a thick and calligraphic character set. The chief text of eighteenth century samut khoi-s, the Mahābuddhaguṇa, shows what great importance Thai Buddhists attached to the Buddha-anussati, the recollection of the Buddha. In the 19th century, there was a growth of the tale of Phra Malai in the Thai vernacular language—-a story of a monk named Māleyya (in Pāli) who travels to hells to help people, and to Tāvatiṃsa heaven to meet the future Buddha Metteya—was very popular at funeral ceremonies.

There are many important Buddhist artifacts from Siam (and Thailand), including collections of palm-leaf manuscripts, currently in Japan. Mercantile connections between the two regions extend back centuries, including an early mission from Ayutthaya that traveled to Edo for an audience with the shogun in 1621. It is also known that Red Seal ships from Japan sailed to the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya between 1604 and 1636. However, the famous Sakoku Edict (Sakoku-rei) in 1636 greatly restricted foreign trade and travel. In the Meiji era, relations resumed in the nineteenth century, with the signing of the "Declaration of Amity and Commerce between Japan and Siam" (日暹修好通商に関する 宣言), between King Chulalongkorn of Siam and Emperor Meiji of Japan in 1887. Significantly, King Chulalongkorn subsequently donated the Buddha's relics to the Japanese Buddhist community in 1900. In the wake of this important gift, there were several transmissions of Thai manuscripts to Japan during the Meiji era.¹

In this article, I will discuss the place of Thai manuscripts in the cultural exchange between Siam and Japan, especially the Royal Manuscripts presented to the Kakuozan Nittaiji temple and other palm-leaf collections kept at Japanese universities and libraries. I will also briefly discuss collections of samut khoi (illustrated folding paper manuscripts) of the Phra Malai dating from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century preserved in museums and libraries in Japan.

Kakuozan Nittaiji Temple Collection

In 1898, William C. Peppe and his team excavated an old mound at Piprahwa, located in the border area of northern India near Nepal, and found a large stone coffer that contained five small vases with ashes and jewels inside. One of the vases had an inscription stating that it was a reliquary containing the ashes of the Buddha, Śākyamuni. The Indian government presented some of the relics of the Buddha excavated in Piprahwa to the king of Siam, Rama V, also known as King Chulalongkorn the Great (พระบาทสมเด็จพระปรมินท รมหาจุฬาลงกรณ์ พระจุลจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว, 1853–1910). Later, in 1900, in compliance with an enthusiastic request from the Japanese government, the king issued an imperial edict agreeing to donate a portion of the Buddha's relics to Japan as a gift to Japanese Buddhists.

In response to this edict, the Japanese Buddhist community sent a delegation to Thailand comprising representatives of all the Buddhist schools. It was headed by Koen Otani (大谷光演, 1875–1963) from the Higashi Honganji temple, in the Otani branch of the Jodo Shinshu sect. The king handed a portion of the Buddha's relics over to the delegation in person at the Imperial Palace in Bangkok on 15 June 1900. The relics are now enshrined in the Hoan-to (the Stupa for enshrinement, completed in 1918) at Kakuozan Nittaiji (Temple of Japan-Thailand: 覚王山日泰寺) in Nagoya.²

In addition to the Buddha's relics, an ancient bronze statue of the Buddha, said to have been cast in Chiang Saen (then known as Ngoen Yang), was also presented to Japanese Buddhists. It has been enshrined in the main hall of the temple since its foundation in 1904.³ In 1903, a year before the temple's completion, Shigehiro Komuro (小室重弘, 1858–1908) compiled and published a record of the delegation for receiving the Buddha's relics, Shakuson-goigyo-denrai-shi.⁴ In several places, the author refers to the donation of Buddhist manuscripts from the queen of the kingdom of Siam.⁵

First, the author quotes (a translation of) an imperial edict issued after a banquet at the Imperial Palace on 18 June. In it, King Chulalongkorn tells delegates to place the statue described above together with the relics. He continues that the queen will donate a copy of the Tipiṭaka scriptures later because it was taking a long time to prepare the wrapping cloth for them.⁶ Later, as promised, under the queen's order, Siam's first minister of education, Chao Phraya Phasakorawong (ภาสกรวงศ ์, 1849–1920), handed Manjiro Inagaki (稲垣満次郎, 1861–1961), the Japanese minister resident in the kingdom of Siam, an abridgment of the Tipiṭaka.⁷ Phasakorawong's letter, dated 3 September, states that the abridgment of the Tipiṭaka in seven volumes was transcribed by a monk, Chaisurin (ช ัยส ุร ินทร ์: Jayasurindra). It also describes the manuscript's frame (case or box?) as decorated with mother of pearl with an inner cover of silk brocade with golden thread, and the manuscripts as having golden-threaded knife-shaped ivory title tags.⁸ According to a letter dated 29 September 29 from Inagaki to Ven. Jakujun Murata (村田寂順, 1838–1905), the secretary-general of the reception committee for the Buddha's relics, the manuscripts donated by the queen were in one packet and their wrapping cloths had been designed and made by the queen herself.⁹ The author of the record says that these manuscripts arrived at Myohoin (妙法院) temple, Kyoto, on 30 October 1900, and were temporarily placed there until they were moved to Banshoji (万松寺) temple, Nagoya, on 15 November 1902. The author also says that the box for the manuscripts was made of teak.¹⁰

Unfortunately, the Kakuozan Nittaiji temple does not seem to have any official documents to confirm this record. At present, the temple holds a certain number of palm-leaf Pali manuscripts in Khom script.¹¹ In 1999, Nobuyuki Kashiwahara roughly classified their scattered leaves and fascicles (phuuk) into seven groups.¹² Later, Tanabe presented these catalogued groups again in an English article, using the word "category" to define groupings of physical materials.¹³ However, the provenance of the manuscripts in Kashiwahara's categories II, III, V, and VI is unknown. Unfortunately, none of these closely correspond to the description of the manuscripts donated by the queen. The frame or case, the silk brocade cover, and the knife-shaped title tags mentioned in the record must have been lost long ago.

Komuro's 1903 record of the gift describes the manuscripts as "the abridgment of Tipiṭaka in seven volumes." Category V in Kashiwara's survey consists of seven books of Abhidhamma, which may have once been bundled with wooden boards inlaid with mother of pearl, although only one of the two boards remains. Category VI consists of a manuscript copy of the Abhidhammatthavibhāvanī-ṭīkā-saṅgraha, a commentary on the Abhidhamma, which Thai Buddhists see as the highest and most important teaching of the Buddha, in seven fascicles. These fascicles are bundled with boards decorated with black lacquer and gold. And since both the main text and the commentary are contained in the seven volumes, either of them could be the one mentioned in the record.

However, it is more likely that Kashiwara's Category III, which consists of Pāṭimokkha and Bhikkunīpāṭimokkha (Vinaya) together in one fascicle, Suttanipāta (Sutta) in four fascicles, and Mohacchedanī (a commentary on Abhidhamma-mātikā) in two fascicles, is the one donated by the queen. Although there are a total of eight fascicles (phuuk) and not seven, its contents are precisely "the abridgment of Tipiṭaka" (fig. 1).¹⁴ Also, the contents seem to be deliberately selected. In particular, the selection of the Bhikkunīpāṭimokkha, the rules for the bhikkhunī (nuns') order, seem to be very special, as the nuns' order does not exist in Thailand.¹⁵

The decoration of the manuscripts in Category III also shows its relation to the royal family. The binding boards of the set of the fascicles and title leaves of each fascicle are beautifully decorated with black lacquer and gold. In the center of each binding board is a royal insignia, probably related to King Chulalongkorn (fig. 2).¹⁶

Figure 1.

Abridgment of Tipiṭaka. Palm-leaf manuscripts (Category III). Kakuozan Nittaiji temple, Nagoya. Photograph by Toshiya Unebe.

Lacquered and gold decoration of title leaves are commonly found in royal manuscript collections. The only Thai collection I have seen so far that matches the Category III manuscripts is the renowned collection preserved at the Wat Pho temple called "Deb jumnum," in which all of the title leaves for each fascicle are decorated with illustrations of the assembly of gods (deb jumnum) in lacquer and gold. The title leaves of the Category III manuscripts are adorned with designs of flowers and animals with similar lacquer and gold.

Figure 2.

Royal insignia related to King Chulalongkorn. Photograph by Toshiya Unebe.

However, the Category III manuscripts at the Kakuozan Nittaiji temple do not now have the accessories that were described (such as tags), and we cannot exclude the possibility that other unknown manuscript collections exist in the temple or elsewhere. Nonetheless, it is still probable that these are the manuscripts presented by the queen of Siam, because there seems little other explanation for a collection like that at the temple to exist.

The Otani University Library Collection and Other Collections Transmitted in the Meiji Era

According to the Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts Kept in the Otani University Library, published in 1995, there are sixty-four bundles of palm-leaf manuscripts, including manuscripts in the Khmer script (fifty-nine bundles), manuscripts in the Burmese script (four bundles), and a manuscript in the Mon script (one bundle) in the Otani University Library.¹⁷ They form one group and are believed to have been given by the king of Siam when the Buddha's relics were donated.¹⁸ It seems, however, that there are no official documents about their acquisition at the library. As Nagasaki remarks, it is puzzling that neither Komuro (1903) nor Bunyiu Nanjio (南條文雄, 1849–1927), who was one of eighteen members of the delegation and the second dean of Otani University from 1903, mentioned this big collection of manuscripts in his autobiography.¹⁹ Even though both Nanjio and Komuro wrote about the aforementioned "abridgment of Tipiṭaka in seven volumes transcribed in palm leaves" donated by the queen, they curiously remained silent about the much bigger palm-leaf collection now preserved at the Otani University Library.

The first official notice about the Otani collection appeared eleven years after the delegation's trip, in the newsletter of the Shinshu Ōtani-ha sect (Shinshu University is the former name of Otani University).²⁰ Nagasaki translated a passage from the article as follows: "Siamese palm leaf scriptures were presented by the former Emperor of Siam to the present abbot. The manuscripts are all written on tāla palm leaves. Altogether, there are 60 sets. Each set is 1 shaku 9 sun [about 1 foot, 11 inches] long, 1 sun 8 bu [about 2 inches] wide and 5 to 6 sun [6 to 7 inches] thick. They are decorated with vermilion and gold paint."²¹ Here "the former Emperor of Siam" refers to King Chulalongkorn, who had presented the Buddha's relics to Japan and died in 1910. The "present abbot" refers to Koen Otani, who had been the leader of the delegation and became the chief abbot of Higashi Honganji in 1908. The reference to "60 sets" of palm-leaf manuscripts roughly corresponds to the sixty-four bundles preserved in the Otani University Library. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the date of this donation. However, we can at least know that the Otani University Library collection is separate from the special "abridgment of Tipiṭaka in seven volumes" donated to all Japanese Buddhists by the queen, and intended to be placed where the Buddha's relics reside.

For many years, this 1911 notice has been the only piece of information about the provenance of the Otani University Library collection. There has not been any external evidence to confirm this article until recently. However, fortuitously, while the Toyo Bunko (the Oriental Library), Japan's largest Asian studies library, was under a large-scale renovation for several years leading up to 2011, a palm-leaf manuscript collection of eighteen fascicles kept in a wooden box was found.²² This collection consists of Vessantara Jātaka (two fascicles), the Abhidhamma (seven fascicles), Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (two fascicles), and grammatical treatises (about seven fascicles, with disordered leaves).

The provenance of this collection is written on the base of the lid, according to the usual Japanese custom for precious artifacts and called hakogaki (box writing). It reads: "At the turning point of 32nd year of Meiji, the chief abbot of Higashi Honganji temple, Mr. Otani went to Siam in order to receive the Buddha's relics respectfully. And he returned having obtained this [collection of palm-leaf manuscripts]. After some time, he donated it to me. As I anticipate, I give this to Ekai Kawaguchi.²³ Shigenobu Okuma [seal]." The author of this note, Shigenobu Okuma (大隈重信, 1838–1922), was the eighth and seventeenth prime minister of Japan. According to the note, the collection was originally donated to Koen Otani on the occasion of the delegation for receiving the Buddha's relics during the 32nd year of Meiji. Although the 32nd year of Meiji was 1899, and this note seems to have misunderstood it as one year earlier, this must be a reference to "the Siamese palm leaf scriptures presented by the former Emperor of Siam" in the Shuho newsletter cited above. This note is supporting evidence that there was a palm-leaf collection personally given to Koen Otani. We also can understand that (a part of) it was presented to a big political figure at that time, Shigenobu Okuma, by Koen Otani himself.²⁴

Unfortunately, this note does not explicitly tell when Koen Otani obtained the collection, although it gives a vague impression that he brought the manuscripts with him to Japan in 1900. According to the Shuho article in 1911, on the other hand, Nagasaki suggests the possibility of a later acquisition, since it was meant to describe the "present state" of the Otani University Library.²⁵ If the article perceived the news of the manuscript as the "present state" or recent news of the Otani University Library, roughly estimating, the manuscripts probably arrived around 1911 or a little earlier, but not at the time of the delegation for the Buddha's relics.

Sometime after acquiring the manuscripts from Koen Otani, Shigenobu Okuma gave them to a monk-scholar, Ekai Kawaguchi (河口慧海, 1866–1945), who was famous for his journeys to Tibet and Nepal. As Shoji reports, a note is pasted on the face of the box lid with a title, "Siamese palm-leaf manuscript in fifteen volumes," and a classification number "ho he 2 jo."²⁶ This type of note was used by Ekai Kawaguchi for classifying his collection, and therefore we can confirm that this manuscript once belonged to him.

Again, there is no official record of the donation of the manuscript collection to Toyo Bunko. Ekai Kawaguchi donated his huge collection of Tibetan and Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures and others to Toyo Bunko on 31 December 1940, but the collection of palm-leaf manuscripts was not recorded in a handlist of this donation. However, it could have been donated to Toyo Bunko on the same day, or at some time between that day and 24 February 1945, when Ekai Kawaguchi died.²⁷ The collection remained uncatalogued from then until it was discovered during the 2011 renovation.

It is interesting to note that there is a similar collection of palm-leaf manuscripts in Taisho University. According to an exhibition catalogue published in 2003, it is kept in two wooden boxes and includes Pali manuscripts in the Khom script, including five out of the last ten jātakas, Kathāvatthu, and Visuddhimagga.²⁸ Although the catalogue describes it as a "Cambodian manuscript," it is no doubt a collection of manuscripts from Thailand. It is pity that, once again, there is no documentation about these manuscripts' provenance. Only the note "Cambodia (Shu-Dai)" is found on a label pasted on the face of the lid of the boxes. The abbreviation "Shu-Dai" indicates the name of a predecessor of Taisho University, Shukyo Daigaku. This merged with two other Buddhist schools in 1925 and became Taisho University in 1926. This means that the collection came to the library before the merger.

Yoshimoto, who investigated this collection of palm-leaf manuscripts, presumed that it could originally have formed a part of the collection given to Koen Otani, based on the similarity between the jātaka manuscripts at the Otani University Library and those in the Taisho University Library.²⁹ Judging from the textual content and considerably large quantity of text, this is fairly plausible, as there were few opportunities to obtain a collection like this.

Further, since Ekai Kawaguchi taught the Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhism at Shukyo Daigaku (later Taisho University) from 1924, and had donated his collection of Tibetan materials and other items to its library in November 1923, there could be a connection between the Taisho University collection and the Toyo Bunko collection given by Ekai Kawaguchi. Like the Toyo Bunko collection, perhaps the Taisho University collection could have been a part of Kawaguchi's collection, which was given to him by Okuma Shigenobu, to whom it had been originally presented by Koen Otani. However, we cannot say this is the only possibility, as many other major figures in Buddhist studies who were active in the Meiji era were also involved in the foundation of the Taisho University. Further investigation on the manuscripts is necessary, even if it is unlikely that any internal evidence will be found.

According to Fujiyoshi, another private collection of Pali palm-leaf manuscripts of the same era is preserved in Japan.³⁰ The Jodo sect sent a monk, Kyokujo Omune (概旭乗, 1873–1937), to Siam to study Siamese Buddhism in 1898.³¹ When he came back briefly to Japan in 1905 after studying for seven years, he received a statue of the Buddha, a bowl for alms, a footprint of the Buddha, and several kinds of palm-leaf manuscripts. They were apparently presented by the king of Siam on his return home.³²

Early Seventeenth-Century Palm-Leaf Manuscripts in Japan

In Japan, a few Pali palm-leaf manuscripts in the Khom script have been handed down to the present day, but they are all fragmentary. They are thought to have been brought to Japan in the early seventeenth century by merchants.

In 2011, an exhibition titled Artisanship and Aesthetic of Japan and Thailand toured the Bangkok National Museum in Thailand and the Kyushu National Museum in Japan. In the catalogue of this exhibition, a curious manuscript preserved in the Matsura Historical Museum, located in Hirado (a port town in the present-day Nagasaki Prefecture), was reported by Ayumi Harada, a curator at the Kyushu National Museums.³³ According to Harada, this manuscript is said to have been brought to Japan in 1616 by a Japanese merchant, Kurozaemon Ozaki (尾崎九郎左右衛門, ?–1665), who traveled to "Magadha country in Tenjiku" in 1614.³⁴ Although "Tenjiku" is a designation for India in Japanese, in this era it was used for Southeast Asian countries too.³⁵ According to Harada, "the palm-leaf manuscripts which Kurozaemon brought back to Japan were in fact were not genuine palm leaves but a thick paper made from tree bark, on which Khmer script was written in ink." This is a peculiar fact. Although she suspects that the material may have been khoi paper used in Siam, the photo shows that it is completely different from usual samut khoi, a paper manuscript made from khoi paper. I visited Hirado with two colleagues in March 2014 to do research at the museum and Zeshinji (formerly known as Zekouji) temple, where the manuscript was originally preserved. The manuscript in question is titled Zekouji-zou Tara-yo Bonsho, which means "a Sanskrit manuscript (patra) made of a tāla leaf preserved at Zekouji temple" (fig. 3). Although it looks like palm leaves, it is actually made of a sheet of high-quality paper. The text in Pali (not in Sanskrit) is written in Khom script, which looks rounder than that found in the usual Rattanakosin palm-leaf manuscripts. Since, unlike with a palm leaf, the letters cannot be incised on the paper with a stylus, they were probably written with pen and ink. The text is from Chapter 8 of the Vessantara Jātaka (Kumārapabba), the chapter that narrates the giving away of Prince Vessantara's children to the villainous Brahmin Jujaka.

The provenance of the manuscript is recorded in a document accompanying it that was written by Bunzaemon Naoyuki Tamura (田村文右衛門 直之), a retainer of the Hirado Domain, on 15 May 1706, and also with the Ozaki family's genealogical record kept at Zeshinji temple. These two documents seem to have a common source. Since a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Ayutthaya-style standing statue of the Buddha also still exists in this temple, it is not unreasonable to believe that Kurozaemon Ozaki went to Ayutthaya. However, a paper manuscript disguised as palm leaves seems improbable, as palm leaves must have been readily available for Ayutthaya people.

Our perplexity disappeared, however, when the curator of the museum showed us another unstudied manuscript. This was a Sanskrit manuscript in Siddham script made of two sheets of the same high-quality paper used for the Khom script manuscript. Its appearance was very familiar to us as Buddhist scholars. As soon as we saw it, we understood that it was a wellmade replica of the famous Horyuji manuscript of the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya and Uṣṇīṣavijayadhāraṇī edited by Max Müller and Bunyiu Nanjio in 1884 at Oxford University (fig. 4).³⁶

Figure 3.

Vessantara Jātaka. Paper manuscript. Matsura Historical Museum, Hirado. Photographs by Toshiya Unebe.

A note on the lid of box of the Sanskrit replica says that it is a Horyuji Sanskrit manuscript belonging to the Rakusaido Library, which was founded by the ninth feudal lord of Hirado, Seizan Matsura (松浦静山, 1760–1841), who was well known as both a swordsman and cultural elite, but it does not note that it is a replica. The ownership stamp of the library is on the manuscript. The library was one of the precursors of the present Matsura Historical Museum. It holds quite a good collection of replicas of fine artifacts from various areas of Japan, including the famous byobu screen picturing the Battle of Nagashino. It could have been Seizan Matsura himself who ordered the production of the replicas to be included in his library collection.

Figure 4.

A replica of the Horyuji Sanskrit manuscript. Paper manuscript. Matsura Historical Museum, Hirado. Photographs by Toshiya Unebe.

We have concluded that it seems very likely that the other manuscript was also a replica of an original Pāli Zekouji manuscript, since another manuscript of the same sort of material turned out to be a high-quality replica. Seizan may have wanted a replica of the famed Buddhist manuscript kept at Zekouji temple from "Magadha country in Tenjiku," which had been transmitted in his domain, Hirado. It also has the ownership stamp of the library. With it is a short appraisal note by Kenkado Kimura (木村蒹葭堂, 1736–1802), a famous literary figure who lived in Osaka in Seizan Matsura's time. In it, Kimura judges that the letters used in the manuscript are those of "Minami-Tenjiku" (South-India), a term that covered Southeast Asian countries in the Edo era.³⁷

The date of the replica is probably late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. So then, we should ask, what happened to the original Zekouji early seventeenth-century manuscript? Unfortunately, we may never know. The present abbot of the Zeshinji temple suggested to us that it might have been lost over several gaps of succession that the temple has experienced over time.

Although the replica of the Ayutthaya palm-leaf manuscript in the Matsura Historical Museum is precious and has its own value, it is still not the original. However, there are additional Ayutthaya palm-leaf manuscripts in Japan. Oral tradition in Takasago city, another port town in present-day Hyogo Prefecture, which is located more than six hundred kilometers east of Hirado, tells that a traveler from Takasago named Tenjiku Tokube (天竺 徳兵衛, 1612–1695) also brought baitarayo, manuscripts (patra) of the tāla tree, back with him to Japan. His name means "Tokube, who went to Tenjiku (India)." It is said that in 1626, at the age of fifteen, he was hired by a trading company in Kyoto and went aboard a Japanese Red Seal ship.³⁸ However, in the Edo period, "Tenjiku Tokube" became more popular as a character of Kabuki drama and Joruri puppet dramas, where he was given the villain's role as a man aiming to subvert Japan with foreign magic and sorcery.³⁹ It has been difficult to draw out a real image of him as a historical actor separate from these legends.

In August and September 2014, I visited three temples in Takasago that were said to have manuscripts brought to Japan by Tenjiku Tokube. In Jurinji temple, there is a Pali palm-leaf manuscript in Khom script (fig. 5). The letters used have a rounder look, almost the same as those found in the Hirado replica. Santi Pakdeekham, assistant professor at Srinakharinwirot University, has confirmed that this type of letter seems to have been used in the early to middle Ayutthaya period. It is amazing to note how the letters are so perfectly copied in the Hirado replica, since the replica was made in such a different time and place from the original, in late eighteenth-century Japan.

Curiously enough, the text transcribed in the Jurinji leaf is from the same chapter of the same story of the Vessantara Jātaka as that in Hirado. The text shows that the Hirado leaf immediately precedes the Jurinji leaf. Unfortunately, the Hirado leaf is broken and the leaf number in the left margin of back side is missing. However, as the front-side text of the Hirado leaf is transcribed only in the center column, and the back side uses the entire surface of the leaf, we can understand that this leaf is the second leaf in a fascicle, ending in -ā.⁴⁰ The Jurinji leaf has the number kī, meaning it is the fourth leaf. It seems reasonable to presume that the Hirado leaf has the number kā and there was only one additional leaf, the third leaf, numbered ki, between the Hirado leaf and the Jurinji leaf.

Figure 5.

Vessantara Jātaka. Palm-leaf manuscripts. Jurinji temple, Takasago. Photographs by Toshiya Unebe.

Additionally, a manuscript leaf of the Vessantara Jātaka (fig. 6) is held in the Shinjoji temple, also in Takasago city. This consists of the ending of the same Chapter 8 and the beginning part of Chapter 9 (Maddīpabba) as the other leaves discussed above, in this case numbered khī.

At present, the original Hirado manuscript is lost. Unfortunately, there are no documents that witness the provenance of the Takasago manuscripts, other than rumor and legend. Still, we can probably see these three leaves as belonging to one and the same fascicle containing Chapter 8 of the Vessantara Jātaka, transcribed in sixteen leaves numbered from ka to khī. It is unlikely that manuscripts of different provenances would belong to the same fascicle by chance. With that in mind, it seems that the palm-leaf manuscripts in Takasago were only later associated with the legendary figure of Tenjiku Tokube.⁴¹

Figure 6.

Vessantara Jātaka. Palm-leaf manuscripts. Shinjoji temple, Takasago. Photographs by Toshiya Unebe.

According to the genealogical record, the Ozaki family in Hirado was originally from another port town, Ako (in the present-day Hyogo Prefecture, about fifty kilometers west of Takasago). And it is said that the father of Tokube was Ako-ya Tokuzaemon (赤穂屋徳左衛門).⁴² The name Akoya hints at some connection to a merchant family the port town of Ako. The Ozaki family might have had some relation to the Takasago temples or Tokube's family, although there is no evidence so far.

In any case, we may conclude that this is indeed a palm-leaf manuscript (or manuscripts) that was brought to Japan in the early seventeenth century.

Samut Khois in Japan

There are six illustrated samut khois (folding books made of khoi mulberry paper) in Japan that I have investigated to date.⁴³ All of them are manuscripts of the Phra Malai klon suat, the most popular version of a tale of Phra Malai, a monk who can travel through hell and heaven, in the Thai vernacular language. They also have extracts from the Tipiṭaka before the story of the Phra Malai starts. They are transcribed in thin Khom script, although the colophons or notes about their production are occasionally in Thai characters. Only one of the illustrated samut khois is dated, but they were all made in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

The National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, holds three of these illustrated samut khois. Two of these are included in the Nakanishi Collection, which consists of a number of specimens of written and printed characters from all over the world, and was collected and donated to the museum by Akira Nakanishi, the president of a printing company. In addition to these, the most beautiful museum piece, numbered H0009692 (NME9692), is on permanent display. This manuscript has sixteen excellent paired illustrations and a colophon in Thai characters on the last two folios. According to the colophon, it was made on the first day of the waxing moon, the Sunday, in the fifth month of the year of the rabbit ending in number one, in the eleventh year of the reign [of Rama V]. This date corresponds to Sunday, 23 March 1879. Of the six samut khois, this is the only one for which a date can be specified. There is also a samut khoi with a beautiful illustration of people chanting, from a palm-leaf manuscript housed in the Institute of Asian Ethno-Forms and Culture, Yokohama (fig. 7). This manuscript has a colophon in Khom script stating that it was transcribed on the "6th day of the waxing moon, of the 2nd month in the year of the rabbit"; however, this information is not enough to establish a year.

There is also a samut khoi in the Kakuozan Nittaiji temple. Among the samut khois in Japan, this is the only one to have illustrations of the ten jātakas before the illustrations of Phra Malai. Although the manuscript has no colophon, its provenance was typed on a label pasted on the front cover.⁴⁴ According to the label, it was donated by the chairperson of the Japan-Siam Association, Phra Bibidh Sali (พระ พิพิธสาลี), on 16 January 1939.⁴⁵

Figure 7.

Phra Malai. Paper manuscript (samut khoi). Illustration depicting chanting ceremony. Institute of Asian Ethno-Forms and Culture (Kazushige Kaneko), Yokohama. Photograph by Toshiya Unebe.

The last manuscript I will mention in this article is a samut khoi kept at the Omiya Library, Ryukoku University, Kyoto (fig. 8). Although this manuscript is also a typical Phra Malai samut khoi, it is special in that it is kept with a beautiful wooden box decorated with lacquer and gold. This type of box is often found in illustrations of samut khois, depicting the chanting ceremony using a samut khoi. We rarely see such a stunning example, however, even in temples in Thailand. From the illustrations, we can understand that the box was used not only as a container for a samut khoi, but also as a table for the chanting ceremony.

Since palm-leaf manuscripts and illustrated samut khois were brought to Japan, they have been enjoyed largely as treasures or beautiful artifacts within libraries and temples. They have never been recited as these illustrations convey, or read as Buddhist scriptures. I hope that they will be at least read as scriptures, and that philological research on them will progress in the future.⁴⁶

Figure 8.

Phra Malai. Paper manuscript (samut khoi) and its wooden box. Ryukoku University, Omiya Library, Kyoto. Photograph courtesy of Ryukoku University Library. Manuscript illustration depicts Phra Malai and Sakka at Tāvatiṃsa heaven, and a pair of deities coming to the heaven. Photograph courtesy of Ryukoku University Library.