Rare ancient book made of leaves in Western Nghe An

(Baonghean.vn) – The owner of this rare ancient Lao book is Mr. Lu Van My (Pieng Hom village – Pha Danh commune – Ky Son). This is considered a treasure not only because of the unique content of the book but also because of the way it was made.

Mr. Lu Van My (Pieng Hom village - Pha Danh commune - Ky Son) is the owner of an extremely rare book in ancient Lao script.

Mr. Lu Van My is nearly 80 years old this year but is still healthy and showed us that he has owned an ancient book that many people dream of. According to him, this is a book written in ancient Lao script that was passed down to him by a landlord in Canh village (Ta Ca commune) in 1960.

The book has a total of 254 pieces of leaves (butterfly) put together to tell the legend of the founding of a Muong in an ancient land in Laos, the heroic tradition of fighting the enemy to protect the Muong of our ancestors in the past.

Accordingly, when the village was established, bandits and mountain bandits came to plunder, causing death and devastation everywhere. The villagers gathered together the strong young men in the village to forge knives and sharpen bows and arrows to fight back the bandits. The poisoned arrows killed each bandit one by one, causing them to flee in fear.

The book's content is about the legend of founding the village, fighting the enemy and the prayers of our ancestors.

In addition, the book also records the ancient people's prayers in wedding ceremonies, funerals, Tet... Mr. Lu Van My said, after the legend of establishing the Muong, the writer recounts the life of a person from birth to death, what rituals must be performed, how to worship...

As a person who is knowledgeable about Lao script, Mr. Lu Van My read the book fluently from beginning to end. According to him, this is a passage about the ancient rituals for the dead. He said that currently in the locality, there are very few people who can read this type of script.

The letters were written on leaves, each leaf was the same size, about 25 cm long, 5 cm wide, and tied together with a string like twisted hemp. To write letters on leaves, the ancients had to choose leaves, tie them, incubate them for a whole year, and then dry them very carefully over a fire.

Mr. Lu Van My always considered this a treasure and kept it carefully.

Mr. Sam Van Binh, an expert who has done a lot of research on this type of book, said: “Currently, there are very few books in ancient Lao script written on this type of tree leaf left, among the people, there are probably only a handful left. In particular, in the books that I know, they mainly talk about Buddhist scriptures and folk culture and literature, but I have not seen any about legends and history. It can be said that this is a precious book.”

Mr. My said that in the past, there were some people in the village who owned books in this form, but because they did not understand the content, they sold them all. Many people from far away also came to pay for his book, but he refused to sell it.

Dao Tho