Palm-leaf manuscripts aremanuscripts made out of driedpalm leaves. Palm leaves were used aswriting materials in theIndian subcontinent and inSoutheast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE.^[1] Their use began inSouth Asia and spread to other regions, as texts on dried and smoke-treated palm leaves of thePalmyra ortalipot palm.^[2]Their use continued until the 19th century when printing presses replaced hand-written manuscripts.^[2]

One of the oldest surviving palm leaf manuscripts of a complete treatise is a SanskritShaivism text from the 9th century, discovered inNepal, and now preserved at theCambridge University Library.^[3] TheSpitzer Manuscript is a collection of palm leaf fragments found inKizil Caves, China. They are dated to about the 2nd century CE and related to Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit.^[4][5]

The text in palm leaf manuscripts was inscribed with a knife pen on rectangular cut and cured palm leaf sheets; colourings were then applied to the surface and wiped off, leaving the ink in the incised grooves. Typically, each sheet had a hole through which a string could pass, and using these holes, the sheets were bound together like a book by tying them together with a string. Such palm leaf texts typically had a lifespan of between a few decades and roughly 600 years before they started to rot due to moisture, insect activity, mould, and fragility. Thus the document had to be copied onto new sets of dried palm leaves.[2] The oldest surviving palm leaf Indian manuscripts have been found in colder, drier climates such as in parts ofNepal,Tibet, andcentral Asia, the source of 1st-millennium CE manuscripts.^[6]

The individual sheets of palm leaves were calledPatra orParna in Sanskrit (Pali/Prakrit:Panna), and the medium when ready to write was calledTada-patra (orTala-patra,Tali,Tadi).^[6] The famous 5th-century CE Indian manuscript called theBower Manuscript discovered inChinese Turkestan, was written onbirch-bark sheets shaped in the form of treated palm leaves.^[6]

Hindu temples often served as centers where ancient manuscripts were routinely used for learning and where the texts were copied when they wore out.^[7] In South India, temples and associatedmutts served custodial functions, and a large number of manuscripts onHindu philosophy,poetry,grammar, and other subjects were written, multiplied, and preserved inside the temples.^[8] Archaeological and epigraphical evidence indicates the existence of libraries calledSarasvati-bhandara, dated possibly to the early 12th century and employing librarians, attached to Hindu temples.^[9] Palm-leaf manuscripts were also preserved insideJain temples and in Buddhist monasteries.

With the spread of Indian culture toSoutheast Asian countries like asIndonesia,Cambodia,Thailand,Laos, and thePhilippines, these nations also became home to large collections. Palm-leaf manuscripts calledLontar in dedicated stone libraries have been discovered by archaeologists at Hindu temples inBali (Indonesia) and in 10th century Cambodian temples such asAngkor Wat andBanteay Srei.^[10]

One of the oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscripts on palm leaves is of theParameshvaratantra, aShaiva Siddhanta text ofHinduism. It is from the 9th century, and dated to about 828 CE.^[3] The discovered palm-leaf collection also includes a few parts of another text, theJñānārṇavamahātantra, currently held by the University of Cambridge.^[3]

With the introduction ofprinting in the early 19th century, the cycle of copying from palm leaves mostly came to an end. Many governments are making efforts to preserve what is left of their palm-leaf documents.^[11][12][13]

The round and cursive design of the letters of manyBrahmic scripts such asDevanagari,Nandinagari,Kannada,Telugu,Lontara,Javanese,Balinese,Odia,Burmese,Tamil,Khmer, and so forth, may be an adaptation to the use of palm leaves, as angular letters could tear the leaves apart.^[14]

Palm-leaf manuscripts orsleuk rith as they are known inthe Khmer language, can be found inCambodia since Angkorian times as can be seen from at least one bas-relief on the walls ofAngkor Wat. While they were of major importance until the 20th century, French archeologist Olivier de Bernon estimated that about 90% of all thesleuk rith were lost in the turmoil of theCambodian Civil War while new supports such ascodex books or digital media took over. Since then, conservation efforts have been made in pagodas such as atWat Ounalom in Phnom Penh.^[15]

In the city of Thanjavur in India, priceless palm-leaf manuscripts are preserved.

Palm leaf manuscripts ofOdisha include scriptures, pictures ofDevadasi, and variousmudras of theKama Sutra. Some of the early discoveries of Odia palm leaf manuscripts include writings likeSmaradipika,Ratimanjari,Pancasayaka, andAnangaranga in bothOdia andSanskrit.^[16] The State Museum of Odisha atBhubaneswar houses 40,000 palm leaf manuscripts. Most of them are written in the Odia script, though the language is Sanskrit. The oldest manuscript here belongs to the 14th century but the text can be dated to the 2nd century.^[17]

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In 1997 The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recognised the Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection as part of theMemory of the World Register. A very good example of the usage of palm leaf manuscripts to store history is a Tamil grammar book namedTolkāppiyam, written around the 3rd century BCE.^[18] A global digitalization project led by theTamil Heritage Foundation collects, preserves, digitizes, and makes ancient palm-leaf manuscript documents available to users via the internet.^[19]

In Indonesia, the palm-leaf manuscript is calledlontar. TheIndonesian word is the modern form ofOld Javaneserontal. It is composed of two Old Javanese words, namelyron "leaf" andtal "Borassus flabellifer, palmyra palm". Due to the shape of the Palmyra palm's leaves, which are spread like a fan, these trees are also known as "fan trees". The leaves of therontal tree have always been used for many purposes, such as for the making of plaited mats,palm sugar wrappers, water scoops, ornaments, ritual tools, and writing material. Today, the art of writing inrontal still survives inBali, performed by Balinese Brahmin as a sacred duty to rewriteHindu texts.

Many old manuscripts dated from ancientJava,Indonesia, were written onrontal palm-leaf manuscripts. Manuscripts dated from the 14th to 15th century during theMajapahit period. Some were found even earlier, like theArjunawiwaha, theSmaradahana, theNagarakretagama, and theKakawin Sutasoma, which were discovered on the neighboring islands ofBali andLombok. This suggested that the tradition of preserving, copying, and rewriting palm-leaf manuscripts continued for centuries. Other palm-leaf manuscripts includeSundanese language works: theCarita Parahyangan, theSanghyang Siksakandang Karesian, and theBujangga Manik.

In Myanmar, the palm-leaf manuscript is calledpesa (ပေစာ). In the pre-colonial era, along withfolding-book manuscripts,pesa was a primary medium of transcribing texts, including religious scriptures, and administrative and juridical records.^[20] The use ofpesa dates back to 12th centuryBagan, but the majority of existent pesa date to the 1700-1800s.^[20] Key historical sources, includingBurmese chronicles, were first originally recorded usingpesa.^[20][21] The Burmese word for "literature",sape (စာပေ) is derived from the wordpesa.^[20]

In the 17th century, decorated palm leaf manuscripts calledkammavācā orkammawasa (ကမ္မဝါစာ) emerged.^[21] The earliest such manuscript dates to 1683.^[21][22] These decorated manuscripts include ornamental motifs and are inscribed with ink on lacquered palm leaves gilded with gold leaf.^[21]Kammavaca manuscripts are written using a tamarind-seed typeface similar to the style used in Burmese stone inscriptions.^[21] Palm-leaf manuscripts continued to be produced in the country well into the 20th century.^[23]

TheUniversities' Central Library in Yangon houses the country's largest collection of traditional manuscripts, including 15,000pesa.^[24] In February 2013, thePali Text Society,Sendai University, and theUniversity of Toronto, along with local partners, began an ongoing initiative to digitise and catalogue Myanmar's palm-leaf manuscripts, including collections fromU Pho Thi Library inThaton, andBagaya Monastery in Inwa.^[25][23] The digitised manuscripts are available at theopen-access Myanmar Manuscript Digital Library.^[26]

The palm leaves are first cooked and dried. The writer then uses astylus to inscribe letters. Natural colourings are applied to the surface so the ink will stick to the grooves. This process is similar tointaglio printing. Afterwards, a clean cloth is used to wipe out the excess ink and the leaf manuscript is done.^[27][28]

• Birch bark manuscript
• Folding-book manuscript
• Gandhāran Buddhist texts
• Ho trai, library of Thai Temple
• Pitakataik, scriptural libraries in Myanmar
• Orihon, a concertina-folded book format originating in China and popularized in Japan
• Palm Leaf Manuscript Museum, Thiruvananthapuram, world's first and largest Palm-leaf Manuscript Museum
• U Pho Thi Library

• Production of manuscripts
  • "Engraving Balinese letter on a Lontar at Udayana University Bali". Published by Lontar Library of Udayana University on 22 Jan 2012.
  • "How to ink up an inscribed palm leaf manuscript". Published by Mellon Sawyer Seminar Eurasian Manuscripts of University of Iowa on 22 Feb 2017.
  • "How to make the Palm Leaf Manuscripts". Published by Palm Leaf Manuscript Study & Research Library of University of Kelaniya on 20 Jul 2016.
  • "Ola Leaf manuscripts". Published by OpportunitySriLanka.com on 4 Dec 2013.
• Preservation of manuscripts
  • "Traditional preservation method for oiling palm leaf manuscript leaves in Myanmar". Video by Hlaing Hlaing Gyi at the University of Yangon Library in Myanmar. Uploaded 20 Oct 2016.
  • Jarusawat, P., & Cox, A. M. (2023). Community-driven care of Lanna palm-leaf manuscripts.IFLA Journal, 49(1), 132–142.
  • "தமிழ் சுவடிகள்: உண்மையும் நமது கடமையும்"Archived 2020-08-06 at theWayback Machine. Published by Neelakandan Nagarajan Researcher Tamil Manuscripts, International Institute of Tamil Studies, Tharamani, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, On 8 July 2019
  • "தமிழ் சுவடிகள்: உண்மையும் நமது கடமையும் [பாகம் 2]"Archived 2020-08-06 at theWayback Machine. Published by Neelakandan Nagarajan Researcher Tamil Manuscripts, International Institute of Tamil Studies, Tharamani, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, On 14 Juல்ய் 2020

• Palm-leaf manuscripts at Asiatic Library, Calcutta
• Myanmar Manuscript Digital Library at University of Toronto
• Making a palm-leaf manuscript onYouTube