A Model of Palm Leaf Manuscript Conservation of Temples and Communities in Thailand through Cultural and Technological Processes

Abstract

This research aims to: 1) to study processes of palm leaf manuscript conservation of temples, communities and academies  in Thailand;  2) to develop  a model of palm leaf manuscript conservation of temples and communities in Thailand through cultural and technological processes  ; and 3)  to study ways  to build  palm leaf  manuscript conservation network  of temples and communities in Thailand through cultural and technological processes 

This research  was employed by the documentary  research to build in-depth interviews, qualitative  methods  and participation action with list model  research. It started with  in-depth interviews of 25 purposive samples from 16 administrators and staffs  concerned with 8 organizations of palm leaf manuscript conservation of temples, communities and academies in Thailand and 9 experts. It used a model of palm leaf manuscript conservation of temples and communities in Thailand to operate in Sungmen temple community, Sungmen District, Phrae Province according to the LIST model action research : Learning, Innovation, Sustainable and Transformation and then built  the network of conservation at Rongfong temple community,Mueng District, Phrae Province according to Sungmen Model. The data analysis of this research was used by Analytic Induction

The research findings were as follows:

1) Concerning the processes of palm leaf  manuscript conservation of temples, communities and academies in Thailand, it was found of three steps as follows : 1)  Before conservation, it was to build faith, to set the system to train the personals and to start with Buddhist permission ceremony; 2) Conservation, it started with surveying, cleaning, classifying, registering, digitizing, making registration, wrapping cloth and labeling code of manuscript and finally keeping manuscripts in the appropriate room with forgiveness ceremony or also manuscript keeping ceremony; 3) Sustainable Conservation, it was to build learning resources , to spread the knowledge, to build network, to create the praising system, to evaluate and to preserve  with the cultural process

2)  Regarding to develop a model of palm leaf manuscript conservation of temples and communities in Thailand through cultural and technological processes, it was found of five steps according to Sungmen Model as follows : 1) To build the faith (Right View) ,    it was to teach Belief sets for people to realize correctly the right importance of palm leaf manuscript conservation; 2) To set the System of data and working processes  (Precept), it was the management in form of manuscript committees organization to make a yearly plan and also to train the personals; 3) To act the conservation (Meditation), it started with announcing the manuscript conservation as Buddhist merit activity and then began with permission ceremony and followed to technological processes as follows: All operators wearied the hygienic groves and mask, taking pictures of manuscripts before surveying, cleaning the manuscript storage, surveying and classifying manuscripts, arranging palm leafs, cleaning manuscripts, cataloging ,registering, digitizing, making the manuscript registration, wrapping the manuscripts with cloth and then wearing code labels with each manuscript, and  keeping manuscripts in the appropriate room with forgiveness ceremony and also Buddhist invitation ceremony for keeping manuscripts in the room ; 4)  To build  the learning resources (Wisdom) ; and 5) To expand for sustainable conservation (Kindness), it was : to spread the knowledge , to build the network, to create the praising system, to evaluate  and  to preserve the conservation : to produce Buddhist heirs of manuscript conservation and to hold the manuscript conservation activity for motivating the community have faith in palm leaf manuscript conservation sustainably.

3)   As for the ways to build  palm leaf  manuscript conservation network  of temples and communities in Thailand through cultural and technological processes , it was found that there were 5 ways of building the network of palm leaf manuscript conservation as follows : To sign  MOU ( MOU network) , to invite experts or related people as committee (Committee network), to apply as a member of network (Membership network), to form a group as self network ( Self- established network) and to be a private network (Private network) and also found that there were  17 ways of preserving lasting the network namely : To participate each other in the events, to maintain friendship, to organize the events together, to share the roles of development, to be fair for sharing the benefits , to make a plan and a standard for working together, to encourage and help together, to respect, to trust, to be sincere, to be honest, to sacrifice, not to take advantage of each other, to accept the differences of  one another, to accept the freedom of organization, to build the system of motivation, to create the praising system, to produce the heirs to preserve the network, to manage with the committee , there were the coordination center and also the coordinators, there was budgets enough for managing  and finally to evaluate and  sum up fairly the result of network working together.