Siamese folding-book manuscript
Collection — Box: GTM Shared Box 41, Folder: 2
Identifier: GTM-0062
Siamese folding-book manuscript with 15 "leaves" or panels having text written on both sides. An accompanying letter (now in the curatorial file) from Prince Nandiyavat Svastivatana (“Svasti”), from 15 June 1931, when he was a student of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, describing the book and its text as "an incomplete work in verse", with the first side of the manuscript relating the "story of of the young Prince named Chandawongs, a grandson... of the King of Serpents...", and the second part on the reverse side recounting the story of a "Royal Prince" who goes to seek knowledge from a Rishi. Svasti speculates that the stories in the manuscript may have originated in the Panchatantra or in Buddhist Jataka tales, but reports that it is so badly written that making an identification is difficult. He also says that the manuscript is written on "common paper... under hundred years old" and "is of no value in Siam."
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0.1 Cubic Feet (1 folder)
Thai
GTM-0062 was at some time prior to 1970 housed with the wooden map box of the Nicholas Cleary Collection, GTM-0020, and counted among its contents. Curatorial file found with the Nicholas Cleary Collection.
Immediate source of acquisition unknown.
Part of the Georgetown University Manuscripts Repository