reading text written in sinhala script

[manuD]

I recently bought an old manuscript written on palm leaves. I believe that it is written in Sinhala script, and I would like to know what the text is about. I need a complete list of the Sinhala alphabet, I couldnt find that on internet. There seems to be diacritics and other complications which perhaps makes such a list tedious to produce. My ambition is to type bits of text into google translate.

In other words, I dont really plan to learn the language, but rather the script.
The text itself might very well be in a different language, perhaps Pali or Sanscript, but using Sinhala script.

I hope that my requests falls within the scope of the present forum.

thank you for your attention
manuD

[Serpent]

Post a photo of the text you're trying to decipher.

[manuD]

I attached the first page of the manuscript.
The whole book is available on my website:
http://mywoodprints.free.fr/sinhala/

[aravinda]

...I hope that my requests falls within the scope of the present forum.
manuD...

Hello manuD,
The manuscript is indeed in Sinhala and from my cursory inspection it seems to be a traditional Sinhala medical book written in verse. I didn’t read the whole manuscript but it is likely to be incomplete, the parts I read seem to deal with paediatric illnesses.
Regarding Sinhala script you can start with this Wikipedia article.

Sinhala script is an abugida written from left to right. It uses consonants as the basic unit for word construction as each consonant has an inherent vowel (/a/), which can be changed with a different vowel stroke. To represent different sounds it is necessary to add vowel strokes, or diacritics called පිලි Pili, that can be used before, after, above or below the base-consonant.

I don’t want to discourage you but translating this text using google translate is unilkely to yield useful results due to several reasons: First, as in other manuscripts, words are not separated with spaces. Second, the text contains many not very common words. Third, as I said above it is in verse (with end rhyme). Fourth, it uses conjuncts ("joined letters") which are rarely used in modern day Sinhala. In my opinion (I am no expert), your best bet would be to ask a knowledgeable person (Sinhala, Buddhist monks, Sinhala traditional doctors or Sinhala history/ literature academics). I can’t promise anything but I can ask one of my friends who is interested in Sinhala traditional medicine and update you. (He is not a medical person).

[manuD]

Thank you very very much, Aravinda, for your comments about my manuscript.
Yes, I am aware of the pitfalls of using google translate, I have experienced it with old Chinese texts, with useless results. But, as I know nobody who is competent in Sinhala script, this is my last resort. My idea was to try to identify words to find out about the subject. Now I know that it is a medical treatise, not a text about Buddhist religion. Or would it be a religious text about the human body?

I would of course be very interested in your friend's feedback.

A few basic questions :

- I notice some letters that are repeated in columns in the middle and end of line. What is their significance? Do they have to do with the rhymes?
- are the pages in order? (when I digitized the manuscript, I found that several pages were upside down).
- when was the manuscript written, at the latest ? I read somewhere that there was a reform of the writing around 1815. Would this text date from before that date? Are there any numerals in the text that are in the archaic form?
- why would a medical treatise be written in rhymes? It is not poetry. Was this an elegant/learned way of writing books?

I note that there are occasional punctuation marks (kunddaliya), which might help separate sentences.

[aravinda]

- I notice some letters that are repeated in columns in the middle and end of line. What is their significance? Do they have to do with the rhymes?
Those letters are the last letters of the last word of each line of verse. It was customary to align the (rhyming) last letters in verse. Each page has two or three verses (as columns). I had another look at other pages and not the whole manuscript is in verse. Some pages are in prose. There Kundhaliniya is used to separate sentences.
- are the pages in order? (when I digitized the manuscript, I found that several pages were upside down).
No, as far as I can tell from a brief look. However, it might not matter much as each page/verse deal with a different illness and its treatment.
- when was the manuscript written, at the latest ? I read somewhere that there was a reform of the writing around 1815. Would this text date from before that date? Are there any numerals in the text that are in the archaic form?
Not being an expert , I can’t help you with dating your manuscript but it seems relatively old. I don’t know of a reform of the writing in 1815. Every leaf is numbered on the left on the verso using letters of the “alphabet” which is archaic in the sense that it is not used nowadays. Also, your manuscript leaves were apparently rearranged (The letters standing for numbers have been changed).
- why would a medical treatise be written in rhymes? It is not poetry. Was this an elegant/learned way of writing books?
It was not unusual to write to books on various subjects in verse because it helps to memorise the texts. Books were scarce and a few people had access to books, so I guess people had to remember the texts. Also, knowledge was traditionally passed orally from generation to generation (even after the advent of writing), so it makes sense to have them in a memorable form. However, I wouldn’t say verse in tis manuscript is elegant.

I note that there are occasional punctuation marks (kunddaliya), which might help separate sentences.
Yes, I didn’t read the prose part the first time and didn't notice it. As far as I know, it was the only punctuation mark used in manuscripts etc.

You don’t need to know anyone personally. Just google for potential people who can help like university/museum staff and Buddhist monks. Then ask them by email. For example, the British Museum has a collection of palm-leaf manuscripts. They would be happy to tell you more about the manuscript but translating it to English is a different matter. Writing down the text is not that difficult except for identifying word boundaries and the unfamilair words (names of medicinal plants etc). Translating to English calls for far more time and effort.

I have received an initial response from my friend. Main points:
It’s a medical treatise. He will copy the whole text and try to match with the books he has (not manuscripts, printed books of old manuscript texts). For example, in the 1990s a Sri Lankan government department collected and published texts from medical manuscripts like the one you have in 26 volumes. (See photos below sent by my friend)

Here's the first page from the manuscript transcribed by him:

උනත් ඇතුව ඉදිමුවන
පෙරලෙස ජල වලක්කොන
ගත කහවං පාට වෙමින
ඌදුමාන්‍දං කියමින

අත පය සීතවෙමිණ
ඇඟ නෑරම වෙවුලමිණ
මුරුත්තාව ඇතිවෙමිණ
සන්‍නි මන්‍දම කියණ

මැරි උන බැන ගුනහිලපත්‍ථ
මුක යාවලි වීදියත්‍ථ
හෝ පිපිබඩ උස්මුරුත්‍ථ
කිපී සන්නි එහි නිමිත්‍ථ

[manuD]

Thank you again, Aravinda, for these very valuable remarks, I am sincerely grateful for your help, which provides a lot of context to this manuscript, and makes it so much more interesting to look at.

Please tell your friend how much I appreciate his help. The transcription of the first page is very interesting, I suspected that the letter that looks like a "y" was අ, but wasnt sure. It seems that the calligraphy is very elegant, compared to other hand-written texts in sinhala.

Perhaps your friend could tell us the likely age of this manuscript, from information in the 26-volume compilation?
I would of course be interested in the transcription he made/is making, I would post it alongside the images of each page on my website. That way I will be able to compare hand-writing with printed text, and to be more familiar with Sinhala script.

I dont expect you or your friend to provide a translation of the whole manuscript, which indeed would be a lot of work. It suffices, I believe, to know what it is about.

As for asking an Institution like the British Museum for more information, I am not sure. The Musée Guimet in Paris explicitly states on its webpage that it will not answer inquiries about Asian art. I thought rather of finding some Institution dealing with such manuscripts if they are interested to have high-resolution images of my manuscript for study by scholars. But if it is in the 26-volume compilation that you mention, then it is already in the public domain.

What is most interesting about this book, together with your remarks, is that they open a window to a new culture, if one makes the effort to search for information about it. A few years ago, I bought a collection of 16 issues of a periodical published in Shanghai around 1920 about Chinese paintings, with reproductions of 255 paintings. I discovered the art of Chinese paintings and the world of art and culture in Shanghai in the 1910s and 1920s, which was very enrichening.