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William Pruitt, Yumi Ousaka and Sunao Kasamatsu: The Catalogue of Manuscripts in the U Pho Thi Library, Thaton, Myanmar. xv, 411 pp. Bristol: The Pali Text Society, 2019. ISBN 8 0 86013 524 1.
This publication comprises a catalogue of Burmese, Pali, and Mon manuscripts in the collection of the “U Pho Thi” (Ūḥ Bhuiḥ Sīḥ) or Sādhujanapāsādikadhammacetī Library at Saddhammajotikārāma monastery in Thaton, Burma. The authors state that their work lists “five parabaiks (illustrated manuscripts on thick paper accordian style) and 785 palm-leaf manuscripts – the numbers of the manuscripts [in the catalogue] go up to 788, but three of them are lost” (p. xi).
The modern Ūḥ Bhuiḥ Sīḥ library, established by a wealthy merchant (Ūḥ Bhuiḥ Sīḥ) and his wife (Khaṅ Khaṅ Krīḥ) in the early twentieth century, is one of the most well-documented manuscript repositories in Burma. A majority of the manuscripts are colonial-era copies, and many of the most recent (into the 1930s) were sponsored by Ūḥ Bhuiḥ Sīḥ and his family (e.g. entries 348, 449.3, 493.1, 515.2, 516.1, 536). As the authors note (pp. x–xi), over the years “several handlists” to the collection have appeared, including a substantial printed catalogue (Lha Taṅ, Piṭakat samuiṅḥ khau piṭakat suṃḥ puṃ cā tamḥ, Yangon, 1940). Although an unpublished handlist prepared in 1998 by the Universities’ Central Library in Yangon – listing precisely 788 titles with indexing to the 1940 catalogue – is briefly mentioned (p. x), the authors do not explain how their own numbering system and title...