The Development of the Preservation and Promotion of Tipitaka Palm-Leaf Manuscripts in Thai Society

Abstract

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate the development of the preservation and promotion of Tipitaka palm-leaf manuscripts in Thai society. The results revealed that the preservation and promotion of Tipitaka palm-leaf manuscripts could be divided into 3 eras: 1) the conservation era is the period that many projects conducted the preservation by microfilming or digitizing manuscripts and created transcription of canonical texts to produce printed editions of Tipitaka in various scripts, 2) the database era is the period that digital images were used to create database,  and the canonical texts were converted into a machine readable e-text format distributed in the forms of CD-ROMs, websites or applications, and 3) the statistical era is the period that state of the art of  computing technology was employed to manage manuscript image archives or to create the more  innovative versions of Tipitaka, such as  audio  version or critical Tipitaka edition.