An attendee at a Library 'white gloves' treasures tour some years ago was particularly interested in an example of a palm-leaf book being shown by the rare books librarian, Valmai Hankel. The visitor later returned to the Library to donate this very beautiful example.
Palm leaves have been smoked and dried for use as a form of paper throughout Asia and India since the fifth century BC. It is thought that the Pali script has its rounded form rather than the sharper lines of European handwritten scripts to avoid the writing stylus making holes in the brittle leaves. The Library owns several palm-leaf books, mostly Buddhist religious texts.
This highly decorative example was produced in Myanmar (Burma) in the nineteenth century. In this instance the leaves have a cloth lacquered to them, said to have come from the silken robes of monks. The text, in Pali, prescribes regulations for monks.
