OVERVIEW OF THE TECHNICAL TERMS IN THE INDUSTRY OF PALM-LEAF MANUSCRIPTS: SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SRI LANKA

The writing on palm-leaves in Sri Lanka began in the 1st century BC. Nevertheless, these materials couldn’t be used in their ordinary form without having processing of the leaves. According to the historical evidences, the production of palm-leaf is a massive process which the ancient society involved for this special task. In fact, there are special customs engross from the begging of the cutting of Tala tree to the final process of preparation of written palm-leaf manuscript. However, there is a dearth of writing documentation and discussion regarding the various terminology used for the palm-leaf manuscript creation process. The objective of the study involved into explores and clarify the technical terms related to palm-leave preparation in Sri Lanka. The methodology adheres for this research is the desk research method which tempts to use the existing documents related to the subject, previous research carried out over a particular topic, and the document distributed at the workshops in practical aspect also extensively used to identify the glossary of the technical terms used in the industry. According to the published literature, and documents, it was apparent that the very specific and special terms are being used in the process of palm-leaves. Further to that, the terminologies have some relationship with the Buddhism as these are highly used by the priest in the temples and monasteries for their education and dissemination of knowledge in the ancient society. More specifically, the research provides clear explanations of these terms, offering readers a better understanding of their meanings of the manuscript production process. Additionally, it highlights the grey areas that lacked sufficient in the so far discussions. On the whole, the study contributes to the comprehensive understanding of the rich technical vocabulary associated with palm-leaf manuscript production in Sri Lanka.