Divination Manuscript

This accordion-folded, illustrated manuscript was most likely produced in the culturally Tai regions of Northeast India or Northern Myanmar (Burma). A compilation of several texts, it is partly in Burmese script and partly in Tai (also called Lik Tai). It begins with a Burmese script recording a Pali language Buddhist formula that is repeated on most Tai books of this type. Other passages are also quite clearly Buddhist in nature, so it is likely a series of religious fragments brought together in a single volume and then copied. It largely written in Lik Tai with occasional Burmese phrases seamlessly incorporated into the text. It also includes a diagrammatic representation of the pre-Buddhist Tai calendar, diagrams suggestive of divination, and several illustrations representative of Tai style painting of the nineteenth century.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Purchased by Dr. Pratapaditya Pal [1]; Sale, Christie's, New York, March 20 2008, lot 401; purchased by Michael de Havenon, New York, 2008; given to Walters Art Museum, 2016.

[1] From a book dealer in northeast India