Peculiar Paracontents from Thai Chanting Books: A Case Study of Manuscripts from Philadelphia

Peera Panarut, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg, and 2023-2024 SIMS Visiting Research Fellow

Friday, December 6, 2024, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EST

Due to their artistic value, chanting books from Thailand, written by hand in Pali and Thai languages, which are often decorated with many colourful illustrations, have found their way to various libraries and museums in Europe and the United States. In the past, such manuscripts were used for chanting in Buddhist ceremonies. Their production was sponsored by monks and laypeople and often perceived as an act of merit-making over many centuries. The sponsors and scribes often recorded their wishes, aims, messages to the readers, and sometimes even their personal feelings, in the paracontents of these chanting books (e.g. colophons, scribal notes etc.). Such notes can now offer us deeper insight into the traditional book culture in Thailand. This paper focuses on the paracontents found in the Thai chanting books (i.e. Aphitham Chet Khamphi and Phra Malai Klon Suat) from Philadelphia. Special focus is given to Ms. Coll. 990 Item 5 from the Penn Libraries, whose paracontent, telling the reader and chanter “to take a break and drink tea” (!), is considered by modern scholars to be peculiar, leading them to question the authenticity of the manuscript itself. Nevertheless, when comparing it with the paracontents of more than one hundred Thai chanting books preserved in Thailand and Europe, one can argue: the rather peculiar paracontents can be found rather often in this genre of chanting manuscripts, and most likely belonging to the tradition of the Thai chanting books.