Sāstrā sleuk rith (Khmer:សាស្ត្រាស្លឹករឹត) orKhmer manuscriptswritten on palm leaves aresastra which constitute a major part of theliterature of Cambodia along with theKhmer inscriptions kept since the foundation of theKhmer Empire inSoutheast Asia.
Khmersastras are written in thePali language, and some inKhmer, on a variety of materials.
Thesastras are made of driedpalm leaves from theCorypha lecomtei palm tree or more often from thetraeng tree, also known astalipot palm and by its scientific name ofcorypha umbraculifera.[1] Once cut off from the tree, the leaves are ordered, cleaned, heated, straightened, and tied together in what is known as anolla book orpalm-leaf manuscript.[2]
The inscription process is also done according to traditional techniques. Few are original compositions and most are exact copies and in form, shape and size of older manuscripts. The text is carved into the palm-leaf. It can only be seend visibly and read once it has been treated with a light resin extracted from a type of resin tree calledchher teal orDipterocarpus alatus is used to fill in the carving and a soot is applied to make the letters appear. Only then must the manuscripts be cleaned using fine sand or bran to wipe the excess of ink.[2]
Not one single Khmer manuscript has survived from the Khmer Empire. However, other archeological findings confirm that they were well in use since ancient times. The tradition of producing olla books inCambodia goes back as far as theinfluence of Indian civilization in the region and the tradition of Khmersastras is at least contemporaneous with the introduction of Buddhism and other religions of Indian origin in the Khmer realm. Their presence in Cambodia is attested with certainty in a 12th-century bas-relief in theAngkor Wat temple, depicting anapsara (female spirit) holding an olla book. The Chinese visitorZhou Daguan, who toured the Khmer capital in 1292, also relates inhis travelogue that monks would recite daily prayers read from books made of "very evenly stacked palm leaves".[3]
In the 13th century, theKhmer Empire gradually declined, large parts of the kingdom were conquered by neighboring cultures, such as theSiamese andChams, founding what became theAyutthaya Kingdom (predecessor of modern-day Thailand) andSouthern Vietnam respectively. At the same time the official state religion of the Khmers changed fromHinduism andMahayana Buddhism toTheravada Buddhism. Combined, the result was that much of the former legacy of the Khmersastras became absorbed by theThai culture or was forgotten.
In the 16th century, a substantial body of Buddhist literature was created in the Cambodian temples. In later times, up to the present, pagodas served as library storehouses of Khmersastras and literary works.[4]
In the course of theCambodian Civil War and the subsequent upheavals of theKhmer Rouge regime in the 1960s and 1970s, an estimated 80% of Cambodian pagodas had their libraries destroyed and a large number of monks perished as well. More than half of the Khmer literary legacy from before 1975 was lost in these years.[5] The surviving Khmersastras are now kept in Cambodian pagodas, theNational Library of Cambodia and a multitude of institutes across the world, includingBibliothèque Nationale de France. Only a few monks in present-day Cambodia have expert knowledge of how to craft sastras.[6]
Since the 1980s, several groups, organizations and institutes in Cambodia and abroad are working for the preservation of the Khmersastras for the future. Many of the ancient manuscripts have now been digitized.[7][8] The effort is almost exclusively directed at preserving former Khmersastras, very few people are crafting new ones.[6][9]
Khmer literature is generally divided into three main categories, namelyTes, containing sacredBuddhist knowledge,Sāstrā lbaeng with literary verses of a rich vocabulary for general entertainment, and the technicalKbuon containing knowledge of medicine, pharmacopoeia, astronomy, law, chronicles, magics, divination or demonology.
Apart fromsastra olla books, the ancient Khmers also made paper books (frommulberry bark) known askraing and wrote on stone, metals, and human skin (tattoos) but rarely used animal hide or skins.
Every Khmer manuscript identified by the French School of the Extreme Orient a more detailed classification in 6 categories.[10]
During the Angkorian era, Khmersastras were made by monks in the Khmer temples and stored in monastery libraries. Constructed from wood, these libraries were sometimes fitted with a multi-tiered roof, sitting in the middle of small ponds, to protect them fromtermites. The knowledge about these ancient libraries has only been inferred from the area of present-day Thailand, then part of the Khmer Empire. In Thailand, they are known asho trai today.[citation needed]
Palm-leaves gets attacked by mold, insects, moisture and weather, especially in atropical climate, and in order to preserve Khmersastras, a strategy of minute copying has been the usual recipe for the Buddhist monks. Because of this practice, most of the present day Khmersastras were probably produced in the 19th century, as copies of former timessastras.[11][12]
The Fund for Manuscript Publication in Cambodia is a library located within the compound of Phnom Penh'sWat Ounalom, where these forms of palm-leaf manuscripts from all over the country are preserved. This research centre was founded by French archeologist Olivier de Bernon of the French School of the Far Eastin 1990 with the mission to locate, restore, identify and make an inventory of the extant manuscripts. In 2012, the library came under the administration of theMinistry of Culture and Fine Arts.[13]
According to Vann Bunna of the Cults and Religions Ministry of Cambodia, the Khmer government is urging all pagodas and schools to keep them for future generations. In March 2017, Prime MinisterHun Sen pledged to buy as manysastra sleuk rith manuscripts as a Siem Reap craftswoman can produce.[14]